Control grid Control grid The control grid is an electrode used in amplifying thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) such as the triode, tetrode and pentode, used to control the flow of electrons from the cathode to the anode (plate) electrode. The control grid usually consists of a cylindrical screen or helix of fine wire surrounding the cathode, and is surrounded in turn by the anode. The control grid was invented by Lee De Forest, who in 1906 added a grid to the Fleming valve (thermionic diode) to create the first amplifying vacuum tube, the Audion (triode). In a valve, the hot cathode emits
Valve RF amplifier Single Ended Triode (DH-SET) audio amplifiers use radio transmitting valves originally designed to operate as RF amplifiers in the high frequency range. The most efficient valve-based RF amplifiers operate Class C. If used with no tuned circuit in the output, this would distort the input signal, producing harmonics. However, class C amplifiers normally use a high Q output network which removes the harmonics, leaving an undistorted sine wave identical to the input waveform. Class C is suitable only for amplifying signals with a constant amplitude, such as FM, FSK, and some CW (Morse code) signals. Where the amplitude of the