[Tubejunke]

As a kid I could walk with a bag of tubes to the town "electronics" shop. They had a stereo sound test room, a tube room for retail sales and to supply the guys in the shop around back where the owner and another tech repaired TV, stereo equipment, HAM, and music amplification. The C.B. radio thing was still going on, so they did a lot of installs and tweaks with that stuff. The sales floor was better than what Radio Shack was when Radio Shack was still what the name implies. If they didn't stock a part, then they could get it. They also had a table model of the then common commercial tube tester complete with a lighted sign and what looked like a hundred sockets, two knobs, a neon bulb and of course a meter. Seems it could test anything from the early "big pin" stuff through the latest compactron style tubes. Good times!

Time moved on and I joined the Army for a number of years and came home. I decided to visit the radio shop. Everything was gone! The sales floor was populated with automotive windshield popper, neighborhood shaker bass insane related goods. The tube tester was gone. The stereo listening room's couch was gone and the shelves were packed with boxed goods. Wow! Had the world changed that much in a few years?

I saw the familiar face of the owner (still there today) and asked what had happened. Long story short and as we all know the market had simply changed. The repair end was gone only leaving techs to doing car stereo installs or upgrades. HOWEVER, he said that he still had the tube tester back in the shop. While I was gone a roof leak had saturated it according to him and damaged it. He ended up giving it to me back before I had nicer and more practical equipment like my Hickok stuff.

I never really saw where water hurt the thing. The cardboard charts had some wrinkles, but few. The damage was that the meter's pointer was broken off. Not sure how rain made that happen!?!?!? Either way it goes the thing ended up having some electrical issue which at the time I had no clue what to do to repair AND about that time I acquired a Sylvania 140 which is hands down one of the best testers I have (still have today). So needless to say the huge old memory went the way of the Edsel and to the shed where the need for space often means give away, part out, or trash. I think I saved the plastic sign that lit at the top of the unit and a transformer.

I have regretted more than one radical move in the name of needed space, but I never really felt bad about trashing the old memory of an emissions tester. As the Internet got bigger and Ebay became a way of life, it's easy to see how common and fairly cheap a basic emissions tester generally is. They have their place. Especially if you have nothing else.

The electronics store is still there today and recently sold me a high voltage probe, and o-scope, and signal generator very reasonably. AND they still have the room full of tubes that never sold! Yup! He's no dummy though. He still has a current price list that he uses, but I believe it's based on one of the foreign manufacturers prices, yet what's on the shelf is old gold.