Recent purchases of russian tubes from Ebay sellers have been pretty disappointing with more than 50% DOA's. A summary of my experience is at: http://w7iuv.com/badtubes.html And yes, I did try to "condition" them first but it's hard to fix mechanical shorts! As for me, I will no longer buy tubes from non-US sources. 73, Larry -- Larry - W7IUV DN07dg http://w7iuv.com