Remembrances of vacuum tube days

[mr__ed]

As a young teenager, I developed a love for electronics which became a lifelong love affair. In those days vacuum tubes were the norm and solid state devices such as transistors weren't in usage then. I built many projects using vacuum tubes as a hobbyist during my teen years, such as ham radio equipment, stereo amplifiers and tuners and various pieces of test equipment, all employing vacuum tubes. I obtained some of the early transistors' back then and tried to experiment with them, but quit trying to learn how they worked since I was so involved with tubes. Of course, my position changed in time. Many products we use today wouldn't be possible or feasible without the advent of solid state devices.

I also remember my first portable radio, which employed miniature vacuum tubes. I recall 2 batteries were necessary, a size D "A" battery, which supplied power to the tube filaments. and a much larger "B" battery, around 70 to 90 volts, which supplied power for the tube plates. The radio performed pretty well, AM & FM, as I recall. I also remember when most drug stores had do-it-yourself tube checkers available for the public. They're real dinosaurs now and nonexistent!

The older I get (now 76) the more I look back to the good ol' days of my youth! 🙂

[gbopp]

We had a TV but, I was happy sitting in my room listening to WLS Chicago, AM radio.
I did watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and boxing matches.
They were the good old days.

[BobsYourUncle]

I remember those days too. I was also fascinated with electronics back then. Took courses in high school too. I still work on electronics to this day. I built a TV in high school using scrap parts and an oscilloscope to trace the circuits. It was early solid state, no tubes.

I do remember those tube checkers and have used them myself.
I had an old tube portable record player I used to take apart and fix. It kept blowing one particular tube. And don't ask me why I remember it was a 50EH5.

My first car was a 48 Pontiac. It had a massive tube radio in it.

Good memories.

[routeforty]

YES,YES,YES!! You could actually fix something back then. Remember going into a store and see a display where you could buy a vacuum tube to replace one that wasn't working in your radio, tv, etc. With a decent knowledge of the principals of electronics you could trouble shoot your electronic equipment and then repair it-usually, just by replacing one of the tubes, or visibly see a wire that was bad. Now the basic principles are the same, but every thing is a circuit board and so small that it is virtually impossible to fix-so it's cheaper to just replace the item. I guess there's good and bad, but you're right, it sure was great to fiddle around with those things.

[BB_TX]

Never got into actually working with the circuits. But made a number of trips to the local 7-11 to use their tube tester to test the vacuum tubes from TVs that stopped working. And buying new tubes there.