WD-11
Encyclopedia
The WD-11 vacuum tube
, a triode
, was introduced by the Westinghouse Electric corporation in 1922 for their Aeriola RF model radio and found use in other contemporary regenerative receivers (Used as a detector-amplifier) including the Regenoflex and Radiola
series.
The WD-11's design was somewhat ill thought out, when the filament burns out it has a tendency to contact the plate, feeding high voltages back through the heater circuitry. It was replaced just a year later by higher performance tubes which were less likely to encounter this problem, Westinghouse Electric's WD-12 and General Electric's UX-199. No radios using the WD-11 tube were designed after 1924, RCA ceased production and issued a service bulletin describing how to retrofit existing sets to use the newer UX-199 triodes.
Because of its relative paucity it has become one of the most valuable vacuum tubes in the world. At the time of this writing, new-old-stock units sell for as much as $180 and used tubes can sell for over $100, more than the radios that use them. Collectors rarely, if ever use these tubes for fear of burning them out.
Sets that use the costly WD-11 and UX-199 tubes can be made to use the 1A5/GT octal power pentode
(Which cost around $2.50) by wiring a 5.1 Ohm
resistor
between the pins of the filament and fabricating an octal to four pin adaptor. The pin for the 1A5's suppressor is left unconnected and the screen is to be connected to the plate.
Vacuum tube
In electronics, a vacuum tube, electron tube , or thermionic valve , reduced to simply "tube" or "valve" in everyday parlance, is a device that relies on the flow of electric current through a vacuum...
, a 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...
, was introduced by the Westinghouse Electric corporation in 1922 for their Aeriola RF model radio and found use in other contemporary regenerative receivers (Used as a detector-amplifier) including the Regenoflex and Radiola
Radiola
Radiola is a compilation album by Skank released in 2004, containing recent hits and four new songs...
series.
The WD-11's design was somewhat ill thought out, when the filament burns out it has a tendency to contact the plate, feeding high voltages back through the heater circuitry. It was replaced just a year later by higher performance tubes which were less likely to encounter this problem, Westinghouse Electric's WD-12 and General Electric's UX-199. No radios using the WD-11 tube were designed after 1924, RCA ceased production and issued a service bulletin describing how to retrofit existing sets to use the newer UX-199 triodes.
Because of its relative paucity it has become one of the most valuable vacuum tubes in the world. At the time of this writing, new-old-stock units sell for as much as $180 and used tubes can sell for over $100, more than the radios that use them. Collectors rarely, if ever use these tubes for fear of burning them out.
Sets that use the costly WD-11 and UX-199 tubes can be made to use the 1A5/GT octal power 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...
(Which cost around $2.50) by wiring a 5.1 Ohm
Ohm
The ohm is the SI unit of electrical resistance, named after German physicist Georg Simon Ohm.- Definition :The ohm is defined as a resistance between two points of a conductor when a constant potential difference of 1 volt, applied to these points, produces in the conductor a current of 1 ampere,...
resistor
Resistor
A linear resistor is a linear, passive two-terminal electrical component that implements electrical resistance as a circuit element.The current through a resistor is in direct proportion to the voltage across the resistor's terminals. Thus, the ratio of the voltage applied across a resistor's...
between the pins of the filament and fabricating an octal to four pin adaptor. The pin for the 1A5's suppressor is left unconnected and the screen is to be connected to the plate.