...afraid to ask!

[Chris K]

Originally Posted by Yamamaya42

Think of a tube being like a fire hydrant, (triode) and the valve on top is the grid, the valve can be opened anywhere from 0 to 100%, allowing a constant flow of water out of it depending on how far it's open, now ad a variable, like a sine wave that will try to adjust (modulate) at valve by 20% (how fast does matter), but if it's too far open, it will hit the upper limit before you adjust it BY that 20% , and it will clip off the top, same if it's too far closed, a functional medium has to be set so you do not hit upper/lower limits of what you are trying to put through it, and thus get amplified.
I know this is a crude description, :p I'm trying to remember how my electronics teacher told it many many years ago.

OK...that's kinda starting to make some sense to me. So the 20% part of the analogy for the sine wave, that's a 20% increase of signal strength? So the sine wave will grow in amplitude by more than that if the grid "valve" is opened more than 20% by the bias voltage "wrench" but if it does, the peaks of the wave will be lost (clipping)?