There were several ways that it was implemented. The third generation tubes are much smaller and have very good resolution, as do the fourth generation tubes. I do not see much difference in the third and fourth generation, as they are both very nice and expensive. The cost of the units very by several thousand dollars depending on the application, lenses, type and manufacture. One like the ones our military uses flying jets and helicopters cost 8 to 10k and up the little hand held units are 2k to 5k the ones mounted on artillery cost 20 25k as do the ones used in tanks for periscopes and the FLIR units (forward looking infared) can cost 8k for a handheld up to 250k for a helicopter mounted unit. You can see why I look for bargains. I have the periscope unit out of a British Centurion 2 Tank, but I have one extra set of wires I believe go to a panel somewhere and I cannot figure for sure what they do, but I think they set the brightness of the tubes.

The things you look at are basically TV screens and the imaging tubes magnify the usable light millions of times. The good ones are cool. The things on TV movies are green film over the picture, but it looks pretty authentic. The stuff on helos and jets are the real thing like on the military, history channel and such. Oh well, maybe someday I will have enough money to buy new stuff. I think the only new things I have purchased in the last ten years is my pickup, a flail mower and six foot box blade. I trade for everything else. But I can't find some of the smaller things like copper wire, magnets cuts of steel and a few others. Like is good though.

Regards,

I was so happy, A running big block, tranny and other parts for 400 bucks. It took some help but it all fit in the Healy with a few mods and some mods on the hood and fenders, front end, rear end, axles plus electrical. The Healy was painted and looked good with some custom wheels and some Mickey Thomson N-50 tires and of coarse big fat 4 inch tube side pipes. It was an 18 year olds dream car, but the extra front end weight screwed up the handle of the car and the stock brakes on the front were way to small, however it made a good light to light racer. I was dangerous fast, took a mile to slow down from 120 plus and it pushed like a tractor cornering. It looked cool though, and it got the girls.

What else is important to an 18 year old yank? Just beer and cars and cars and beer and beer and girls, did I say beer? LOL I sold it when I moved to Oregon and got a 57 Chevy wagon to build up. I wish I would have saved the Healy, but if I had all of the cars I sold as a youth I would be rich. I stopped kicking myself a long time ago. I still have one toy car that costs me just to keep it around, but it is fun to boil the tires every time I start feeling to old and wonder back how in the hell I made it through my youth without killing myself in a car.

Nice to hear from you

AliBro