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Links to the Outside World

Retailers: Tubes

• ABC Vacuum Tubes - tube retailer.
• dBtubes.com - tube retailer.
• Findatube.com - tube retailer.
• Sphere Research Corporation - their website's a mess but they have a decent amount of stuff, including good prices on vacuum tubes. They're based in Canada.
• Tube Depot - sells tubes, of course. Nice website. I've purchased from them before and like them. I also get white tube boxes from them.
• Tubes For Amps - A tube retailer - aimed mostly at guitar-amp applications.
• The Tube Shop - Not a great website but may be worth a look. Sells tube manuals as well.
• TheTubeStores.com - tube retailer.
• Tubes-Store.com - tube retailer.
• Tube World Express - good prices and they list which makes are available, sometimes with comments on which they thinks are the best performers.
• USSR-Tubes.com - some tubes, plus other stuff like capacitors. Pricey but I assume they're new, not NOS or used.
• Vacuum Tubes Inc. - tube retailer.
• VacuumTubes.net - tube retailer. Prices are good and shipped fast. I have ordered from them several times.
• Vivatubes - tube retailer. They run through eBay.
• World Tube Company - I haven't bought anything from them yet but they have a pretty good website, once you figure it out.

Retailers: Radios - Electronics - Other

• Antique Electronic Supply - great stuff and a good starting point.
• Dial Covers - reproduction dial covers for some radios.
• Just Radios - great source for high voltage caps and resistors for radios; they also sell schematics.
• Kiss Electronics - services and sells some parts for HP 410B VTVMs, as well as a few other items.
• Playthings of the Past - sells junk-box parts (my description, not theirs) and ephemera. Seems particularly stocked in pre-WW2 stuff. I have purchased from them. One of my favorite sites. (As of July 2021, the website says they're under new ownership--last updated September 26, 2020.)
• Radio Daze - sells a variety of reproduction parts, including dial glass, knobs, decals and such. I purchased a dial glass for my RCA console and thought it was great; I've bought knobs and such from them as well.

Radio Information

• All American Five Radio - Richard McWhorter's YouTube channel on antique radio repair. McWhorter wrote two books: The All American Five and The Vacuum Tube Shortwave Radio, so the YouTube videos make great additions to them.
• AM Window - aimed at amateur AM (amplitude modulation) radio. Visually it's not a great website, but there's a lot of info buried in there if you're willing to dig.
• Antique Radios - there's a lot of great stuff on this website. It's worth it for the forums alone, but they've got some scanned copies of books, info, all kinds of stuff. Again—be prepared to dig.
• Boat Anchor Manual Archive - BAMA for short; an archive of owner's manuals, service docs, schematics and whatever else can be found for old gear. Mostly aimed at communications radios (e.g. commercial and ham) but includes some test gear and other things.
• Electric Radio Magazine - a print magazine devoted to vintage radio gear. It's printed in digest-sized format (e.g. TV Guide, Reader's Digest, 2600).
• KM5Z (Mike Yancey) - has a lot of scanned documents available for free; in particular he has various correspondence course lessons from the National Radio Institute (NRI), the Sprayberry Academy of Radio, RCA, and others. Worth a look.
• National Capital Radio & Television Museum - appears to be an early radio and TV club. Besides selling tubes (above), they put out a useful magazine called Dials & Channels. Check out the free example issues—you may want to join.
• Nostalgia Air - this rivals BAMA as an archive of free radio schematics and service docs (mostly taken from old Rider manuals), plus other stuff. Unlike BAMA, they have consumer equipment (e.g. RCA table radios) rather than commercial or ham.
• Pioneering Wireless - has a good number of PDFs of old books and magazines for free. The majority of the documents are pre-WW2 (typically 1920s), but it also has Vacuum Tube Valley.
• Radio Museum - potentially great but I find the member-interface beyond comprehension; I've been too lazy/unable to master it. Please note: you can get some info by browsing, but you need to become a member if you want to harness the full power of it, and spend the time to figure out to make it work. You have to pay a small fee and write your reasons for wanting to join (I'm not kidding). They claim that cuts it down to serious users only.
• A Six Color Story of the Tuned Radio Frequency Receiver - this is my scanned copy of a correspondence-course lesson on how electricity in radios flow. I thought it was great. Even though it's for TRFs, it's applicable to superhets as well. Check out KM5Z's website for more Sprayberry Academy lessons.

Electronics (may include radio) Information

• EEVBlog - a video blog on a variety of electronics subjects. The host makes it entertaining as well as informative.
• Fun with Tubes - this guy's a hoot. Lots of stuff about tubes, radios, audio and such, plus some off-topics rants. It would be worth it just for his various tube quotes which show up here and there.
• Mr. Carlson's Lab - a YouTube channel and one of my favorites. Paul (Carlson, I presume) mostly does repair and restoration of various projects, both vactuum-tube and solid state. He's very good at taking his time and explaining what he's doing on why. His videos aren't loaded with advertising, either, which is increasingly rare these days.
• Tales from the Tone Lounge - another fun site. This guy's interest is vintage guitar amplifiers, but he has some info on tubes and vintage test equipment. The original website is down (as I type this in 2012), but you can still find it on the Internet Archive.
• Simpson260.com - a big website devoted to what's probably the most successful VOM ever made.

Electronics Manuals and Service Docs

• Boat Anchor Manual Archive - BAMA for short; an archive of free owner's manuals, service docs, schematics and whatever else can be found for old gear. Mostly aimed at communications radios (e.g. commercial and ham) but includes some test gear and other things.
• hifiengine - Owners manuals, service manuals and other ephemera for amplifiers, tuners, tape decks, etc. Tends to be modern (post-Sputnik). It's where I found docs for my Roberts/Akai reel tape machines. Requires a login account but no fee.
• mods.dk - offers service manuals and other docs. You need an account to download, but it's free.
• NJ7P - free manuals in PDF format. Largely military, but has a lot of tube manuals, including some of the RCA manuals that are missing on other sites.
• Nostalgia Air - this rivals BAMA as an archive of free radio schematics and service docs (mostly old Rider manuals), plus other stuff. Unlike BAMA, they have consumer equipment (e.g. RCA table radios) rather than professional or ham.
• One-Electron.com - has a good technical library of free PDFs on various things. In particular, check out the Test Equipment listing. If you picked up a dusty EICO tube tester at the swap meet, this guy might have the book for it.
• Pacific TV - has a decent variety of test equipment and other schematics as free downloads
• Playthings of the Past - look at their Radio Literature lists. These are for sale, not for free, but the pricing is reasonable.
• SMC Electronics - scans of a lot of different things. Worth it.
• TubeBooks.org - numerous free PDF copies of old tube information. Best source for the RCA Receiving Tubes books (various editions) and lot of other stuff besides.
• Vacuum Tube Era - mainly a repository of PDFs of tube-era literature (mostly radio). Free and worth your time to see what's there.