Getting into NOS Tubes Big Time!

This past weekend I had to go to the coast to check on the boat. On the way back I stopped at a small town HAMFEST (HAM Radio Festival/swap meet). I scored some NOS (New Old Stock) tubes from a guy who picks them up at estate sales and from some friends. Another guy had these NOS Capacitors which will be for future amp projects.

I was able to get the tubes for $1 each and the rest for $2, total spent $10.00.

The tubes are (6) NOS American Blackplate RCA's and (2) Raytheon 12au7's. Not a bad use of a half hour of time out of my weekend.

Also during the HAMFEST I talked to another guy who runs a Salvage business. I takes in equipment from all over and salvages all of the parts from said equipment. He invited me to his warehouse where he said there are bins and bins of vacuum tubes to be had. By bin I'm referring to the 4' x 4' x 4' pallet bin variety. Oh Boy, it looks like my dream of treasure hunting off the coast of North Carolina might actually involve sifting through a bin of vacuum tubes on an upcoming Saturday. Who knew!

To go about selling any tubes that I find I've been reading up on how tubes were tested in the past. I found a great web site devoted to Tube Testers http://www.tone-lizard.com/Tube_Testers.html. After absorbing this information I was able to snag a nice Hickok 600A Mutual Conductance Tube Tester.

It also turns out there there is one of the foremost authorities on Tube Tester Repair an Calibration nearby in Greensboro NC. My Tester was recently calibrated there.

Here's nice a pic of a Hickok 600a that I found on the web, click to zoom in.

You basically look up your tube on the roll chart, it tells you what to set the dials at then you press some buttons and turn some knobs. This is right in line with my Geek tendencies so i think it will make a nice addition to my tool collection.

Today Raleigh had their HAMFEST. Which is the largest in Raleigh and only once a year. The knowledge of the vendors was a little better as they weren't giving the stuff away. But I was able to sift though the countless boxes of old tubes to SCORE some sweet tasty little gems.

From left to right. A Raytheon EZ81 NOS Rectifier. That one is super rare but I'll put that in my friends Amp #2. The white boxes are NOS GE Blackplate 12au7's that are in the most pristine condition. Like new. Followed by an assortment of NOS American pre-amp tubes. The right most are the gems I found in a bin of about 200 unboxed tubes. I found 3, yes 3 Mullards!

What a SCORE!

The guy's jaw about dropped as he didn't know they were in there. I was able to walk away with them for $18 each. The rest of the tubes were sub $10. I'll have that tube tester paid for in about a week at this rate.

Here are the 2 mullards, I forgot one was still in the bag (not pictured) and a nice backplate

pre-amp NOS tube to the left of them.

On the Amp front I was able to change out the Tremolo Pot on AMP #2 from a 2meg to a 3meg. Doing so gives it a wider range of tremolo speed to choose from. After lunch I plan on diving into seeing If my design for the Active Tube based Effects Loop is going to work with this type of amp architecture.