The AM Forum

My hopes for domination of the airwaves were dashed....

The 833a that I won from ebay showed up today... I've bought stuff from the seller before, dont remember what, but know I was happy with it.

Was happy to see it marked "Fragile, glass" everywhere, double boxed, lots of styro-peanuts and bubble wrap, but still:

Here it is with 6v on whats left of the fil... this isn't worth a damn thing now right? Not even fit for slime-o-tron service...

poop....

UPS?

I've emailed the seller, there was insurance on the shipping, we see what comes about.

Bummed, this is the first one I've scored for a decent price after about 6 months of being out bid!

Kinda hoping I get to keep it in the end, would look cool on my desk at work!

-Jason kf6pqt

Nah, Priority... which likely translates into a lunch-hour soon wasted at the PO... Or maybe just saturday.

Looks like both of the HF-300's I scored from a well-known seller on the west coast who supposedly once owned a mail order company that dealt with tubes.

But he just wrapped each tube with a single layer of bubble wrap, the stuff with the quarter-inch bubbles.  I could hear the tubes bouncing around inside the box whenever I shook it.  And it arrived with rounded corners.  Once I saw that, I knew what to expect even before opening the box.  In one of the tubes, the entire plate structure was rolling around loose inside the glass envelope.

At least he refunded my money with no hassle.

No, this was a much better scenario, wrapped with about an inch and a half of bubble wrap, the big-bubble kind, inside a small box of peanuts, inside a larger, 20x12x10 box.

What a bummer!  That just goes to show what the USPS can do even when something is packaged very well.  Sorry for your loss, I hope you can recover something from the insurance.

Rick/K5IAR

I could never buy large toobs offa ebay. Too much shipping damage like you guys have noticed. The number of people who can ship them without damage you can count on the fingers of one hand. The secret is preventing first impact then movement.

It always amazes me when the ratty WW2 813 that you pick up at a hamfest for $5 which has been handled thousands of times and transported in a box of crap works 100%. 

Mike WU2D

I got a Globe Chief from ebay.   It came by U.S. Postal service.    The postman brought it to my door.  It had no packing, the box just fit, and the tubes were in their sockets.  After putting WD-40  on the grease frozen band switch, I popped in a crystal and fired it up.   It worked OK, after replacing a weak 807, it worked like new.    That's what you call good  luck.

I've wondered how many large tubes get trashed in shipping, regardless of the amount of packaging. Seems to me that if tightly packed in many layers, the rapid deceleration in play when a box gets tossed and suddenly meets up with the floor is bound to knock stuff loose inside.

In my piles of stuff is an old 250TL in its original shipping rack, mounted in springs. It was either wrapped in heavy paper or places in a light boxboard container originally. This looks like the best approach since it holds the tube firmly in place, but allows some flex for getting jarred around.

Then again, the National 833s that came with the RA-1000 were in 2 pc plastic sleeves, surrounded by foam, in a thin box. Apparently the foam does the same thing as the springs, allowing just enough flex to keep the internal structure from breaking. Considering how many of these have been shipped and continue to be shipped, it's difficult to see USPS as the cause or they'd all arrive broken.

Sorry for the loss, Jason. I've been keeping my eyes open for 833s since you expressed an interest, but there aren't a lot floating around up here atm.

It is amazing that some tubes make it and some don't...I got my Gates TX (4 833s 6 807s) delivered to me by the engineer (?) that removed it from service.  All the tubes were in their sockets....All the iron was in there as well....The transmitter had been hauled from the station to the guys house, some 175 miles while laying down on a boat trailer....It was then stored outside in the driveway under a tarp for a while until I purchased it...The guy then loaded it back on the boat trailer and hauled it over a hundred miles to my place with the tubes still in the sockets....The transmitter is in operation now with all the same tubes still in there...The 833s are chinese graphite plate jobs and the 807s are some industrial brand name that look like older RCA tubes.  I have quite a few spare 833's and I will give one to anyone who will come to Tum Tum and pick it up...I wont ship a tube for all the reasons everyone has previously stated.  I have some  4-1000A's that are in the original spring loaded carriers....The boxes are marked with Railway express stickers...and in good shape...The current automated sorting and box handling systems used by UPS and Fed EX are really tough on the boxes...especially any box that approaches a cube shape..  They seem to get caught in the corners of the conveyor system and they can roll around in there for a long time before anyone retreives them....Progress marches on....

I just hope none of this happens to my stuff I'm shipping out today.  Both the Swan 270B, and the FT-897D were paid for a.s.a.p.  I packed them up, and they're ready to go.  I foamed around both rigs.  I removed, put in a separate box, and packed tightly the Swan's 6LQ6 sweep tube final.  I have insurance on both items.  But, I still hope they get through OK.

