Hickok T-53 Tube Tester

[Reece]

This tester was my Uncle Cecil's. He was active in radio in the 1930's, learning it as a boy from a radioman down the street. Later in the army he told of climbing a really tall pole in a blizzard in West Virginia to string an antenna. His career led him to Jet Propulsion Labs in CA where he worked on the moon projects.

I cleaned the leatherette covering and used black shoe dye on it. The case hardware was rusty but I saw that originally it had been black enameled (or "Japanned") so I sanded and steel wooled it, masked and sprayed with primer and black lacquer. I gave it a new power cord. The handle was in bad shape so I need to order one for it.

The guts looked OK, the Raytheon 83 and metal 5W4 looked brand new. Brought it up on the variac and the transformer didn't complain. I tested several tubes with it and compared the results with a more modern tester; found them similar. The newest tubes this will take are octals and loctals.