Greetings.  I've been searching around and it sounds as if a missing pigtail on the L3 tubes is bad mojo as it goes to max gain.

Got an ITT tube that's dim with missing pigtail, and I'm wondering how they behave in that case.  Could it be dim because of the missing pigtail and perhaps improve with a proper resistor (~125k) or soldered pigtail and PVS14?  I do have a background in electronics, specifically with the DoD, so replacing that or determining a proper resistor won't be an issue.

Thanks for your time.  It's possible I may have missed the answer buried somewhere, but spent a good bit of time looking.

L3 uses a full digital power supply.  Gain is the same with or without a tail.  No tail defaults to the gain on the data sheet.

ITT need either an external tail, or a resistor soldered across the tail pins.