Russian tube designations - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Receiver tubes

In the 1950s a 5-element system (GOST

GOST

GOST refers to a set of technical standards maintained by the Euro-Asian Council for Standardization, Metrology and Certification , a regional standards organization operating under the auspices of the Commonwealth of Independent States .All sorts of regulated standards are included, with examples...

5461-59, later 13393-76) was adopted in the (then) Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

for designating receiver vacuum tubes.

The 1st element (from left to right) is (for receiving tubes) a number specifying filament voltage in volts (rounded off to the nearest whole number), or (for cathode-ray tubes) the screen diagonal or diameter in cm (rounded-off to the nearest whole number).

The 2nd element is a Cyrillic character specifying the type of device:

- D (Russian: Д) - diode, including damper diodes.
- H (Russian: Х) - double diode.
- Ts (Russian: Ц) - low-power rectifier (kenotron).
- S (Russian: С) - triode
  Triode
  A triode is an electronic amplification device having three active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a vacuum tube with three elements: the filament or cathode, the grid, and the plate or anode. The triode vacuum tube was the first electronic amplification device...
  
  .
- N (Russian: Н) - double triode.
- E (Russian: Э) - tetrode
  Tetrode
  A tetrode is an electronic device having four active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a two-grid vacuum tube. It has the three electrodes of a triode and an additional screen grid which significantly changes its behaviour.-Control grid:...
  
  .
- P (Russian: П) - output pentode
  Pentode
  A pentode is an electronic device having five active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube , which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926...
  
  , or a beam tetrode
  Beam tetrode
  A beam tetrode is a type of vacuum tube specially designed to produce greater output power than a similar pentode...
  
  .
- Zh (Russian: Ж) - sharp-cutoff pentode
  Pentode
  A pentode is an electronic device having five active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube , which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926...
  
  . (also transliterated sh or j)
- K (Russian: К) - variable-mu / remote-cutoff pentode
  Pentode
  A pentode is an electronic device having five active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube , which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926...
  
  .
- R (Russian: Р) - double pentode
  Pentode
  A pentode is an electronic device having five active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a three-grid vacuum tube , which was invented by the Dutchman Bernhard D.H. Tellegen in 1926...
  
  or a double tetrode
  Tetrode
  A tetrode is an electronic device having four active electrodes. The term most commonly applies to a two-grid vacuum tube. It has the three electrodes of a triode and an additional screen grid which significantly changes its behaviour.-Control grid:...
  
  .
- G (Russian: Г) - combined triode-diode.
- B (Russian: Б) - combined diode-pentode.
- F (Russian: Ф) - combined triode-pentode.
- I (Russian: И) - combined triode-hexode, triode-heptode or triode-octode.
- A (Russian: А) - pentagrid converter
  Pentagrid converter
  The pentagrid converter is a radio receiving valve with five grids used as the frequency mixer stage of a superheterodyne radio receiver....
  
  .
- V (Russian: В) - vacuum tube with secondary emission.
- L (Russian: Л) - cathode-ray tube.
- Ye (Russian: Е) - "magic eye" tube
  Magic eye tube
  A magic eye tube gives a visual indication for audio output, radio-frequency signal strength, or other functions. It is also called a cat's eye, or tuning eye tube. These tubes were used by radio receivers from around 1936 onwards, replacing the earlier "Tuneon" neon lamp type tuning indicators,...
  
  (e.g. used as a tuning indicator).

The 3rd element is a number - a series designator that differentiates between different devices of the same type.

The 4th element denotes vacuum tube construction (base, envelope):

- P (Russian: П) - small 9-pin or 7-pin glass envelope (22.5 or 19 mm in diameter).
- A (Russian: А) - subminiature glass envelope (5 to 8 mm in diameter) with flexible leads.
- B (Russian: Б) - subminiature glass envelope (8 to 10.2 mm in diameter) with flexible leads.
- S (Russian: С) - glass envelope (greater than 22.5 mm in diameter), typically with an octal base
  Octal base
  Octal base may refer to:*A vacuum tube socket with an eight-pin base*The octal, or base-8, numeral system...
  
