[Amps] GS-35B vs 8877

[Gudguyham at aol.com]

The other day Larry brought up the subject of the GS-35B tube.  Just  prior 
to his posting I offered up a late date coded fully tested full output  
3CPX1500A7 with my usual guarantee of satisfaction to the buyer.   I  got no takers 
for the 3CPX1500A7 as of yet, but I told Larry and the others here  that I had 
a NIB GS-35B I wanted to sell.  Offered it up for $85.00.   Larry promptly 
grabbed it in a heartbeat with a private e-mail to me.   Within in 10 minutes to 
Larry's swift decision, 3 more offers to buy the tube  came to me.  
Unfortunately I do not have 3 more of those tubes.  Sorry  guys.  So while we are at it, 
I'd like to go over my experience with these  2 tubes.  I built a 6 meter 
mono band amp from an Ameritron AL-82  platform.  I wanted to try the GS-35B.  I 
read somewhere that this  tube was nick named "the poor mans 8877"  So for 
$100.00 each I bought 3 of  them.  Back to the 6 meter Ameritron, fabricated a 
sub-chassis  arraignment to mount the GS-35B neatly in the Ameritron space 
available.   All went well with about 1/2" to spare at the top before hitting the 
top  cover.  Had to add mucho additional bias voltage, no problem though.   Get 
everything working nice nice.  Being a stubborn Italian, I no stoppa  til I 
getta ever bitta a powah outputta.  My Granma always said "we don't  wasteta 
notting"!!   Well after chocking the chicken after it's been  dead, I ended up 
with 1600 watts output with 100 watts drive.  No mas No  way.  Hey not bad, 
1600w on 6 meters.  Previous to this, I did a  similar job, but using an 8877 in 
the place of the pair of 3-500's.  Same  scenario, mono band 6 meter.  This 
time all things being equal, I get 2300  watts output.  Ok, so the 8877 costs 
about $300.00 more than the  GS-35B  but I get 700 watts more, that's 50 cents a 
watt.  Grandma  says that's cheap so I go with 8877's now.  Buon Giorno 
Tutti.    Luigi