Hi Adrian,
I did a bit of background work, looking for links to the R326 but it seems like you have found them anyway. Here is another which does give a bit more on the actual radio, and some possible limitations of rod tubes, and is an interesting site anyway: ANTENTOP.
Mike has hit upon a few excellent points here which will be relevant to you. It's not something that I am very familiar with as I tend to concentrate more on design / construction and research more in the areas of ham or, in this case, military radio rather than consumer equipment. As such things like cost are a lesser factor so combined mixer oscillators are thinner on the ground. I do wonder? My view is that the Russians didn't seem to make any major errors so their approach should work. Being military it is designed for different criteria. The way I see it reliability and ease / standardisation of maintenance may be far more important than absolute performance of cost. (I do find it interesting how boxes of rod and other tubes came with spec / connection sheets). A point I would make though is that rod pentodes were a clever design to circumvent some of the limitations of traditional valves. As such they will almost certainly have limitations in comparison, as well as their intended advantages.
If / when I find more I will update you.
Tracy
I did a bit of background work, looking for links to the R326 but it seems like you have found them anyway. Here is another which does give a bit more on the actual radio, and some possible limitations of rod tubes, and is an interesting site anyway: ANTENTOP.
Mike has hit upon a few excellent points here which will be relevant to you. It's not something that I am very familiar with as I tend to concentrate more on design / construction and research more in the areas of ham or, in this case, military radio rather than consumer equipment. As such things like cost are a lesser factor so combined mixer oscillators are thinner on the ground. I do wonder? My view is that the Russians didn't seem to make any major errors so their approach should work. Being military it is designed for different criteria. The way I see it reliability and ease / standardisation of maintenance may be far more important than absolute performance of cost. (I do find it interesting how boxes of rod and other tubes came with spec / connection sheets). A point I would make though is that rod pentodes were a clever design to circumvent some of the limitations of traditional valves. As such they will almost certainly have limitations in comparison, as well as their intended advantages.
If / when I find more I will update you.
Tracy
