From the late 1920s through the 1950s radio and television repair shops were almost as common as drug stores. Back then you could take your radio, TV, or record player to your neighborhood shop and ...

In August we ran a few photos of Steve Johnson’s excellent collection of radios. This month, we’re tuning in on his tube testers. All information courtesy of Steve’s website. Confidence Special First, ...

You can easily get carried away when trying to test things. For example, if you want to know if your car is working, you could measure the timing of the ignition and put the car on a dynamometer. Or ...

There’s still a mystique around vacuum tubes long after they were rendered obsolete by solid state devices, and many continue to experiment with them. They can be bought new, but most of us still come ...

Believe it or not, every Radio Shack – hell, almost every drugstore – once had a tube tester sitting at the back, available for all to use. Pulling a bunch of tubes out of a malfunctioning radio or TV ...