  .
- N (Russian: Н) - nuvistor
  Nuvistor
  The nuvistor is a type of vacuum tube announced by RCA in 1959. Most nuvistors are basically thimble-shaped, but somewhat smaller than a thimble. Triodes and tetrodes were made, although tetrode nuvistors are rare. The tube is made entirely of metal and ceramic. Making nuvistors requires special...
  
  .
- K (Russian: К) - metal-ceramic envelope.
- D (Russian: Д) - glass-metal envelope with disc connections (for UHF operation).

For all-metal tubes the 4th element is omitted.

The 5th element is optional. It consists of a dash ("-") followed by a single character or a combination of characters, and denotes special characteristics (if any) of the tube:

- V (Russian: В) - increased reliability and mechanical ruggedness (such as low susceptibility to noise and microphonics).
- R (Russian: Р) - even better than V
- Ye (Russian: Е) - extended service life.
- D (Russian: Д) - exceptionally long service life.
- I (Russian: И) - optimised for "pulsed" (i.e. switching) mode of operation.

For instance, -YeV (Russian: -ЕВ) added after 6N2P

6N2P

The 6N2P, also sometimes spelled in English "6H2Pi" is a miniature 9-pin dual triode vacuum tube manufactured in USSR, Russia and China with characteristics similar to the RCA 12AX7...

(i.e. 6Н2П-ЕВ) signifies that this variant of the 6N2P has extended service life and low noise and microphonics. More often than not this means actual differences in internal construction of the tube compared to the "basic" type, but sometimes designators like -V and -I simply mean that the tube was specially selected for those characteristics from the regular-quality production at the factory.

The new designation convention was applied retrospectively to many of the previously produced types as well as to those produced afterwards. For example, a Soviet-produced copy of the 6L6

6L6

6L6 is the designator for a vacuum tube introduced by Radio Corporation of America in July 1936. At the time Philips had already developed and patented power pentode designs, which were fast replacing power triodes due to their greater efficiency...

was originally manufactured in the 1940s under its American designation (in Latin lettering), or sometimes a Cyrillic transcription of it, 6Л6. Under the above convention the tube was redesignated 6P3S (Russian: 6П3С). The 6V6

6V6

The 6V6 is a beam-power tetrode, introduced by Radio Corporation of America RCA United States in late 1937, and still in use in niche applications.Similar to its predecessor the 6L6, the 6V6 was far more widely used...

tube became 6P6S (Russian: 6П6С). However, many specialised Russian tubes, such as special military or transmitter tubes, do not follow the above convention.

Some of the better-known Russian equivalents of West European and American tubes are the 6P14P (Russian: 6П14П), an EL84

EL84

The EL84 is a vacuum tube of the power pentode type. It has a 9 pin Noval base and is found mainly in the final output stages of amplification circuits, most commonly now in guitar amplifiers, but originally in radios and many other devices of the pre-transistor era.It was developed to eliminate...

; 6N8S (Russian: 6Н8С), a 6SN7

6SN7

6SN7 is a dual triode vacuum tube, on an 8 pin octal base. Although the 6S—series tubes are often metal cased, the 6SN7 is generally found only in a glass GT size envelope. The 6SN7 is basically two 6J5 triodes in one glass envelope.-History:...

; and 6P3S-E (Russian: 6П3С-Е), a version of the 6L6

6L6

Transmitter tubes

There is another designation system for high-power tubes such as transmitter ones.

The 1st element (from left to right) is always G (Russian Г, for "generatornaya").

The 2nd element (with some notable exceptions such as the Г807) is:

- K (Russian: К) - shortwave (<= 25 MHz) tube.
- U (Russian: У) - ultra-shortwave (25-600 MHz) tube.
- S (Russian: С) - centimetric-wavelength (> 600 MHz) tube.
- M (Russian: М) - modulator tube.
- I (Russian: И) - impulse tube.

The 3rd element consists of a dash ("-") followed by the design serial number. If the tube has to be force-cooled there might follow a letter 'A' (Russian 'А') for water-cooled or 'B' (Russian 'Б') for air-cooled.

Popular transmitter tubes include the ГУ-29, ГУ-50, ГМ-70 and Г-807 (the Russian 807 analogue).

External links

http://www.oldradio.ru/issues/sys_gost.shtml - Russian receiver tube designation system (in Russian)
http://www.tubedata.info/tubnum.html - English explanation of tube designation systems

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.