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摘要

Kees Wissenburgh (78) estimates that he's had twenty-five thousand tubes in his hands. For the last five years or so, he has managed the storage area for these old electrical components: tubes for radios, radar and TVs. "This collection was started by a TU Delft staff member who had worked as a radio operator. He had been to sea and had connections everywhere", explains the former analogue electronics lecturer. The room is filled to the ceiling with hundreds of boxes. "What's in those boxes is often a surprise." One of the tubes has an eagle and a swastika drawn on it. "This comes from a German V2 rocket", says Wissenburgh. "It's a unique item. V2 rockets were fired to England from The Hague and other locations. I still vividly remember the sound they made. It resembled that of the jet engine of a modern aeroplane. Clutching my teddy bear, I would sit in the stairwell listening. If the sound suddenly stopped, you knew that the rocket had crashed. One came down just around the corner from my aunt's house."