Hygain Footwarmer 10 Meter Amplifier using 2 8908 tubes on the bench

Another recent buy from a local swap that I almost missed out on. You know the old saying, You snooze you lose? Well, I saw this at the swap in a junkpile with no tubes, for a whopping $25 bucks. I was going to get it for sure, but for one, I was still going to try to get the seller down to 20 and also, the seller had a junky basket case Mohawk 10 in that same junkpile. Hence, as I was semi negotiating on the Mohawk and also peeping around to see if there was anything else I could use, another customer came up, picked up the Footwarmer from the junkpile and pulled out cash. Dang, I thought I missed out, but offered the new buyer a quick 35 and he accepted it. He knew at the 25 he paid, it was a great deal, even without tubes, but I think he knew I wanted it more than he did. So, I ended up with the Footwarmer and also the junkbox Mohawk too. I think I aid 20 for it. On the Mohawk, I hope the tranny is good as that's why I bought it. I have a fair Mohawk Ten already, but it has a bad tranny.
Since the only 8908 tubes I have are already in other boxes I have, no spares, I ended up digging out the other Footwarmer I already had. The tubes are weak in it, but at least I can test the amp. Of course I recapped it before I started. With the weak tubes, and recapping, it sometimes played, but had an intermittent. It had 2 problems, the relay was dirty and not always connecting and one of the solder feedthru terminals had a cold solder joint. Also, someone replaced the main power switch with a big ugly toggle switch. I took that out and bypassed it for now, and have something close to the original rocker switch on the way.
After that, it fired up and does everything its supposed to do, just on the weak side. from the book, it uses 1-5 wats drive, and can dead key 300 watts or less. The book says to not dead key that high. No swing, and stresses the tubes and components. This is a Turbocharged Tetrode amp and it likes low dead key and high swing. It has a variable in the rear and I dialed it down to 10 watts dead key and 100 RMS swing, and over 200 watts peak. It's a swinger even with the weak tubes and with a better set of tubes it would do more. Has an Input Swr of 1.0 and runs nice and clean.
The only downside to this amp is that it uses the hard to find and expensive 8908 tubes. My Bud gave me a heads-up that RFParts is selling some NOS for 109 each. Yikes, 218 for a pair. However, I'm still doing the research, but it looks like the 6lw6 tube is almost the same tube, except the filament is 6v and the cathode and the suppressor grid are tied together internally in the 6lw6. I know that the 6lw6 won't work when used as a grounded grid amp as GG amps used the cathode for drive. However, with tetrode amps like this one, Grid 1 is used for drive and the cathode is grounded which with the 6lw6 also grounds the suppressor grid, which is the way the tube was designed to run. Stay Tuned.

[@oscarrogers9745]

Maverick kid hair I have 17 Maverick 250s I love bringing them back to life😊

[@tramdr]

Maverick's are great amps.

[@321CatboxWA]

Love the name. Should have had a guard rail across the switches. It's a footwarmer after all, someone probably poked the power switch in with their big ole toe nail. 73

[@timlurkins5491]

I like mine. Awesome driver

[@bblod4896]

Foot Warmer = Toe Toaster 😂

[@q95oldies57]

Sure don't see those very often.

[@miker8379]

Nice

[@tramdr]

Thanks

[@miker8379]

I'm guessing something like 300 peak is what they had in mind

[@tramdr]

300 peak is the magic number in the manual.

[@rodneymclemore8587]

I have a question for you. What’s the cross match for 8950 tube’s? 73’s from THE SHOWSTOPPER IN THE BLACK GOLD.