Poof! it's gone

[W8ACR]

As many of you know, I have built a homebrew transmitter using a rather rare final amplifier tube, a Taylor 822. I am always on the lookout for these tubes. I have two good ones and two weak ones. I found one on Ebay about two months ago, and was fortunate to win the bid at $16.00. I felt that it was my lucky day. The tube was shipped via USPS with tracking. After about three weeks, the tube had still not arrived, so I went to the local Post Office to see if they could help track it down. My local Post Office was very helpful, and made multiple phone calls to the St Paul, MN post office to try to find it. The tracking had proved that it arrived in St. Paul, but had never left. The USPS personnel in St Paul admitted that it had arrived there, but they had no idea what had become of it. Poof! Gone!

My theory is that it had gone through some sort of security device, an X-ray machine or something similar, and was separated out for inspection, and during the course of inspection, it was damaged/destroyed. Alternatively, perhaps it was simply damaged by dropping or stacking and discarded. Or maybe it was just sent to the Northwest Territories and will sit on a shelf forever to become gassy and useless. Although I only lost about twenty dollars, it was pretty aggravating.

Soooo…… Anybody out there got some 822's laying around? By the way, a Fischer 3581 is the same as a Taylor 822. Fischer was a company that made medical diathermy machines, and used several types of tubes in their machines. If you have a Fischer Cat#3581, it's a Taylor 822, and I'd like to have it.

Ron

[Opcom]

I realize things like this are really important. Sorry that I don't have one of those, but some from the same time period.

[flintstone mop]

I work as a sub contractor for USPS and the smaller post offices do not seem to have sorting equipment any more. The equipment was ripped out and seems like the major hubs or cities now have sorting machines and probably more checking of contents of packages. Higher technology used for scanning and inspecting packages/letters. There may have been a reason for removing the older technology equipment. It basically has caused major delays of mail distribution throughout the system. I'm guessing adding 1-2 days of regular 1st class mail. Priority mail seems to be the bread winner for USPS. There are bottlenecks as the stuff now has to be transported more from the fewer sorting facilities to the local level.
Was your item from a USA eBay seller? Strange that it got lost/damaged in the system, but not strange when the USPS is the worst example of a properly run business. Still in control of the Gummint...maybe for security reasons and maintaining federal laws, about stealing mail, sending unauthorized things through the system. dunno... not an efficiently run business that I have observed.
Fred

[WQ9E]

Several years ago I ordered a set of Helms factory service manuals for my 2006 Sierra diesel pickup and a week after shipping (USPS) they had not arrived.  I called Helms and they sent a second set out via FedEx and they arrived 2 days later.  About a week after that USPS tracking showed the original manuals were now in route to the damage/reclamation center in Atlanta.  For several months thereafter I got status updates from USPS before finally the resolution was contents were beyond salvage.  I forwarded these to Helms since they had asked me to return the original set when they arrived. Although this was a big set of manuals (5 total, most were over 1,000 pages each) I really hope some postal employee didn't spend that much time trying to "recover" readily available in-print material.

No service is perfect.  Years ago I ordered a FT-817 from AES and usually things arrive the next day from their WI location (UPS) and the transciever did. But I also ordered a little MFJ magnetic mobile 144/440 whip for it which was sent in a separate package also UPS.  Via tracking I saw my antenna got a nice tour of the U.S. visiting Seattle before working its way south to Dallas before finally making it to IL.  But at least it did get here and the box was still in great shape.

[W3GMS]

As many of you know, I have built a homebrew transmitter using a rather rare final amplifier tube, a Taylor 822. I am always on the lookout for these tubes. I have two good ones and two weak ones. I found one on Ebay about two months ago, and was fortunate to win the bid at $16.00. I felt that it was my lucky day. The tube was shipped via USPS with tracking. After about three weeks, the tube had still not arrived, so I went to the local Post Office to see if they could help track it down. My local Post Office was very helpful, and made multiple phone calls to the St Paul, MN post office to try to find it. The tracking had proved that it arrived in St. Paul, but had never left. The USPS personnel in St Paul admitted that it had arrived there, but they had no idea what had become of it. Poof! Gone!

My theory is that it had gone through some sort of security device, an X-ray machine or something similar, and was separated out for inspection, and during the course of inspection, it was damaged/destroyed. Alternatively, perhaps it was simply damaged by dropping or stacking and discarded. Or maybe it was just sent to the Northwest Territories and will sit on a shelf forever to become gassy and useless. Although I only lost about twenty dollars, it was pretty aggravating.

Soooo…… Anybody out there got some 822's laying around? By the way, a Fischer 3581 is the same as a Taylor 822. Fischer was a company that made medical diathermy machines, and used several types of tubes in their machines. If you have a Fischer Cat#3581, it's a Taylor 822, and I'd like to have it.

Ron

Sorry Ron to hear about your misfortune.  If I had any here, they would be on there way to you!  I have lots of tubes but no Taylor 822. 

