Notice to users of System Access to go. This program has some well meant abbreviation translators that result in some strange spoken phrases when reading technical material. If the common abbreviation for frequency modulation is preceeded by a number it is read as fathoms. I just can't fathom this one. The abbreviation for milli amps is read as mega amps. I guess they aren't electrical engineers or physicists. If the preposition in happens to be preceded by a number it is read as inches. If the letter P is followed by a number, such as in a model number for a piece of equipment made by Hewlett-Packard, it is read as pages. So, don't be alarmed when you read, quote, I used my H pages 410C to measure a current at test point 3 inches my AJ 15 fathoms tuner and it was 42 mega amps. End quote. I hope they get around to fixing this some day.

I'm sorry but I can't come up with a way of making the old parts catalogs accessible. They are scans of catalog pages. Typing them in as ASCII text is just more work than I can do.

What do I need to have fun with tubes?
Click here for the answer.

Electrical and electronic basics.

DC circuit basics.

AC circuit basics.

Vacuum tube diodes.

Vacuum tube triodes.

Vacuum tubes with 2, 3, and 5, grids.

A M, S S B and FM, communications.

What is ground? Everything you always wanted to know about ground and were afraid someone would tell you someday.

How it's done.

Restoring life to dead electrolytic capacitors.

Testing Capacitors.

Reading color and numeric codes on resistors and capacitors.

Eliminating Ground Loops.

Soldering and Unsoldering.

Designing and building Speakers.

An inexpensive way to alter the line voltage without investing in a Variac.

Construction Projects.

Low Resistance Adapter for your Digital Multi Meter.

Using the Adapter to Evaluate Unmarked Power Transformers.

Filter Choke Analyzer.

Eight simple power supplies for your circuits.

Bench Power Supply and Audio Amplifier so you can power and listen to your radios.

4 Methods of breadboarding Tube Circuits.

Using an I C Socket Breadboard for Tube Circuits.

The Best Breadboard for Tube Circuits.

A Dedicated Headphone Amplifier for modern phones.

A load box for testing power supplies under load.

A story about the original Koss headphones and an amplifier built in the 1960s.

How to make your own 455 kc I F transformers without winding a single coil, or a married one either.

Modify an old Heathkit IG-18 sine/square wave generator to disable the square wave and have a sine wave output with only 0.015% distortion.

A phase locked loop local oscillator for A M radios. Gilding the lily? Probably.

Operating Instructions.

Silver tone Radio, Phonograph, Wire Recorder, Combination.

Users manual for the MaxCAD drawing program. This program is not accessible to the totally blind. It can be used by partially sighted with or without a screen magnifier. I have dreams of someday creating a drawing program usable by the totally blind. At present, I don't know when I'll find the time.

Circuit Diagrams.

Circuit Diagrams Sent in by Viewers of this Page.

E mail me. I'd love to hear from you.

Radio.

How A M (Amplitude Modulation) Works.

Winding coils for your crystal set or tube radio.

How to Build a Crystal Set in these modern times.

Recreate Lee De Forest's original Audion.

The Grid leak Detector Circuit.

The Plate Detector Circuit.

The Infinite Impedance Detector Circuit.

The Regenerative Detector Circuit.

The T R F (Tuned Radio Frequency) Receiver.

The Simple Super Heterodyne Receiver.

A 3 Tube Superhet Receiver.

A 4 Tube Superhet for chasing D X on the A M Broadcast Band.

A 5 Tube Superhet you may find easier to build because there are no coils to wind or parts to scrounge from old radios. It's also good for chasing D X on the A M Broadcast Band.

The All American Five Radio.

Introduction and Power Supply.

The Converter Section.

The I F (Intermediate Frequency Amplifier Section.

The Detector Section.

The Audio Section.

Cautions, Precautions and Troubleshooting.

Audio Amplifiers.

Power and Output Transformers.

The power supply for a single channel 6V6 amplifier.

A Technical Discussion of Power Supplies. Not for the faint hearted.

The Resistance Coupled Amplifier, a Basic Building Block.

The Magnetic Phono Pre amp.

Volume and Loudness Controls.

Tone Control Circuits.

Balance Controls.

Phase Inverters, Phase Splitters and Drivers.

Push Pull Outputs.

Overall Feedback, Pros and Cons.

The Federal Trade Commission and Amplifier Power.

Designing and building audio amplifiers.

How much power is enough? A Low Distortion Gain Block.

Testing a resistance coupled amplifier with and without the cathode bypass capacitor.

Practical tone control circuits and where to insert them.

Phase splitter/driver, the heart of an amplifier.

An amplifier test bed.

Experiments with a triode power amplifier.

How to design a tube amplifier with feedback.

A 50 Watt Monoblock Amplifier with 4 6L6 tubes.

An Ultra Linear Monoblock Amplifier.

A Triode amplifier using 4 6L6s.

50 watt per channel ultra linear stereo amplifier using EL34s.

Restoration Projects.

Restoring a 1937 Battery Operated Philco Radio.

Restoring a Heathkit 0 to 400 volt Regulated Power Supply.

Restoring a Harman-Kardon A-300 amplifier.

Visit my Photo Gallery.

Atwater Kent's Missing Model.

Tour my A M Kilowatt Ham Transmitter.

Tour my Tube High Fi and Stereo.

Pictures I have been sent by viewers of this page.
Only superficial verbal descriptions are available.

These are schematics and photos of projects people have sent in to me. No verbal descriptions are available.

Here are some random rantings and ravings about things that bother me.

Useful and Interesting Links.

Free Programs you can download.

An electronics textbook titled electronics for physicists. It resides on my fun with transistors site. This link will take you directly to the table of contents on that site. There are links back to fun with tubes.

Do you like music? I also write songs which are arranged and mixed so you can understand the words, and the lyrics are worth listening to. Take a peak into my right brain. Visit Max's Music Place. Click here.

Everything you always wanted to know about
vacuum tubes but didn't know who to ask.

Ask Tube Man.

Would you like to tinker around with tubes but don't know what to do? Want to fix up that radio that belonged to your great-grandfather but don't know where to start? Are you experienced in working with tubes but you just came across a problem which has you stumped? Tube Man knows all and tells all. Just click on the super hero's picture to email a question to him.

Here is a picture drawn by Sue of an old style tube with a face and arms. Click here. SHA ZAM!">

See questions submitted to Tube Man and his answers. I apologize for being so far behind on this page but I'll catch up someday.

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