When I re-capped my first TV, it had some bad tubes in it, but I borrowed my dad's tube tester to figure out which ones needed to be replaced. When I re-capped my second TV last month, I didn't have access to that tube tester, but happened to get lucky and found all the tubes in the set were already at least good enough for the set to function. I figured it might be useful to have a tube tester around, but for whatever reason, when I looked on eBay, I couldn't find one for what I considered a decent price.
This is where my local Radio Shack comes in. Now, my local Radio Shack is a little "different" in that they're somehow a Radio Shack
dealer and not a Radio Shack
store. As such, they are not required to have the same store layout or stock the same product lines as other Radio Shack stores. In fact, a good 50% of their floor space is dedicated to used ham radio equipment, vintage radios, and used test equipment. What did I happen to run across when I went in there yesterday? An EMC Model 213 tube tester marked at $25! Of course I bought it on the spot and immediately took it home to test it out. It seems to be in good working shape, too, except perhaps that some of the switches may be dirty (I have to press on or wiggle some of the switches sometimes before the meter will move during a tube quality test).
I'm pretty happy about the way this turned out.
02-14-2016, 08:13 AM
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