73,
Ellen - AF9J  

Good luck, Ellen.  You've done all you can do.  It seems to be more luck than anything where shipping is concerned.  It doesn't really seem to matter which carrier or method you use.  I have heard and sometimes experienced horror stories from them all.  I once received a tube caddy full of tubes via USPS with just the postage affixed to it, no packaging at all.  It wasn't even taped shut.  The latch was all that held it closed.  It arrived in pristine condition with not as much as a single tube out of place.  Go figure...  That has got to be luck!

Rick/K5IAR

Thanks Rick,

I shipped from here at work (where else would I have access to a foamer), via UPS.  I downright overpacked the Swan.  I got one radio via UPS, and it was packed with shredded newspaper,  Luckily it was OK.  Nowadays, volume & throughput are everything with the shipping services.  There are "Fragile" stickers in a few places on both boxes the radios are in.  Still, ever since the time I left work several years ago, and saw a Fed Ex driver literally tossing in boxes into her truck that was on our loading dock, I can't help but wonder if they don't just disregard the Fragile stickers you put on a package.

73,
Ellen - AF9J   

Sad story there. I bought an HP 8751A network analyzer on Epay for a good price a few years ago, and pleaded for the seller to pack it right, box within a box. This instrument sells at used test equip shops for about $5K. After no reply from the seller, I received the thing in a big cardboard box full of loose peanuts. The corners of the box were bashed. It was shipped UPS ground. When I opened it, to my amazement, there was no damage, but the instrument had shifted to one side of the box, and there was far too few peanuts to make a difference anyhow. What an inconsiderate seller - not normally an equip. seller for sure. Luck was on my side for that one.

With tube filaments, the older they are the more brittle they become. Thats why Eimac and others can use UPS or Fedex and ship 'em in those cartons with foam inserts, inside another box with bubble or peanuts. When they are new, the carburized thoriated tungsten wires are robust. After 10,000 hours, they are becoming brittle and at 30,000 hours they are like burnt sticks. I have handled old filament bars and they snap easily with finger pressure. With filament wires, its even easier for them to break with mechanical shock. 

I packed my newly acquired BC1H1 (see related story by KD0HG) in Denver by removing all the baseplate iron, the hanging HV motor/rheostat, the 833s, and the glass vacuum crystal holders. They were all wrapped in a box in the truck, and the transmitter rode fine on its side on a trailer. I just didn't want to have flying iron pulverize the components if one or more of the base screws sheared, on my 350 mile journey across Colorado and New Mexico yesterday.

I worked a deal some time ago with an audiofile that showed up on the old AM bullitin board. I swapped him some audio tubes for some 4-400s and a 4-1000a. (All were new) When they arrived I almost dropped a klinker in my drawers when I saw how poorly the 4X1 was packaged. But you know what, it survived just fine (too my amazement) You just never know what to expect. I packaged the tubes that I sent to survive world war 5 and they also made it to him ok.

I know a couple of UPS drivers, they have flat out said that small packages marked "fragile" are always considered to be fair game to be used for soccer balls. So dont kid yourself by marking stuff fragile.
If you have to ship something, just package it to survive a world war and it might get there in one piece.

                                                    The Slab Bacon

I heard the same thing from a guy I worked with years back, who worked there as a loader. "Fragile? Really?" *THWACK*. I stopped putting anything on the box to draw attention to it beyond 1 of 2 or whatever was applicable. My approach was to always pack each item as if it was something I was sending to myself, from the back hills of China, with 50 gorillas handling it along the way. Once packed, pick the box up and shake the snot out of it before taping it up (yes, close the flaps first!) as this usually helps to settle any packing materials already in the box. Add more to stifle movement, tape and ship. Not much can survive a forklift through the side, but you can pack things to survive shipping. It just takes time. Tubes, even moreso.

The BEST thing to remember is this: no matter who the shipping company is, they aren't paid to babysit your package. They're paid for through-put, max parcels @ min time/cost = higher profits. It's a business, not a social event. When Jason sent the Atlas boom to me, he packed it so as to be bullet proof, and it was. Odd shapes, multiple parcels, heavy, etc. It all arrived unscathed because it was packed right.

             " I shipped from here at work (where else would I have access to a foamer), via UPS. "

Get a can of "Good Stuff" at Homely Despot. Its an expandable foam used to fill in cracks and small air spaces for insulation purposes. Somewhere around $5.  From work, you know how this is done, but for others here,this stuff expands, so you dont want to pack the object, spray and then seal.

Pack the unit in plastic, seal it up tight. Pick a box that will give you a few inches around the object to be shiped. Spray into the box , and let the stuff rise 'till it looks like its done rising. A few inches will do, you want to place the object so it will be centered in the box (even amount foam all around). Place the baged item in there, and spray the stuff. You want it to just stop expanding over the top of the box. Get out your cake knife and level the top. Tape box shut, and now you have a UPS 'football'. The usual stuff --  shipping address on outside of box and covered with see through packing tape, placed inside a larger box which has impact absorbing material -- follows.

