Anyone seen a tube tester like this ??

[unit_399]

I ran across this old OLSON tube tester at a flea market here. It came with a notebook with the settings for about ten different tubes. I had a 6AB6 and the settings for it, and the tester seemed to work ok. It would be nice to have a manual with settings for other tubes, plus some operating instructions, but I can't find a model number on it anywhere. Help Anybody ??
- 399

EDIT: I should have looked before posting. It is a model KB-92. Radio Museum has photos of a manual, but not source info.

 

[mechanic]

I ran across this old OLSON tube tester at a flea market here. It came with a notebook with the settings for about ten different tubes. I had a 6AB6 and the settings for it, and the tester seemed to work ok. It would be nice to have a manual with settings for other tubes, plus some operating instructions, but I can't find a model number on it anywhere. Help Anybody ??
- 399

EDIT: I should have looked before posting. It is a model KB-92. Radio Museum has photos of a manual, but not source info.

View attachment 30757

Olson Electronics was a company based out of Ohio and has many stores from New York to California. They were on the same level as Allied Electronics and Radio Shack. The tube checker you have is one from about 1960 or so and was made for them by EMC, maybe as a kit or by Mercury. They were also big into CBs with their own name on them. Try EMC 211

From 1968....



73 mechanic

 

[mechanic]

This also......

EMC 211

or.... https://www.ebay.com/itm/Manual-and...Testers-Dated-1960-5-5x8-format-/202467900323

73 mechanic

 

[BandEdger]

Looks like a Knight kit somewhat.

Never heard of Olson, thank you for sharing that!

 

[999]

Looks like a Knight kit somewhat.

Never heard of Olson, thank you for sharing that!

Olson was an electronics store in the midwest. I remember going into the store on Milwaukee ave in Chicago with my father when he would test tubes for our old Zenith B/W TV.

 

[Woody-202]

The first thing that came to my mind when I heard "Olson" was their "Sidebander" base station - which wasn't sideband at all

 

[kopcicle]

which wasn't sideband at all

What isn't sideband about DSB? No carrier...

 

[Tube Noob]

I found one with the manual and snapped pictures of the manual but wow are they uploading slowly. (22 images total.) Lemme know if there's a preferred place to post the full images, or I can email them.

 

[AudioShockwav]

You can upload them to your Album here on the forum.
As long as your settings are public anyone can see them.

73
Jeff

 

[Tube Noob]

Here's the manual! Took me some time to figure out where my album was.

Unit_399, how has your experience been using it? I haven't tried mine out yet, but need to test and probably replace some guitar amp tubes, and am hoping I can use this. I have no idea yet what I'm doing, however. I'm sure I'll be looking up a generalized tutorial.

https://www.worldwidedx.com/gallery/authors/tube-noob.59360/

 

[nomadradio]

Looks like a "conductance" tester, not a "transconductance" tester.

The difference is that the tube is treated as a resistor in the conductance test. It will identify worn-out tubes that can no longer deliver full circuit current.

A transconductance, or "mutual conductance" tester measures the tube's signal gain. It will catch tube faults the simpler one won't.

But both of them should show when a tube has an internal short, or a bad vacuum, (says "gas" on the test). The other thing it should reveal is leakage, caused by poor insulation between the heater and cathode.

No matter how sophisticated, a tester is mostly useful to identify a tube that's bad. Saves time, compared to troubleshooting a bad tube while it's in the radio.

Whether or not it's "good" enough to make the radio work will only be known by putting it in the radio to see. If the radio doesn't like a particular tube, the tester's opinion doesn't count for much.

73