Thank You Webmaster

My favorite tube was the rectifier tube ,no filaments lit up i would replace that tube.

There's still people who use vacuum tubes, in audio amplifiers, and people who collect and restore old TV sets and radios. One internet forum is http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=14 for tube amps, and http://www.audiokarma.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=19

I'm one of them; my house is a working museum...never graduated to the "technology pushing" of todays consumerism.
Bakelite dial telephones, valve radios & monochrome TV sets are ordinary things in daily use.

Those tubes are last generation vacuum tubes, probably from 1960's vintage gear. I started in electronics working on cast-off table radios from the post WWII era and TV's from the 50's, so I have a pretty extensive collection of old vacuum tubes laying around my junk box. Even color TV's were still using vacuum tubes up until around 1972 when things changed over to total solid state. But yeah, there are some state of the art audio amplifiers out there with vacuum tube technology, as many purists believe vacuum tube amplification is cleaner than solid state amplification.

You Could make your own
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2008/01/07/video-making-a-vacuu.html

I can see two 6AL5s in there, as well as what may be some 6BA6s, or 6BE6s. Was this an old radio?

Not sure Hemingray, I never did examine the equipment I was only interested in the tubes themselves at the time. I was able to read some of tube designations though, there's 6AL5, 6HQ5, 6AU6A, 6BY6, 6BZ6, and 0A2WA. One just had 5687 on it. One contained DJ8 that was I could read on it. I think another read 6AN8A. There was another 6BZ6 with BL just above the BZ whatever that means.

If that is a 0A2WA (and not a plain vanilla 0A2), please be careful not to break it. It contains a small amount of a radioactive material (Nickel-63, IIRC).

Thanks for the warning NJwirenut

Now NJ, why did you want to post that in a public forum?

Now the poor packrat56 is going to have the NRC* breathing down his neck...

*=Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Well in that case, we'd better get rid of all of our smoke detectors as well.

maybe if we can't have smoke alarm why not get pet bird and they are good smoke alarmers. MDR.,,,

Merci,Marc

"Those tubes are last generation vacuum tubes, probably from 1960's vintage gear."


Actually there was one more generation of tubes that survived well into the 70s, the compactron.
That was the equivalent of several tubes in one envelope.

They were in small TVs and one particular IBM monitor, the 2260 (a modified TV design licensed from Sanyo (or Samsung)

Oddly enough,
I was reading in a Ham magazine that, there is a factory in the UK that is starting to build valves (tubes) again.

I have an old 1930's set in my workshop that I listen to the cricket on every summer, you can't beat the good sound that comes out of a valve set.
It is of course AM only.

This could be the reason why all of the Marshall guitar amps still use valve technology.

I say bring them back, my knowledge of valves is a lot better than transistors and what-not and to a degree the circuits they used are a LOT simpler to fix than some of this SMD stuff coming out these days.

One peeve though, the US valve codes are totally different to the British system, isn't it the way though?

Mike,

Be carefull how loud you say that. The same crowd that is outlawing incandescent lamps, will have a fit if they find out that you are using room heaters to listen to cricket.

Don't you know that tube radio energy consumption is the leading cause of global warming.

Larry C

Last generation ? What about the magnetron in your microwave ?

Ahh yes, the Energy Police, they are a branch of the Anti-Fun Police.

Besides, my radio is totally efficient, it gives sound and light (which is what I wanted in the first place) and seems it has a new lot of electrolytic capacitors (not the original paper type), someone should be paying me for the amount of energy I'm saving.



OK, with that line of thinking, we should require everyone to hand in all their gear that doesn't have transistors or IC's in it, I can see that working well

I seen the 6AL5 cleanly, I myself have a couple hundred tubes hangin around, as well as working tube radios.

We have an orginal temperature/air pressure controller that has tubes. (We disconnected it, but I can't get them to let me take it home...What if the electronics faiL???)

gpsparky,
I remember, a couple of years ago, in a freezing works where I was working, they had temperature controllers on the gut cooking vats that used a set of valves(tubes).

My memory escapes me as to what type they actually were, but the electrical technicians there had been replacing the solid state parts every 2-3 months, due to the heat.
They tried this valve circuit and that solved the problem.
Good to see that our old school solutions are still working in modern industry.

Oddly enough,
I was at a "deceased sale" of a local Ham operator some years back and I picked up one of his radio sets for little more than a "song".
This thing was an AM 80m CW transmitter and it had the be all and end all of radio gear: the mercury-arc rectifier.
I was working with the guy at the time he built the radio (he was my Elmer) when he was teaching me Morse Code, you just can't replicate that same eerie green glow with LED's.
It used to "twitter" (yeah, we started that too) with the key being pressed and released.

All right Mike, back to the countries separated by a common language topic. What is an "Elmer"?

Larry

It's not a country thing.. it's a ham radio thing..

in the ham radio community, an "Elmer" is another word for "Mentor"

Thanks. Larry C

This is a question for Trumpy are you still active as a Ham if so what is your call sign?I'am ve7gde

5687 = twin triode. May be usable as a decent audio preamp tube.

Thermionic emission has no PN junction voltage drop that solid state components have giving higher quality audio.

Untill recently, well about 15years ago, I was using a Quad 11 set up. This consisted of 2 mono valve (tube) amplifiers which supplied power for the FM radio module and the mixer module and two ancient russian speakers made by Rigonda. sound quality was second to none.

Wife and kids dont appreciate quality and couldn't wait for the system to heat up. Came home one day and found a horrible mass produced 'HI-Fi' thing that just couldn't reproduce anything like depth of sound the Quad 11 could.

Nowadays very few people can even listen to pure audio as everything is stored on pc's or memory cards in mp3 players. Compare an mp3 file to the original played on a turntable and the difference is staggering.

Sorry if I've gone off on a tangent here

Simon

PS I recently picked up two 1950's radios to restore and the seller said he had about 50 tube radios dating from the turn of the century up to the mid sixties that were getting ruined due to damp storage and I could have the lot for a few bucks. Trying to think how to approach the wife on this one.