Quote:
Originally Posted by daepp
Not that long ago I heard the FAA was the largest buyer of vacuum tubes on the planet. It was said many were purchased from the Soviets!
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i am an FAA electronics tech. not sure how many are still in service, but the old long range radars are probably the last equipment that use conventional tubes as most people know.
we still have radars with very large vacuum tubes that we use a a hoist to pick up and stand about 4ft tall or so. if you saw one you would not know what it was.
we also still use smaller ones that look like ceramic disks with copper type rings for conductors. those are used in interrogation radars to talk to the transponders in planes.
the radar i work on know is ALL digital and computer controlled. although the radar video/coverage is better than analog radar, it really sucks to work on.
just spent 3 days trying to figure out why a computer kept going down.