Vacuum Tubes _004

ANTENTOP- 03- 2003, # 004	Vacuum Tubes

Battery valves with the Heptal base. Have 1,1 (2,2) V direct heating. Home produced tubes are known from end 1940's and were installed both in table-top (the "Rodina-52") and portable battery powered radios. Photo shows valves: 2P1P, 1A2P, 1B2P, 1K1P, 2P2P.		The home-produced TV valves with the Magnoval base. Not used in R-sets. On the photo: 6D22S, 6P41S, GP-5, 6P45S, 6P42S.
*FROM THE AUTHOR* We have seen with our own eyes the eclipse of the whole epoch - the epoch of the Soviet Union. And somehow imperceptibly the things of our common surrounding became pieces of antique. It seems quite recently thatwe tried persistantly to get rid of bulky valve radio receivers and buy light and portable "transistors" instead. Generations change in technology but even now who of the people over 35 does not feel nostalgic of the scale and the "green eye" of an old radio gleaming in the darkness... I have a feeling I was interested in old radios through all my life.May be it is genetic memory? My grandfather, a journalist by education, took a great interest in radio broadcasting in 1930's. He was also an active listener.I remember him sitting at the radio set trying to tune in some DX station through the mess of statics. It was my grandad who gave me my first radio set as a present in early 70's. It was a big and heavy multy-band set trying to tune in some DX station through the mess of statics. It was my grandad who gave me my first radio set as a present in early 70's. It was a big and heavy multy-band set in a wooden cabinet model "October". Frankly, I was only 7 then and it did not become the first piece of my collection - after some time it was lost. My present collection is about 3 years old.A receiver of the same model as my very first one is most precious to me. Besides some radios made in this country in 1930-50's I also have some R-sets produced by Phillips, Mende, Tefag , RCA. A radio of direct amplification "EKL-34" made in Leningrad in 1934 is the oldest of them all.		Unfortunately it does not work now because of wasting of the materials, of which resistors and caps are made. In case of need I reconstruct my radios carefully. Fortunately, we can still find here old spare parts and materials to use them for restoring. Working with my collection brings me a kind of energy.Every R-set was some time "a favourite of the family" and the spirit of old times hides under every chassis and revives in the soft radiation of the tubes. The idea of making a homepage reflecting my collection has come to me in the summer of 1998. And since then the volume of information on the site has been increasing and the design of the pages has changed not once (for the better, I presume). For over a year I have attained a kind of an "intermediate finish": now on the pages those interested can find not only the photos but also the diagrams and technical data of all the radios included in the site. In the halls of the virtual gallery the music of those half-forgotten years can now be listened to. "The Tube Souls" forum is open on the site that (I hope) will become a place of contacts between valve radio fans and collectors. Marking the virtual museum with a special award of the biggest Russian site on museums www.museum.ru was a pleasant result. During 1998 my collection was enlarged by some rare exhibits owing to information in the World Wide Web. But the contents of the site have gone beyond the limits of the exhibition. The growing interest of Russian and foreign visitors of the virtual gallery for the history of this country's radio industry, the attention of the

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