From: Geoff Edmonson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
...This doesn't mention that the whole rig was under water, and that the
250TH's survived (if I recall correctly [IIRC]) without damage.
Reminds me of the time W9WT Bob Parmentier's XYL called Roger N4IBF (SK) and
me to come get all his radio stuff after he had moved into a nursing home,
or she was going to get someone to haul it to the dump. After we had
crammed a medium size U-haul truck full, I found some tubes in an old house
on the property. The floor had rotted through years earlier, and termites
had finished off the wood. There was a large collection of unused
transmitting tubes (mostly 211/VT-4C's) that had literally buried themselves
in the ground, as the cardboard cartons rotted away. We literally mined
tubes out of the ground, using an old concrete trowel we happened to find at
the site. Some of them were buried as much as 6-inches below the surface.
I brought the tubes home. First, I washed them to remove the mud residue.
Then used steel wool to remove the oxide from the tube pins and metal base.
There was some pitting of the base, but the pins were intact once cleaned.
I tried those tubes in my transmitter and out of a dozen or so only one or
two tubes were bad. Those tubes had to have been buried for a couple of
decades for the remains of the floor and termite residue to have completely
converted to dirt and caused the tubes to be buried.
Never throw away a tube that has not been tested, no matter how rough a
shape it appears to be in. Some of my best 211's (my HF-300 rig uses a 211
rf driver) came out of that pile of mined tubes.
Don K4KYV
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