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MPT4

Sensibly equivalent to:
7A2 MP/Pen Pen4VA
See also:
The Azide Process - Osram MS4B, VMS4, MH4, MPT4 & U12 Advert - Valves for Superhets
    
Extras ▼

 

M-OV had trouble designing the MPT4. Not only did it take them a clear two years to produce technically successful copies of Mazda's landmark AC/Pen but thereafter they had to redesign it several times (including the beam tetrode version MKT4) over the next 5 or 6 years.
In the end they solved the problem by buying equivalents from other manufacturers and re-labelling them.
Part of the problem was that M-OV had invested heavily in the azide process during the late 1920s and were either unable or unwilling to switch overnight to manufacturing oxide-coated cathodes of the rating and quality demanded by powerful, for that time, audio output valves.
Another factor was that M-OV were strongly anti-pentode at that time and may have been unwilling to invest in proper, full-scale development in what was, for them, a new and uncharted field. Instead, as is well known, they put their money into circumventing the pentode - by inventing the beam tetrode, with some help from RCA in America.
The side contact knob is 10 mm in diameter.
The bulb is blackened to obscure the electrodes but with the right lighting the pentode structure can be seen.
The classic envelope is 50 mm in diameter and, excluding the B5 base pins, it is 102 mm tall.
References: Private communication, data-sheet & 1040. Type MPT4 was first introduced in 1931. See also 1931 adverts.

 

Pin Connections
B5
1
2
3
4
5
sc
a
g1
h
h
k,g3
g2

 

Absolute Maximum Operating Conditions
Pentode
Vh
Ah
Va
Vs
Vg
mAa
mAs
4.0
1.0
250
200
-10.5
32.0
5.5
Thanks to Frank Philipse for supplying the above PDF datasheet.
Updated June 11, 2022.
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