# Vintage valves and components



## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

With the interest in what hapenned to all the old equipment thread, I thought I would start up one on vintage valves and components. Although I do not pursue the vintage radio hobby as much as I once did, I still maintain an interest and often buy ancient items from car boot sales. I especially like those little "suitcase" battery portables that usually have four small directly heated pentodes in them, DF91 - DAF96 and that sort of thing, but my rule is never to pay more than £5 for a set!
Here is an "R" Valve I picked up on the market for £3.50. It dates back to the Great War 1914-1918. Lights up like a light bulb. Works, but poor performance. Their filaments were so delicate, they usually had a rheostat in the circuit so you could turn the volts up from zero to a maximum of 4 without putting excessive strain on them.
The other picture is a 955 acorn valve. It is a triode, produce in USA in WW2for use in VHF equipment. Astonishing performace and amplification. Trouble is, the ceramic valveholders are very hard to find these days. This is in a home-made one. A ring of 3mm black acrylic with solder tags and brass 6ba nuts & bolts round the edge. Valve pins trapped between washers.
Have to be careful not to tighten nuts too much as it can break the glass, but is is good substitute for the real thing.
I had to figure out how to make a holdr when my wife came home from the market with a jam-jar full of 955 acorn valves several years ago!
Do any members here still mess about with vintage radio? (Valves).
Bob


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

I have a friend who is a very skilled builder of all sorts of things from hill climbing cars to railway locomotives. He is also a keen ham and is building a WW2 suitcase transmitter as used by SOE. He is having a job getting suitable old components. We had marine band amplifiers at GKA which were racks of EF50's. I should have had a few when they were dispensed with. Its very interesting the things people make in sheds and home workshops.


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Hi Graham,
The EF50 is still quite common and not all that expensive. I have quite a few lying around but never really liked them for the most ridiculous of reasons - they are not very attractive to look at! Great on performance, but those little short pins and expensive valveholders don't endear them to me either.
Often, if I can't find certain components, I can make them myself. Here is a little tuning coil that I made using an empty alumium pot that contained Humbrol paint for modelmaking use. Inside it, are three 100uH chokes which give me a centre-tapped aerial coil and a reaction winding. Works a treat!
Bob


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

Hi Bob, 
I still think the 807 beam tetrode is a thing of beauty. I remember saving up my pocket money to buy my first one, 50p from a shop on the high road in Ilford. I still have that first one here in my collection, the only problem is that after all these years I'm not sure which one it is now. 
I enjoy restoring old radios, my next project is a very sorry looking Hallicrafters S-40, and for this one I'll need to learn how to do silk screen printing as part of the cabinet work, should be fun. This project is of particular interest to me, as a school friend's father had one in his lounge, and although I didn't know the model at the time (it was always referred to as "The Hallicrafters"), I was very envious and wished I had one, with it's lovely green dial lighting, and this at a time when all I had was a HAC regen set with Denco plug-in coils.
Recently and quite out of the blue I was shown a photo of this old radio and asked if I knew anybody who might want it, couldn't believe my eyes .. I said yip I sure do, my wish finally came true 
= Adrian +


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Hi Adrian,
I remember the old 807 quite well and sailed with lots and lots of them. They were favored by Siemens (Later AEI) in the MF/IF transmitters.

The T10 had an EF50 master oscillator followed by an 807 intermediate amplifier and four 807s in series/parallel for the output into a Pi network matcher.

Wish they had given the 807 a more standard base such as International Octal - never did like the UX5 base. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but they were harder to find and more expensive!

I was also very keen on the pillar-box red EF39, ECH35 and EBC33 that starred in the Siemens G1/G12 receivers. Still have a box full of them.

Smallest valves I have are a box full of little Hivac wire-ended triodes. Came across an old vintage radio shop some years ago that had a brand new dustbin full to the brim with them. They were all "New, old stock" and never been used. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he said they were only 15P each! I bought about 50 of them and they work very well. I believe they were used in hearing aids & early spaceships and things like that.

Bob


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

*Vintage valves and components *

Bloody radio gear! I thought it was about some of the gear that was fitted to square boilers!


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

Hi Billieboy,
Same both ways, I am always getting SPAM e-mails trying to sell me valves and boiler components!
Bob


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

Can soon find you some valves fitted to old boilers if you like, Billieboy. [=P]


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## jaydeeare (Feb 5, 2008)

I know some real old boilers whose valves have dried up, if that's any help (Jester)


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

Well, well! fancy that, Jay!


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## spongebob (Dec 11, 2007)

Kris, have you got a wigwam for a Goose's bridle among that stash of stash of stores of yours?

Billeboy my early morning read of this thread also mistook it for vintage steam valves An old parallel slide or wedge gate or even a double spring high lift Safety would get the nostalgic juices running 

Bob


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

Hi Bob,
Admire your ingenuity. I'm not really a radio buff but I can see its a nice hobby. I met one of my son's ex girlfriends the other day and she collects vintage transistor radios. 
The Oceanspan used EF50's and 807's but I was on a ship with an awful thing called a Seaspan. It was an Oceanspan with miniature valves. At college they said you will never see one of these on a ship. Shows how wrong you can be..........


