"Bunia3" wrote in message
...


need to retube a drake r4b

Why retube? I think retubing is wasteful, unless you are using tubes still
in production and somebody else is paying for them.

In my expirence, most old tubes in old radios are good. Paper capacitors
are the biggest problem by far, although I don't think your Drake has paper
caps. I've seen a higher percentage of drifted carbon compisition resistors
than the percentage of weak tubes.

Trouble shooting by tube substitution is a valid procedure, but there's no
need to have more than one of each tube number, and good used tubes work
just fine for that purpose.



where r good sources for new tubes in USA?

tx

I've had good results from

Triode Electronics (mostly audio tubes)

Brent Jessee Recording (audio and radio)

Fair Radio Sales

ESRC

Hamfests

Ebay vendors

I've had generally good, but not perfect, results from Antique Electronics
Supply. AES has a very large inventory of tubes and an inclusive catalog.
The other vendors seem to try to beat the AES price.

Frank Dresser