Topband: FK8CP and tubes for his amp

Tom Rauch w8ji at contesting.com
Thu Dec 21 11:23:03 EST 2006


Herb wrote:
> Probably new sockets as well and they are not cheap unless 
> you can find an aftermarket vendor or eBay source. 
> Rebuilding this tube by Econoco (Woodland Hills, CA) is 
> probably half the price of a new one.  Econco's warranty 
> policy is superb on big tubes.

As far as I know tubes like this cannot be rebuilt by 
anyone. Smaller tubes and particularly metal oxide focused 
beam tubes are far too critical in dimensions and 
contamination to be rebuilt.

Where ever the tubes come from, I would have someone close 
to the vendor run them for several days **before** shipping 
them. I have bought dozens of MRI pulls and a significant 
percentage are bad, even when I have be assured they are 
good by the seller. Some very good sellers are reluctant to 
replace tubes, and I have had some bad pulls replaced with 
equally bad tubes.

I also strongly agree with Herb and others who are concerned 
about the rest of the amplifier components. It would be very 
strange to have the tubes in such bad shape and not have 
socket, PC board, bandswitch, relay, and/or other problems. 
How could it be that tube pins have rotted off-- and 
everything else is OK? On the surface it doesn't make  sense 
that everything else is OK but the pins of the tubes somehow 
corroded off.

73 Tom 




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