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I enjoy visiting the National Valve Museum, having started in electronics back when transistors were new and mysterious. So many of the valves (or as we Yanks call them, tubes) bring back memories - the standard American AC/DC 'series string' radios, both octal and miniature, and the two-way mobile radios I worked on when I was a tech for the Santa Fe Railway in 1969-70.
The entry on the 829B indicates that it wasn't the best choice for some applications, but Santa Fe was still using locomotive radios with 829Bs in the transmitter. Newer radios used a pair of 6146s.
My most recent valve related story was a report from my younger daughter, who is a lawyer by day, but plays electric bass in a 'surf band' during her off hours. The amplifier she uses was getting a bit weak, so she ordered a set of 6L6 output tubes from a Russian source. They arrived in cartons with English printing on two sides and Russian Cyrillic on the others. After installing the 6L6s in the amp, she carefully inspected the boxes to make sure there were no coded messages from Agent 007.
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