I was fortunate to be in this hobby for a few years by 1981 when, as part of my post -HS 2-year AS in electronics, I had a two semesters of tubes and transistors together.
We built and then used a HF transmitter with a 3.58 mc crystal (from you know what) tube oscillator and tube doubler and then final stage. I forgot the tube numbers.
Even then you learned more than you would use in practice for the early 80s.
It was uber-cool to hear HOW tubes worked 1-2 years AFTER I had re-capped a few early color sets into working and then setting up convergence, etc.
Few others in the class were hobbyists and thought I was over-enthusiastic about learning a fading technology, then came FETs and MOSFETS which behave similar to tubes, impedance-wise.
I worked at a Sylvania-Mag dealer then a Zenith-Admiral dealer during those years.