My Zenith has failed!!!

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

Yes, and you can blame ham radio and CB operators for that. Those HO tubes are used in linear amplifiers. Remember the 20LF6 that was used in some of the Zenith 4-tube hybrid color sets of the early '70's? Antique Electronic Supply wants $76.10 for that animal!

About 20 years ago, I had a ham radio transceiver which used 6JS6 final amp tubes; my first amateur transmitter had a 6146 final, and the Kenwood rig that preceded my current transceiver used two 6146s in parallel. I replaced the 6146 in my first transmitter in the early '80s and paid $17 for the replacement. I'm glad as anything my present setup is all solid state, no tubes, as I don't think I could afford to replace the finals in those old rigs anymore.

Fifty-six dollars does seem steep for one 6JS6 (and AES' price of $76.10 for one 20LF6 seems high as heck as well), but vacuum tubes are all but obsolete these days so those tubes you can still get your hands on will cost you quite a bit; supply and demand, of course. The demand for vacuum tubes is nowhere nearly as great today as it was, say, 30-35 years ago.

The day may come when new (or NOS, new old stock) radio and TV tubes may cost a king's ransom. However, you can still get good used tubes at bargain prices from online sources such as John Kendall's Vintage Electronics (www.vintage-electronics.com) in Fallston, Maryland, outside Baltimore; I purchased a 12AU6 from him recently, to replace a broken one in one of my vintage radios. But beware: The tubes themselves may be inexpensive (the 12AU6 I purchased was only $2.25 or so), but the shipping charges ... sheesh. This tube was sent to me via UPS, in a huge box; the shipping charges were something on the order of $8, so a tube that should have cost $2.25 wound up costing me just over $10. I think John Kendall could have used a smaller box (the box he sent the tube in was the size of a large cube), which would have knocked a bit off the shipping charges. I was surprised, to say the least, when UPS arrived at my door with this cube-shaped box that contained one small seven-pin tube--and nothing else. A padded mailing envelope would have served the purpose just as well, and saved even more on shipping charges to boot. Also, he could have sent the tube via USPS mail in such a mailer; the tube would have reached me sooner and there would have been no shipping charges.