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Yes, but those old ones had a lot more active material on the cathode. I had to have mine rebuilt (21fbp22), but it really had a bazillion hours on it. I don't watch a lot of TV, but this was my main set from 1980-2002 or so. It ran nearly 24-7 with it's original owners, and had 2 or 3 brighteners on it when I got it. It survived that, though I did zap it with a rejuvenator when I first got it. It didnt really go flat til about 2002 or so.
I dont think rejuvenators are that good of an idea, but these forums are full of stories of good tubes in these old sets, and stories where people have reactivated the cathodes by just running them a little hot with the set off for a few hours.
The catch is that there is only one rebuilder left, and it's kind of expensive, and there will probably come a day when we cant get that done anymore. My set is still on the bench, because I got sidetracked, but I intend to keep using it when it's done.
For what it's worth, the brightness is limited on these things by the efficiency of the phosphor more than the emission. Where mine was running the guns nearly as hard as they would go all the time I was using it, and producing a nice picture. It's hard to turn it down enough with the rebuilt tube. Though not completely set up yet, it seems to have much better cutoff, and better focus, especially on blue. The brightness is about the same as it was most of those years.
Number one of thing to worry about running a set this old, is to be sure the horizontal output tube current isn't too high.
John
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