It's never the tube ............

[N8GAV]

OK so I asked for this one, but proved my point. Friend of mine calls me this morning, got a HW 101 somewhere yesterday rig has low audio like most HW 101's " It's the audio tube, it's suppose to have a 6EA8, but this one has a 6CQ8 " OK some Hams did chanced out 6EA8 for 6CQ8 old trick to increase audio. " Well the tube is bad " Did you check it ? " I don't have a tube tester " Then how do you know its the tube ? " Has to be because the wrong tube is in there" It's not the tube, I could be wrong but my money says it's something else. " What do I do now ? " Bring it over here I'll prove my point, you won't be happy until I do, and I don't want you calling me everyday asking me what it could be. First thing I did was check the tube, It's fine better then 95 % , then turned it over and saw a leaky cap, a resistor that someone piggy- back to get the right resistance, and didn't do a good job at it. and a few other little things to clean up. Got my HW 101 manual went to audio circuit, found out value of bad cap and resistor, replaced them. Cleaned up some bad wiring work put together looked at the D-104 and mic plug. took apart and look like my 5 yr old grandson did it, re- wired that, and damn audio clean and sounds good. But the tube was bad what he said SMH