What are your thoughts moving forward since this tube appears hard to find?  Time maybe to do a conversion.

Joe, W3GMS 

[Todd, KA1KAQ]

Ron, if they didn't give you a definitive 'done, case closed' I'd keep after them to have them check for its location. It could resurface. A few months back I had a couple of '52 Ford truck bumpers shipped from Ohio via UPS and one got lost in Greensboro. The other arrived fine. They tried to say it was improperly packaged and was destroyed. The seller pointed out that they weren't packaged, they just had shipping labels attached, were thick steel that would be difficult to bend much less destroy, and had been labeled and shipped by one of their very own UPS stores.

Within a few days the missing bumper arrived. In this case, I'm thinking someone set it aside hoping it wouldn't be missed. But it's possible it just got set somewhere and forgotten until the seller made some noise about it.

I've got some big Fischer tubes but IIRC, they look like 805s? Wasn't aware they made medical equipment and for years have wondered what kind of stereo amp they fit!

[W8ACR]

Todd, I was told that they looked for it, but couldn't find it and had no idea what has happened to it. I guess there is a place for goods that get damaged in shipment, but apparently it wasn't there either. (wherever that is). I guess the tone of the guy in St Paul wasn't optimistic. Anyway, I'm over it, I just had to vent.

Joe, I have two good 822's. With any luck, they will outlive me. I don't push them too hard. I kind of like it when somebody says to me "Taylor 822? Never heard of it" The transmitter works very well, and I'm hesitant to change things now. Kind of a Karma thing. A convergence of skill and luck, mostly luck. I do have a backup plan though - if I cook all my 822's, I'll go to an 8000 tube. Very similar tube except that the grid lead is on the side.

Taylor 822's do appear on Ebay once or twice a year. I'll just keep watching.

Ron

[W3GMS]

Joe, I have two good 822's. With any luck, they will outlive me. I don't push them too hard. I kind of like it when somebody says to me "Taylor 822? Never heard of it" The transmitter works very well, and I'm hesitant to change things now. Kind of a Karma thing. A convergence of skill and luck, mostly luck. I do have a backup plan though - if I cook all my 822's, I'll go to an 8000 tube. Very similar tube except that the grid lead is on the side.
Taylor 822's do appear on Ebay once or twice a year. I'll just keep watching.
Ron

Ron,

Good on having some spares.  You may want to put the spares in and run them now and then.  Its good for the tubes and you will have piece of mind of knowing what kind of condition they are in should you need them. 

I do understand why your reluctant to go to a different tube at this point. 

I may have some 8000, so if the time comes let me know.

Joe, W3GMS       

[WQ9E]

Ron,

Glad you have some spares.  At worse case the very commonly available 814 ought to be a fairly easy tube change.

[W8ACR]

Hi Rodger,

The RCA/GE 814 is a great tube, but it's got one too many grids. Both the 822 and the 8000 are large triodes. Interestingly, Taylor made a tube very similar to the 822 that was also named the 814. It is even rarer than the 822, but the only difference is the amplification factor. The Taylor 814 is basically a low mu 822. I actually have a taylor 814 also, but I'm not sure if it is good or not. All I would have to do to use it is change the grid voltage. The Taylor 822/814 would be analogous to the 811/812, 810/8000, 250TH/250TL etc. High and low mu versions of the same tube.

Ron

[WQ9E]

Hi Ron,

And I should have caught that because I once picked up a homebrew rig at a hamfest that had a Taylor 814 final and I have a Halli HT-9 that uses the "conventional" 814.  The HB rig was quickly traded for another homebrew rig with a pair of 808 finals.  I didn't realize until now I traded one rig with a rare final for another rig that also has rather hard to find finals.

[W8ACR]

Rodger,

So then if you were thinking of that Taylor 814 you were absolutely correct. It can be plugged right into the circuit and all you'd have to do is lower the grid voltage to a more negative value and it should work just fine. A simple change of the grid leak resistor is all it would take.

To make things even more complicated, Taylor also made an 822S that had the grid lead on the side of the glass envelope. This reduced the interelectrode capacitance and made the tube usable above 20mHz. Eventually they came up with the T-200 which replaced the 822 line of tubes.

BTW, 822's are excellent audio tubes good for about 750W of audio in Class B PP.

Ron

[WQ9E]

Thanks for all of the info Ron.  I pulled the Taylor 814 info when I first bought that homebrew rig and that was the one I was thinking about.  The HT-9 was restored and in great shape when I bought it and other than replace the bias battery I haven't done anything to it besides use it.  The HT-9 came with a spare 814 of the RCA type with a full complement of hopefully working grids

I looked at the 822 in my PDF Taylor tube manual and it seems they really were pushing it for modulator use although they did include RF data.

In future years I wonder if all of the Svetlana 572 variants will cause similar confusion.  I recall that in addition to a regular 572B they sold several 572 variants with a bottom anode connection instead of a top cap in varying Mu and voltage ratings.