[Boatanchors] tracking tube inventory?

[Philip Atchley]

Hi Eugene et al,

Sure, a "Spreadsheet" program like Excel (part of the MS office Suite) does 
just fine for this type of work.  If you're averse to spending hundreds of 
bux on the MS program, there is a VERY GOOD "open source" substitute that is 
free for the download, called "OpenOffice.org" that I'm now running (I 
removed ALL "borrowed or stolen" software from my computers some time back). 
OpenOffice will give you a good Spreadsheet, Word Processor,  Database and 
more.  And it's "Cross-platform" as well as compatible with documents 
created by MS Office and other Office Suites.

See it here.
http://www.openoffice.org/index.html

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
DX begins at the noise floor!

THE BEACONEER'S LAIR:  http://www.geocities.com/ko6bb/
QSL GALLERY: http://photobucket.com/albums/y123/KO6BB/
Merced, Central California,    37.3N  120.48W  CM97sh



Hello all,

I am fairly new to collecting boatanchors and came across an interesting 
problem which I am sure many of you have solved already.  Saw an interesting 
post from Mr. Richards about tubes for sale. "Goodie! A chance to stock up," 
I thought to myself. I looked at the list and realized I don't really know 
which tubes my radios use off the top of my head here at work.  So I figured 
I'd better make a list of all my radios and then for each radio list each 
tube type and the number of them used (ie 7 x 6BA6, etc).  First problem I 
had was having to locate spec sheets for all my radios to get the 
lineup(google and bama was helpful with that). So my first wonder was, is 
there a site or software any where that I can choose a radio and it will 
give me the tube lineup?

Next step. Make a superset list of all the tubes in all the radios and 
figure out a way to sum the qty in each radio with all the other radios (ie 
7 x 6BA6 for radio A plus 4 x 6BA6 for radio B = total of 11 6BA6 used etc.) 
At the end of this, I had a list of unique tubes used and the total quantity 
used.

I used this list to determine whether I needed 1 extra spare or 5 extra like 
in the case of 6BA6 or 6BE6 that are very common in my radios.  Then I made 
my offer for what I needed.

But this whole process was very time consuming. Does anyone know of software 
that I can use to keep track of a) what tubes my radios use b) the total 
number of each kind of tube in use c) current shelf inventory of each tube?

This would be very useful to print out and bring to swap meets. That way, I 
can see what I am in need of and look for them.

Anyone have such a beast?
thanks
Eugene