Bob Deuel of Ashland has a collection of electrifying proportions.Lightbulb-like glass balls of all shapes and sizes are lined up like little sleeping space aliens on shelf after shelf in Deuel’s house.

They are vacuum tubes, and Deuel has more than 1,130 mounted, labeled and displayed by category, transforming parts of Deuel’s home into something of a museum gallery.

He said he has tens of thousands that are not on display, including 500 of one specific kind and a 9-foot by 27-foot storage unit full of tubes.

Deuel’s collection, in fact, is so impressive to collectors that they awarded him the Tyne Vacuum Tube Award, a international award that recognizes the collection and display of vacuum tubes with documentation, at the Antique Wireless Association conference in New York last fall.

Ludwell Sibley, Tube Collectors Association president and a Sams Valley resident, said Deuel’s accumulation is unique in the West if not the world.

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"That’s an extraordinarily well-presented collection," he said. The Tube Collectors Association is dedicated to the non-commercial collection of electron tubes and the preservation of electron tube history.

Sibley describes himself as more of a historian than a collector and says he’s fascinated by all the ways tubes have been used.

"The bombing of Pearl Harbor was detected by tube-based radar," he said.

Sibley said Deuel’s collection is the largest one around. He said there are 5,000 tubes in The American Museum of Radio and Electricity in Bellingham, Wash., and another museum is under construction in San Jose, Calif.

And tube technology is alive and well.

"If you go into a hospital for an MRI scan, the MRI is powered by tubes," he said.Deuel’s oldest tube is a 1900 X-ray tube, his heaviest a 228-pound tube from a 50,000-watt broadcast radio transmitter in Nebraska. His highest-power tube is a 100-pound, 2 million-watt pulse-rated klystron tube that can power a radar. He has broadcast, communications, industrial, special purpose and pre-receiving tubes. The collection spans the globe with tubes from England, Holland, Russia, France, Italy, Germany, Australia, China, Canada, India and other countries.

"Some work, some don’t," he said.Deuel, now 58, began collecting electronic components as a kindergartner in southern California in the early 1950s.

"I used to go through people’s trash down the street — I took my wagon," he said.

He boasts he still has his very first tube, which he got when he was 8 years old from radio station KNX in Los Angeles. He bought another tube for 25 cents about the same time. A neighbor who repaired medical equipment gave him some unusual industrial tubes, which he still has, and a collection was born. By the time he hit college Deuel was rummaging through back-room bins of electronic surplus stores. The trading and accumulation has grown over the years.

Shirley, his wife of 36 years, said she does not share her husband’s passion for vacuum tubes, and she could think of other things she’d like to do with the collection-filled rooms in the house, but she does find the tubes and their history interesting.

"I’m glad he has them organized like in a collection," she said.

While tube collecting is his greatest interest, he has other collections, such as pre-1927 radios (all battery operated), early transistors and old Christmas tree ornaments and lights. He’s also a licensed amateur radio operator.

Since he retired in 2003 as an engineer from Medford’s public works department, he’s had more time on his hands to dust and organize his vacuum tube collection, and he said he’s in the process of inventorying the tubes.

The tubes are one of those collections that may have little value for one person and great value for the next, he said.

Tubes are making a comeback among audiophiles who favor the sound quality they deliver over that of transistors. China and Russia still manufacture them, Deuel noted, but many of his are rare.

Among the popular uses of tubes today is in tube-powered amplifiers for electric guitars.

Mike Miller, Ashland recording studio mixer and musician, said a lot of guitarists, like Carlos Santana, prefer the even harmonics sound produced by tube amplifiers, as opposed to the odd harmonics sound produced by transistor amplifiers.

"Tubes have a natural compression and reverb that you don’t get with a transistor," he said. He said the tube amps can take out some of the jarring sounds and bring up the body of the music, which is a sound a lot of musicians desire.

But some people just love tubes.

Ask Deuel what his tubes are worth and he looks at you with surprise, as if you asked him how much money he’d sell his child for.

"The collection is all for pleasure, it’s not investment," he said.

Vacuum tubes illuminate picture of old days

But tubes, invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest, can power all kinds of electronic circuitry.

The devices are sealed enclosures in which electrons flow between electrodes separated by a vacuum. They resemble incandescent light bulbs in that they have a filament sealed in a glass envelope, which has been evacuated of all air. When hot, the filament releases electrons into the vacuum.

Most electronics today have replaced tubes with transistors, which unlike vacuum tubes cannot burn out or break.

Tubes are still used, however, in the transmitters of radio stations, many guitar amplifiers, some audiophile equipment and other electronics.

Reach reporter Meg Landers at 776-4481 or e-mail mlanders@mailtribune.com.