[Amps] Life of 3CX800 tubes

[Rick Stealey]

I have an Alpha 89 I am selling here for a friend who is no longer able to use his equipment.  I have a sale pending but the buyer is sceptical about the condition of the finals.  I have carefully tuned it up on all bands into a Bird load with a Bird wattmeter, 2500 watt slug.  Typical readings are 2500 volts, 1 amp, 60 ma grid current, and 1600-1700 out with 50 watt drive.  Increasing drive a little gets more grid current, but peaking the tune and load for max out doesn't improve things.  Power out doesn't sag.  It's as if there was a governor on the amp !
Some say that amp should produce an easy 2200 watts and the tubes are soft.  If so what kind of life could be expected from them?  A tough question I know, depends on the use.  So maybe in percentage terms could it be estimated how much of the original life is left?

Rick  K2XT
 		 	   		  
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