Remembrances of vacuum tube days
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....
Forum Discussion
dangerbird wrote:
When I was little, my dad would let me take out and test the TV tubes at the drug store. He gave me a Hallicrafters S-20R shortwave receiver that I still have today. I will always remember the hot dust smell when the tubes heated up. That radio led me to an interest in electronics and I eventually got my ham radio license. I'm retired now and am still active in ham radio. I have restored several tube RF amplifiers, and other ham radio gear. I recently restored an old Tektronix RM-45A oscilloscope. It has NINETY tubes in it! Not so useful by today's standards but equipment like it put men on the moon. Tubes are hardly ancient technology. You use one everyday in your microwave. 73, de WG2E.
X2 on the microwave. I owned a business servicing radio frequency dielectric sealers used by the plastics industry. It was a good business, allowing me to retire early with a nice nest egg. Some of the machines I worked on put out 20 kw and more of RF near the cb radio frequency range. The oscillator tubes were very large and often ran with 10 KV and higher plate voltages, at several amps. Make one mistake and touch the wrong area inside the machine while running, and instant death! :E
