Home Guard House - Oct 21

[Roderick]

This report is the very quintessence of what this web site is about, real derelict place with all the feeling and atmosphere perfectly captured. Thank goodness you found it first!

 

[Hayman]

What batteries does the Sky King take? In the early 1950s, my parents had a dark green Ever Ready portable that had a hinged lid with a brass clasp. It had a cream-coloured pressed metal face, and took one large battery and one small one. I think the large one was high voltage - perhaps 120 volts DC - and the small one was low voltage - perhaps about 6 volts DC. We would take it with us when going on picnics in Devon in the prewar soft-top Opel.

 

[Roderick]

Most of these battery valve sets used 90V for the HT and 1.5V for the valve heaters. In this set there was a B136 combined battery providing both in one pack.

 

[Hayman]

Most of these battery valve sets used 90V for the HT and 1.5V for the valve heaters. In this set there was a B136 combined battery providing both in one pack.

It may have been a 90 v battery for the HT. And 1.5 v DC for the valve heaters sounds about right.

 

[John_D]

Most of these battery valve sets used 90V for the HT and 1.5V for the valve heaters. In this set there was a B136 combined battery providing both in one pack.

Yes, and they stopped making the radio batteries sometime in the 1970's. You have to remake the batteries, ideally with the outer cardboard box from an old battery, though scans are available online for most of them for you to print out, (the original 'dead' batteries' often make more on eBay, than the sets they came out of), refilling them with 10 x PP3 9v batteries for the 90volts HT, and a couple of alkaline '1.5volt 'D' cells, connected in parallel, for the LT filaments. In true 'Blue Peter' fashion, here's one I made earlier...

 

[John_D]

What batteries does the Sky King take? In the early 1950s, my parents had a dark green Ever Ready portable that had a hinged lid with a brass clasp. It had a cream-coloured pressed metal face, and took one large battery and one small one. I think the large one was high voltage - perhaps 120 volts DC - and the small one was low voltage - perhaps about 6 volts DC. We would take it with us when going on picnics in Devon in the prewar soft-top Opel.

That sounds like it was a Vidor CN381, from 1948, another one in my restored collection.... The batteries are 90v and 1.5v

 

[Hayman]

That sounds like it was a Vidor CN381, from 1948, another one in my restored collection.... The batteries are 90v and 1.5v

The Vidor CN381 looks very much like my memory of our portable. The pressed steel top with the louvres, the two control knobs and the waveband switch and scale. Also the dark green colour of the rexine (?) covered case. I suppose - as with calling a vacuum cleaner a Hoover - portable radios were usually called Ever Readys.

 

[Roderick]

Amazing what turns up in a thread about the perfect derelict house - loving it!