Thanks all you guys for answering so fast.I have 30s 40s&50s am radios.I,ve been looking at box lots of tubes on e-bay to see if I could use any, but by the numbers I can,t tell if they are radio or tv.Is there way to tell by the numbers? Thanks Ya,ll pass a good time.

If you skim through all of the schematics here, you'll get a good idea as to what is a common radio tube. Pretty much anything with a bakelite base is a radio tube: octals, loktals, 7, 6, 5, and 4 pin tubes. The remaining common radio tubes are usually 7 pin and sometimes 9 pin. Many are: -BA6, -BE6, -AU6, -AV6, -AQ5 (less common), -X4, -AL5 (common with FM sets), and some others I can't think of. For the -, add either a 6 or a 12, depending on the kind of circuit you are dealing with. Usually the 6 volt tubes are for 6 volt parallel circuits or .3 ampere series circuits, and the 12 volt tubes are for 12 volt parallel circuits or .15 ampere series circuits. There are variations from this.

Common remaining 7 pin tubes are the 50C5, 50B5, 35W4, 35C5, and 35B5. 12AT7, 12AU7, and 12AX7 sometimes show up in radios, too.

There are some other 7 and 9 pin tubes that I can't think of that are sometimes found in radios; most often German radios or other European radio brands.

Usually any tube starting with an 8, 13, 17, 19, 20, 23, or some other numbers I can't think of are usually for series string television use. Almost all compactrons are for television use. The rest, which can fall in any category, you will have learn by experience. For instance, 22DE4 or 6DE4 are octal base tubes, but are best suited as the damper in the flyback circuit of a television, and not for radio use.

I believe that there are a few 9 pin tubes that start with 17 and 19 that are used in the front end of an FM radio, and these tubes are designed for series string use with ordinary .15 ampere radio tubes.

T.

The reference to 7-pin tubes in the sentence discussing bakelite based tubes should state 'standard base' 7-pin. All other reference to 7-pin tubes should state 7-pin 'miniature.'

Also, Loktal tubes have aluminum or nickel plate steel or brass bases. Some octal tubes have metal/bakelite bases, and octal tubes can also have an all metal envelope with a bakelite base. The great majority of these tubes were developed for radio use, with some being used also in early television receivers, and a few being specificially designed for television use. The 6BG6, for example, is a 6L6 that has extra plate wattage capacity and a plate connection to the top of the tube instead of pin 3, that was developed for the horizontal output section in magnetically deflected television sets. 6DE4, as was mentioned earlier, is an example of another octal tube designed specifically for television use. Most octal tubes that you will encounter are, however, primarily designed for radio use.

T.

You could also list about 12 of the tube numbers here. If any are radio tubes someone can tell. Or you can look them up by yourself here.

http://www.nj7p.org/Tube.php

This will most times will tell you what the tube application is used for.

Hi Guy

Here is a list of radio tubes:

http://personalpages.tds.net/~pdieten/tubes.pdf

You won't go wrong with picking up these.

Some types are used in both radio and TV.

Norm

:Thanks all you guys for answering so fast.I have 30s 40s&50s am radios.I,ve been looking at box lots of tubes on e-bay to see if I could use any, but by the numbers I can,t tell if they are radio or tv.Is there way to tell by the numbers? Thanks Ya,ll pass a good time.
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