Ok so Im the odd-man out here. I grew up in the 70's and 80's and saw the 8-track revolution to cassette to CDs, video pong to Atari-400s then Nintendo but one thing that has not escaped me nor have I let it go was being raised on vacuum tubes. My elmer Tom introduced me to to the world of tubes when I was 8 years old shortly before he retired from Northwest Airlines. Tom went from the spark gap transmitter to the pentium over his lifetime but his past was never far behind, more like his whole house. The only thing "modern" was his XL-100 set and that was a gift but everything else was early 70s or older. Tom introduced me to the workbench and taught me the art of fixing old radios starting with a Zenith "racetrack" AM set and went up from there. By the time I was 11 I was building my own tube radios, a QRP rig and everything else under the sun. When I was maybe 10 or so I remember someone asking me if transistors were better than tubes I said no and to this day I will stand by my answer. Tom was a foreman in the radio and avionics shop and had a hand in maintaining the various nav/com stuff that was being used before the MSP airport was completly overhauled in the late 80s. I might have been the only teenager of the time to actually have "stick" time in a Douglas DC3.
During my teen years I also began to branch out and started hanging around a few of the local real TV service shops one being Marties TV and the other was Jensen TV and I was the only teenager around with a 22" RCA new vista color in his room along with a monster pioneer 1280. Spoiled? nah earnings plus dumpster diving paid for that one. Ok so Im a little spoiled. I still have that pioneer and Zenith racetrack radio today.

It has become a personal quest to wind the clock back in time and forget that these lifeless plastic and glass chineese cubes even exist. Im so sick of reading "made in china" on everything I buy I have made it a rule to avoid this junk anymore. Sometimes its not always possible but if I put a little effort into looking maybe I can keep some of my money in the good old USA after all.

My sets so far to date:
Magnavox Total Automatic Color Astrosonic Combo, works perfectly
Zenith 20Y1C37 metal works good but has "snake" on left side scan
Motorola Quasar Works In A Drawer works perfectly
Sylvania Hybrid 25" console cant remember model but works perfect
Zenith Racetrack AM radio
Tram D201 CB
Drake TR4C 80-10 ham
several Heathkit "hifi" amps AA-100 AA-111
RCA stereo FM exciter model unknown tube based
homebrew 6146 based stereo amp
tons of WW-2 vintage radio gear, parts 30+ dynamotors
3 BC348 receivers
Hammerlund HQ-170A receiver
an excess of motorola radios and related I cant even think of!
so Im a little wierd
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