Tube testers

[Holiday]

I'm looking for openions on which would be best for working with vintage cb and ham radios. Is there a certain make and model that would be best for this.

[Jim Boswell]

     I have worked in electronics for over 38 years. In this day and time for the most part tube testers are joke. Tube testers measure DC gain of a tube, how that tube works with the RF freq. is a different measurement. I have checked 1000's of tubes that passed tube test and would not function in the circuit. The second part of this issue is where are you going to get tubes? With the transmitting tubes coming from China, many times the old tube in the radio works better than the new tube you can buy. The Russian tubes are a bit better than the China tubes by not much. If you replace the tubes in a high-power HF amp you have to buy the tubes as a matched set.
     Most of the older ham radios with 6146 output tubes will work for well over 30 years with the original tubes, assuming one of the tubes did not short between the elements.
      The Yaesu and Swan radios that used sweep tubes along with many of the CB amps have their own set of problems. The 6146 is a much better tube that the sweep tubes and they lasted 1000's of times longer. The old hybrid Kenwood radios and the Yaesu FT-101ZD use 6146 and those are the only tube radios worth messing with. Hope this info helps you out, 73'S  KA5SIW

[RadioRay]

The two main tube testers I used were my old Hickock (now gone) and a Heathkit,  Both worked essentially the same way.  The key - and this is important - is before you buy, make certain that the tester comes with the information for SETTING ALL THOSE DIALS and switches for each tube. Without the information, usually contained on the tester in a paper roll and/or an external book.  My Heathkit has a very good and useful roll for any civilian tube I've run into, and the booklet is a supplement, primarily for commonly available military tubes.  I no longer work with tubes, but I think they are excellent and much easier to work with than solid state electronics, where tolerances must be very tight as compared to tubes.


de RadioRay ..._  ._