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

bob jenkins said:


> Kris, have you got a wigwam for a Goose's bridle among that stash of stash of stores of yours?
> Bob


No but I've got a long weight and a bucket full of steam for the whistle somewhere. [=P]

Had a look at my stash of valves and could find very little of interest. I have no idea why I didn't ditch the PL36s years ago.
Plenty of VRs and CVs but none of much use. The only semi-interesting one, a very small valve with a strange base and an Italian fascist stamp, seems to have gone walkabout. (Sad)

Kris


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## Shipbuilder (Jun 30, 2005)

I once had a good little business on PENDENNIS CASTLE with PL36 valves. I would purchase a box of 100 valves (Ex obsolete, but unused TV sets) for £7. I then sold them to interested members of the ship's company at the rate of 4 for £2 for use in those little blue DC to AC converters. 
Bob


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## chadburn (Jun 2, 2008)

jaydeeare said:


> I know some real old boilers whose valves have dried up, if that's any help (Jester)


It's the "Hot Flushes" you have to be careful of(Jester)


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

As a teenager I built myself a guitar amplifier using ECC83s and a matched pair of EL34s for the output. The hardest part was getting hold of a suitable output transformer. I still have the valves; had to save for several months to be able to afford the EL34s (13/6 each if I recall correctly!)


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

My first audio amplifier was not quite as exotic as yours, comprised of an ECC82 and EL84, but it sounded fantastic hooked up to one of those big old 12" paper coned loudspeakers, and an old Garrard 4SP turntable donated by my maths teacher, the envy of all my schoolfriends at the time.
The funny thing was that I realised quite some time later while working on another project that I'd wired the filaments up incorrectly on the ECC82 in the amplifier, I hadn't taken into account that the filaments were in series on 5 and 6 with the common on another pin, so for all this time there had only been 3v across each filament.
When I put that right however it sounded absolutely terrible, so I quickly put it back like it was and said nothing 
= Adrian +


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

One of the chaps at GKA had been on Greek ships. A greek R/O told him that on a certain make of transmitter, if you removed the smoothing choke from the power supply you could practically double the output power but the downside was that the PA valves did not last very long!. No idea what type of TX was involved.


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

One of my schoolmates was a subscriber to Practical Wireless while I had moved on from Eagle magazine to Aeroplane and Flight.
It was always nice when the PW project was within our scope and pockets. Pocket money spent on all sorts of military surplus in the hope that one day we would be able to build the ultimate machine.
Odd constructions like audio oscillators built out of neons. Caused a lot of tingling fingers from high voltage power supplies. 
Then along came the OC series of transistors and anything seemed possible.
In the age of the pirate radios we all had to have one. Mine had a range of about a mile but wasn't very stable. (Sad)


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

_One of the chaps at GKA had been on Greek ships. A greek R/O told him that on a certain make of transmitter, if you removed the smoothing choke from the power supply you could practically double the output power but the downside was that the PA valves did not last very long!. No idea what type of TX was involved._

I heard this when I worked for Niarchos. I think it was a fifties Mackay Tx which was fitted to all of the company's 'I'-class 45k tankers and had around 250W in it's original configuration. No doubt other greek outfits used it too.


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

The Niarchos R/O's were some of the best operators ( in my opinion anyway)
that we worked at GKA. If you answered and worked one on nights you would find a couple more lined up behind him on the same working frequency.
They would also QSP each others traffic. Very slick operating. Always a pleasure to work those guys. GKA had a private wire to Niarchos headquarters. I think the chap who told me about modifiying the TX worked for Niarchos so that would be right. I had a look round a Niarchos tanker once in the Gulf. It was called the Spyros and the radio gear was all state of the art modern stuff unlike the crap I had.


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

Graham P Powell said:


> The Niarchos R/O's were some of the best operators ( in my opinion anyway)
> that we worked at GKA. If you answered and worked one on nights you would find a couple more lined up behind him on the same working frequency.
> They would also QSP each others traffic. Very slick operating. Always a pleasure to work those guys. GKA had a private wire to Niarchos headquarters. I think the chap who told me about modifiying the TX worked for Niarchos so that would be right. I had a look round a Niarchos tanker once in the Gulf. It was called the Spyros and the radio gear was all state of the art modern stuff unlike the crap I had.


 HI Graham,
I was the last R/O to serve aboard the Spyros, and you are right, she had the best gear of all the FOC ships I sailed on - She had an 800W SAIT SSB transreceiver which was marvelous - I used to work SVA on R/T from all over the pacific regularly, in fact I used the receiver for everything. Even the emy rx was an atalanta !


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

Hello Gareth. The R/O was Pat somebody. Possibly Pat Higgins. He told me that he didn't keep a 500kcs watch. That was up to the auto alarm. The rx's and tx's were something else.The R/O told me that he spent all his time on HF and just as you said could work SVA from nearly anywhere. The main tx was in huge cabinet with double doors I seem to remember. His only duff gear he told me was the Amercian 10cm radar which was not much good. I went back to my old Marconi fitted tanker feeling quite depressed.


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

There was a Niarchos R/O called Pat Higgins who lived in Barcelona when I knew of him (late 60s); could be the same chap.
(Apologies to Shipbuilder as we seem to be way off-topic at the moment).


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

Ooops, sorry , yes way off the topic. That was the chap. Lived in Barcelona.
Won't say any more......


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