Thats all     klc

Jason,
   sorry for the loss of the 833, I have some but I use them in a
rig back east.   magestic toobs to look at through peek-a-booh
windows while socking yhellos and watching them blush.
   I sold a whole bunch of 250TH's to Ralph W2wme year back.
shipped them and he got them all ok. I believe he was electrocuted
working on a sb-1000 and died years back.  Deano

I must have bought 16 of these when I was building my 833 rig. I think maybe three or so arrived with the open 1/2 filament problem. A few others were black inside and I sold them to a guy out west that was going to slime-a-tron them. I finally latched onto a set of 833-C's and am running them. Anyway I have a bunch of 833-A's as spares that I will probably not need. I can spare some. I have maybe $40.00 each in them and they were tested in my rig so they are at least good on this end. If I can help you make AM let me know.

PS
I know how to pack & will run ten volts into them just to be sure!
Keith
WA1HZK

Todd KA1KAQ had saved a couple of 833A for me out of a cache that accompanied a Raytheon RA1000. He met up with Steve/HUZ and John, W3JN at a Hosstraders hamfest not long after, and John kindly did the AM Pony Express back to Maryland for me to avoid shipping trauma.

I guess about a year later I finally got up with John to collect the tubes from him (clearly it wasn't urgent) and I carefully brought them home and prepared to test them.

Both were Chinese parentage which has meant poor manufacturing quality control regarding the pin location as it gets glued to the glass.

Sure enough, while putting just enough pressure (so I thought) to get the tube down in the socket hardware, I pushed just a little too hard and that awful sound happened.

PPPPSSSSSFFT.

I watched the tube getter go from silver to white.

I removed the tube and yep, the metal tube element was now waggling free from the glass.

Errgh.

Somehow it's even worse when you, yourself, cause the tube's traumatic demise.

Paul,

Don't feel so bad; I have a friend that acquired a pair of new-old-stock 1950's vintage Western Electric 300B triodes at great cost for a homebrew audio amplifier project. These tubes have become extremely scarce and are among the most desirable and prized audio output tubes within the "audiophool" community. So as not to appear as a hypocrite, I also use them in my homebrew  stereo amplifiers.

At any rate, while getting ready to install the 300Bs in his newly completed amplifiers, one of the tubes rolled off of the workbench and onto the floor. You know the rest.

In summary, s--t happens.

With regard to the 833As, I have been lucky. All of the ones I have acquired over the years have been either NOS or very low milage U.S. production (i.e. RCA, GE, Amperex, etc.), and were obtained locally, so they were not subject to the potential trauma of shipping. Fortunately, I have not had the issue of partial or complete filament failure with these tubes.

It's a good idea to soft-start the filaments of these tubes as well. The filament structure is delicate, and why take chances? The cost of a time-delay relay and current limiting resistor is insignificant compared to the replacement cost of these tubes. I soft-start the 833As, the 4-400As, and the 845 audio drivers in my rig for this reason.

73,

Bruce, W2XR

I heard that sickening sound when removing a 250th from a BC-610.  I was ever so gently removing the beautiful bulb when I got the psssss... immediately I realized my error... forgot to remove the grid cap.  You're right, Paul, it's much worse when you do it to yourself!

Rick/K5IAR

Universal Package Smashers

They busted a nice GPT10K tank from Fair Radio once and I wasn't home to receive it. I'll never use them again. I sold a number of premium Receivers and always build a wood crate and use Fed EX or USPS been happy with both.
Frank, The Mikey express is also very good......

Ah yes, I remember that one!! The AM pony express!!

I bought 3 4-1000s from Frank a few years ago. We didnt want to ship them by conventional methods so we decided to use the AM pony express. They got handed off from this one to that one, handed off at 2 or 3 hamfests, sucked into the vortex, and Joe dropped them to me on one of his visits. The whole thing took about 3 months, and We joked that those tubes had so many miles on them that I should have taken them to Gypsy Lube for an oil change!! ;D

                                                    The Slab Bacon

My condolences on the 833's et.al.

Some years ago, I had to order a new 4CX15000 for an FM broadcast transmitter.  It took 4 shipments to get one which wasn't destroyed in shipping.  Each time, you could pick up the brand new Eimac tube and hear the innards just rattle around whichever way you moved it.  The UPS adjuster asked if I could just "plug it in and try it".  Sure, as long as he was standing about a foot away from it when I put 12000 volts at 3 amps on it.

On another occasion, I received a new commercial CD player, shipped by UPS, with a 1 inch metal rod still sticking right through the box, and right through the machine.

73.

Ted K8VPL.

Soon to be on with a Viking Valiant and a DX-100B.