Hello from Elvirafan

[Elvirafan]

I've been lurking for a while, time to jump in.

My name is Bob, and my user name reflects my favorite character. The number one spot is my wife, of course.

I'm also fond of pizza, seafood, Halloween, and MST3K.

I got my start in electronics at a very young age when I figured out how to take stuff apart, then (much) later, how to put it back together again.

Transistors were just becoming commonplace, so most of my early work was with tubes. I had built some strange things, including a P-P 6L6 amp with so many filter caps that the volume actually increased when I turned it off.

I worked in a radio shop after high school where I learned to fix things fast, and correctly. Back then, those old radios were new enough that the paper caps were left alone unless they were causing a problem.

Now I work for an outfit which makes tools for the semiconductor industry. No tubes, just teeny surface mount parts. When I get home, it's back to tubes. Just before they pulled the plug on analog TV, I finished a totally home-brew set with a 2AP1 CRT. It's the newest set in the house.....

In preparation for winter, I bought up all the old amps I could find. They include a SC stereo amp, and a Heath amp with 6BQ5's in ultra-linear for $6. Most of them are missing the tubes and a few other parts, but I see it as a challenge

Over the holidays I recapped several TV sets from the early 50's, and now I'm experimenting with tube amps. My current project (pun intended) is studying the matching of tubes with output transformers. I have a pile of them as well as a decent selection of tubes from 1S4 to 2A3. I've been wondering how to determine the correct impedance for sweep tubes because the tube books don't include such data. This may take a while, but the warm glow of tubes will keep me warm.

[planet10]

Welcome to the forum.

dave