VTVM Mod/FETRons

[Alan Dean Martin]

This is getting farther off subject but made me think of a past memory I had
surpressed until now.

John Burch wrote:

> Wednesday  02-25-98
> Rocklin, CA  95677
>
> Ah, FETrons...

Envision bay after bay, floor to ceiling,
of tube-type telephone carrier equipment.  Row after row.  Floor after
floor.  Toobs as fer as you kin see!

One day a couple of "suits" showed up with a small box of replacement
407 and 408 tubes, which were the brand new FETrons.  I was told that
it was now MY job to swap out all of the tubes for these new little
do-dads,which would be arriving directly in "significant quantity".My story:
In about 1980 I was the technician at the computing center at the University of
Colorado in Boulder. I was in charge of keeping all the serial communications up
and running for all the time share terminals. (this is before PC's became
prevalent). They were making sweeping changes and upgrades to add VAX computers
and lots of dedicated lines and data concentrators.

One day, 6 miles of cable (in 1000 foot spools) shows up on the delivery dock,
along with 2000 male and 2000 female DB-25 connectors.

I was "in charge" of the crimping tool.....

Since I had just gotten my BSEE degree I figured it was time to leave the warm
nest of campus and seek employment elsewhere.


> ----------
> > From: Alan Dean Martin <admartin at pacbell.net>
> >
> > Here' some silly trivia:
> >
> > The 12AU7 replacement tubes were called "Fetrons". They had originally
> > been developed for Bell Telephone equipment which benefitted from
> > improved reliability without having to replace costly equipent.
>
> I recently retired from The Phone Company.  In my salad days, I was
> a carrier maintenance weenie.  Envision bay after bay, floor to ceiling,
> of tube-type telephone carrier equipment.  Row after row.  Floor after
> floor.  Toobs as fer as you kin see!
>
> One day a couple of "suits" showed up with a small box of replacement
> 407 and 408 tubes, which were the brand new FETrons.  I was told that
> it was now MY job to swap out all of the tubes for these new little do-dads,
> which would be arriving directly in "significant quantity".
>
> But the pay was pretty good, and I stayed a long time...
>
> 73 de John  WB6GHA formerly WN6GHA
> former Toll Transmissionman ("Tollie"), San Francisco Main (SNFCCA01)
> IBEW Local Union 1011, Order of Repeatermen and Toll Testboardmen
> ..
>
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