[Tubejunke]

Ok, well said on several notes. This pretty much sums it up I guess. I never really put two and two together the way it sounds. I haven't yet looked at the link wiscojim gave us, but I will soon.

Speaking of the way the sets were more or less for the elite; my first and only DuMont set was an RA-109A that I found at an antique/junk store in the early 80s. Turns out the man running the store also opened our areas first TV sales and repair shop in the late 40s. He actually remembered unloading the set new for the president of Stanley Furniture Company which like DuMont once was a big deal for America and now sits empty in Stanleytown, VA. Seems like the older man told me that the big wheel paid around a grand for the set. I was just a high school kid taking electronics and found the dusty old thing so utterly intriguing with it's upward of 40 tube compliment, metal/glass crt and dual rectifiers. That has to have been the biggest power transformer on the heaviest chassis I ever pulled! I miss it sometimes and my skill set is a bit better for getting it going properly. I managed to get a weak raster on it with no video. There was a booster on the 19AP4 which probably lends to the weak raster and the ultimate retirement of the set to the salesman turned junk-man.

It was really to big and heavy for an average size home too, so I eventually sold it cheap to a collector in the late 90s. I did keep the 30 some tubes though......