New Donation to the Electronics Lab - Vacuum Tube Tester

In memory of Walter Anderson I am donating a Vacuum Tube Tester to the Electronics Lab. Walter would have felt right at home with this piece of test equipment.

This is a Dyna-Quik Dynamic Mutual Conductance Tube Tester, a B&K Model 700. So what does this fancy title mean? It means that the vacuum tubes are tested under normal operating conditions using a transconductance bridge network. The best type of Vacuum Tube Tester there is. Other testers check just the filament and emissions only.

I will deliver this item on this Thursday, 1/25, during the Open House. So, bring in your boxes of vacuum tubes and get them tested. Art Givens, @artg_dms, has accepted this donation.

So now…the rest of the story. Walter Anderson picked up a Vacuum Tube Tester that he got out of Fred’s Warehouse about a year ago. His intentions were to give the Tube Tester to the Electronics Lab. About 3 months ago he gave it to me so I could check the unit out and re-calibrate it. Turned out that the main power transformer was fried and the unit was not repairable. So, to keep my promise to Walter, I am replacing it with another unit. The Electronics Lab finally has a Vacuum Tube Tester…and Walter Anderson’s name is on it.

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A tube tester like this will be very helpful in testing the tubes used in old antique radios, jukeboxes, older tube based guitar amps and really old test gear. I am sure I will eventually get a bunch of tubes together to be tested for several projects I have in the restoration queue.

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So, will it test 12AX7 and EL84?

FWIW, both are listed in the tube chart for the Model 700.

I have a bunch of tubes from the “warehouse” and I would love to “test” them sometime. Thank you for your generous donation.

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I saw the tube tester over in the Vector area last week. If you find that you have tubes that this tester cannot check, just let me know. I have another tube tester, the Military TV-7, at home that can test the older tubes, even some transmitter tubes.

Excellent, that will come in handy for two of the projects I just pulled out of my storage unit.