[Boatanchors] 6146 vs 6146A vs 6146B or 6146W

[Glen Zook]

You have your opinion and experiences that are different from mine.  I have absolutely no problems with that because that is going to happen.  I have literally seen many thousands of equipment, both amateur and commercial, in over 50 years, that use the 6146 family of tubes.  Well over a thousand of that has been amateur radio equipment.  Therefore, I am going to go with my personal experiences rather than that of others.

Glen, K9STH

Website:  http://k9sth.com


--- On Tue, 7/5/11, lee <pulsarxp at embarqmail.com> wrote:

Your article frankly does not mean a hill of beans to me any longer.  It once did!  You keep rehashing Motorola and Collins who had other considerations in play during the period in which you speak.  I too have rebuilt a lot of equipment.  In fact I'll stack up my collection against anyone's including yours.  I have never had a problem using B tubes in a piece of equipment which originally came with A type tubes.  That said. Anyone can do anything they want with their equipment.  My experience with the B tubes taught me your article's warning is unwarranted when it comes to ham HF equipment.  I have used the B tubes too many times to fall for your theory or warning.  I have found out there is no reason to fear using B tubes in place of A tubes.  You have a better chance of finding a bad new resistor or capacitor then you will find having a problem using a B tube in an A tube socket.  The reason I brought all this up is because your article
 puts unwarranted fear into too many non informed hams minds.
 
As to why a manufacture built a tube a slightly different way for a particular manufacturer,  I can offer many reasons why this happened and it had nothing to do with operating the tube.  Why do some tubes have more then one nomenclature or have a 4 digit number rather then an alpha/numeric nomenclature?  There were a lot of reasons they did this which had nothing to do with their performance.  Sometimes it did and some times it did not.
 
Guys risk their transformers every day by reforming 50 year old electrolytics or continue to use old ones in their rigs which puts them at a much greater risk then a once in a zillion times of having a problem putting a B tube in an A tube socket.  The risk you mention is about as risky as using a solid state rig because during an atomic blast, the solid state rig might get put out of action where a tube rig would continue to perform.