What Brand Tube tester is best for Antique radios from the 20's and 30's? Looking to buy one and need some good advice!!

Thanks John

The one you can find locally at a decent price.

The question comes up from time to time here, and gets a wide range of responses each time. so it would be instructive to dig through past threads and look for ideas. I think it's been a couple of months since the last go-round. Forget the search function, just look back through the titles in this section of the Forum.

How about one that has the proper sockets and documentation for what you are going to focus on. A Sencore or B&K brand won't help you on stuff that old.

So I guess Fleabay would be a crapshoot!! Although I have a few brands in mind such as the Hickock 533a,539a,600A!!

The Stark 9-66 or the triplett 3423!!

I will look around any thoughts on the above mentioned tube testers?

Thanks again john


Does a Century Fc-2 Tube tester test old tubes from the 20's and 30's?? their is one on Ebay right now that is working and has all manuals..

Crapshoot, no, it's more of a sure thing: you can count on ebay purchases to have further problems. Unless of course you buy one with a guarantee that it has been properly rebuilt.

A Century as far as I know is an emission tester.

Thanks again Alan!!

John

Good luck with the Stark 9-66 since there not that common in this neck of the woods. They usually fetch high prices. More plentiful up Ontario way and since it was made in Canada might be less in the States.

And since there are a couple of different editions and possibly meter problems you might run into problems . I'd take Alan's advice and buy locally and avoid all the lies that a potenial seller is going to no doubt tell you.

Best

Ken

Thanks Ken,
Ive all but given up on ebay and paypal anyway!! Ebay is way to expensive and you cant really trust peaple and Ive been burned by paypal also!! I will start looking locally where I can see the testers up front!!

Thanks again guys.

John

John

EICO 666 & Jackson 648 series are fairly common and not expensive. Good for working on old radios.

Thanks norm,
Will look around a little!!

John

If you could maybe find a decent old surplus I-177, that would probably suit your stated needs for tubes into the 40's.

Link to a good read...http://tubesound.com/2009/09/07/signal- ... libration/

Thanks Gary!!
I noticed the guy that owns the webpage has one for sale !! $400.00 is kind of steep though!!

Ill keep looking thnks again,
John

Yeah, but he already restored it IIRC. I found an old KnightKit KG600A kinda beat up looking but working for 20.00 at a radio club's sale at a flea market event that will at least find the duds and shorted ones. Lots of choices out there, just depends on your needs vs. wallet. I have a total of 4 tube testers, but only the Knight will do the older stuff. Good luck!!

The Tubesound guy is always at the top of the price range for any tester, rebuilt or not. The hype in his eBay ads is really funny! I think he targets audiphools and other gullible people.

If you want a tester that checks 1920s and '30s tubes and don't want to spend an arm and a leg, there are a lot of very nice prewar testers around. Weston, Triplett, Supreme, and Hickok all made good testers in that era. Except for the Hickok units, most are emission testers. But with the tubes and radio circuits that existed back then, filament or cathode emission is what you will be concerned with most of the time--with shorts and filament continuity taking up the rest of the time!

Two other advantages of pre-war tube testers are, (1) they are generally cheaper than the later models, because they do not test most of the tubes of interest to the audio crowd; and (2) they are more likely to list obscure and seldom used early numbers, which are frequently omitted from the later tube tester charts.

For working on really old stuff, I often use a Triplett 1212. It's a compact, mid-1930s emission tester that handles nearly all commercially released US tubes up to about 1937. Aside from its small size and simplicity, it's got a neat "shadowgraph" line voltage indicator and a good leakage test going for it. The Triplett 1210 and 1310 were the predecessor models.