Hi guys I just started a new report job ( no permanent ones available) The store I'm working in is lit by many sets of 4 flourescents on HF gear the lamps are only a few years old but I notice that several look mercury starved I didn't think this could happen on HF gear also none of them is more than 3 years old seems a poor deal to me. What do you think??

Mercury starvation, air poisoning and broken electrodes are not really a function of the gear type. Some lamps are more prone to it than others. I've seen some T8 and T5 lamps running on HF and become mercury starved or air poisoned. Bad seals or contamination can occur at manufacturing and can cause either effect regardless of ballast type. Nowadays, with the environmental regulations, lamps are dosed with just enough mercury for rated life. If some impurities inside react with the mercury, less of it becomes available for the discharge. When this happens, if the dose was low to begin with, there will not be enough to reach the required pressure and the lamp will be dim.

Congratulations on your new job !

Thank-you its only until January but it keeps me above starvation for a while. I guess that they would of bought the cheapest tubes they could so probably not manufactured as carefully as better tubes would be.  I will try to take an AM radio in there one day just to see what the RF noise level is like just out of curiosity I'm a nosy girl!

No shame in being nosy like that (it's not like it's confidential information... ). Sometimes, even the good manufacturers have bad batches of lamps and such things happen. Although relatively rare, a bad batch of lamps can go past quality control and make it to the market. That would explain the high number of dim lamps. A group relamp would take care of it provided they aren't unlucky enough to get a second bad batch !