All depends on where you look, if it's Ebay then that's right. I have a
KS-15874-L2 Cardmatic with a full set of cards that I got for less than $50.
My I-177 was $40 , Eico 666 for $25, Hickok 800A was $80 and Hickok 540 was
$25. Still like the old 177 for the radio tubes, fast and reliable. Lot of
the stuff I found advertising on a small local AM station "Swap Shop".
"proletariat" wrote in message
...
The Hickok 533A or 600A, the Heathkit TT-1, the TV-7A/U and the Sencore
MU150 are the lowest cost of the serious tube testers, with the TT-1 or
TV-7A/U being the picks of that group.

All are around $200, + a good calibration will run you $75 - $125

There is no good $50 tube tester. It is like saying I want to buy a
serious
computer for $100

But your $300 investment will serve you well, and the great thing is,
should
you decide to sell it, you should make money, as you will likely get over
$300 for a calibrated example of any of the above testers.

cowboy



You really want to
"JP" wrote in message
nk.net...
Hi,

I working on repairing my first old radio--a Majestic 1A59EB. I would
like
to test the tubes in it (41, 75, 80, 6A7, 6D6), but have no tube tester
on
my wee bench. The testers I see for sale on Ebay seem to range between
$5-50 (Superior, Eico, etc.), then jump to testers that sell for over
$300-1000 (Hickok, military models, etc.).

So I was curious what models I could pick up for a reasonable price
(under
$50 or so) that would test the tubes I need to test, have a decent range
of
tube types that it can handle for my future projects, and not...to be
blunt, be a worthless heap of garbage from day one.

Any advice would be much appreciated--including better sources to buy
tube
testers than Ebay.

Thanks much,

Jason