[ARC5] BC-375: "Once more unto the breach, dear friends!"

[Ben Hall]

Hi Dave,

On 7/16/2022 12:09 PM, David Stinson wrote:
> Yes, here I go again, "tilting at the windmill"
> of finding a non-destructive alternative to
> $1400 worth of tubes, in hopes that some
> other irrepressible soul will lift a BC-375
> off the basement floor, out of the dark and
> endless "I'll get around to it" void,
> and "breath into it's wires and meters
> the breath of life."

I'm very interested in this particular windmill tilt exercise.  I love the look of the BC-375 / BC-191 transmitters...but none seem to ever come with tubes in them, and like you say, replacements are expensive!  So I've stayed away from them.

> Anyone here heard of the Svetlana SV572-160 triode?
> Becoming a tube of interest to the Audio cultists.
> They're a "572 without the plate cap" they say.
> Has anyone played with these at RF?

I have not.  I did google around some to see if there was anyone using them in RF service, and came across one very old post saying that they were no longer in production.  Not sure how true that is, and it may be that production resumed at some point after that post was made, but might be worth checking to see what manufacturing status is currently.

I wonder how similar the SV572-160 is to the 572B tube?  The 572B is good to 30 MHz or so from what I'm seeing on the internet, so I'd assume that the SV572-160 might be similar?

> If one shops-around, one can get a quad of them
> for a couple of hundred bucks.

Very interesting.  I also saw that Chinese 211 tubes were going for about $100 each?  Still, that's $400 in tubes, but theoretically should be no mods required?

thanks much and 73,
ben, kd5byb