# Really Cool Vacuum Tube - Scrap Yard Find



## Anonymous (Sep 14, 2009)

Has anyone seen such a tube or know what it was used for, it is very heavy the fins for cooling appear to stainless steel.


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## teclu (Sep 14, 2009)

Is a tetrode, power tube...some types of power tubes may contain gold and platinum, silver and tantalum for sure, what type is it and who is the producer?

teclu


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## netseeker (Sep 14, 2009)

I've never seen a tube quite like that one but with the cooling fins on top I imagine it was used as a stage in a heavy duty power amplifier in a transmitter perhaps at a radio station or TV station or maybe a large RF amplifier . Some power tubes actually use water cooling or forced air cooling. There a a lot of tubes still in use in high power applications and are still manufactured in Eastern Europe, Russia and China. 

Robert


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## jimdoc (Sep 14, 2009)

You may be able to find it on this site;

http://www.tubecollector.org/


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## qst42know (Sep 15, 2009)

jimdoc said:


> You may be able to find it on this site;
> 
> http://www.tubecollector.org/




Your tube (at least one very much like it) is on this site under under tubes they want information on.

http://www.tubecollector.org/981.htm


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## Anonymous (Sep 15, 2009)

Thanks all, the tube on virtual museum is almost identical, the numbers from my tube at Z877


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## akgold (Sep 26, 2009)

A few years back I scrapped about 50+ tubes that looked very similar. They came from a Loran station in the Aleutian Islands. The heat sink on top was all copper. They yeilded approx 20 lbs of copper each after smashing them and cleaning the copper. About half were already broken when I got them. I think it was around 1200 lbs of CU total I got for around $50 at that sale. Made a grand off the deal. If you get good numbers off the tube you should be able to google it and find a page with specs and materials.
Steve


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