[Boatanchors] tube / tube tester question

[bonddaleena at aol.com]

OK, let me try again... I had this note 'almost' done when my DSL went 
down..... sigh....

Here's Ron's "DUMB question" of the day........

I recently bought a nice RME VHF 126 Converter for 6M, 2M, and 220 MHz. 
I know it's not 'state-of-the-art, but I love my boatanchors. It will 
be paired up with my RME 6900 receiver. This converter has separate 
converters for each band. I expected to find a bunch of old caps in it, 
but the construction is excellent and uses 'dog-bone' and ceramic caps. 
Cool.
There are a LOT of tubes in her. A quick test with my HP 8640B produced 
a signal on 6 and 2 at -120 dbm. 220 was dead.
However upon testing the tubes, I found an extraordinary percentage 
"leaky". 7 out of 11!!!
I have 2 tube testers, a Sencore and a Weston transconductance type. 
The results were the same on both.
Unfortunately, I don't have spares for 6 of the bad tubes.
The four 6BQ7As were all bad
The two 6AM4s were both bad (short microwave tube)
Since these tubes are multi-section, either one section was bad, or the 
other. Emissions were so-so. Some better than others.
I have already purchased new tubes, but my question is this......

Can tubes go 'bad' from lack of use lice electrolytic caps? I know 
nature abhors a vacuum, so maybe the seals just gave up the ghost.
Will leaving them 'on' make any difference?

Of the hundreds of boatanchors I've gone through, I have never had more 
than 2 tubes from the same set bad......

It appears this converter was not used in a loooong time. The ground 
side of the electrolytic filter cap was open. Never seen that before....
Strange.....

thanks!!

ron
N4UE

P.S. I AM working on the cap 'article'.....