Vintage Electrical Appliance #4 - The GEC "Portable" Radio

[Flying10uk]

The next item that I have to show from my vintage electrical collection is the GEC portable radio dating to the early 1950's. This radio has been in my family from new being purchased in the 1950's and, at the time, was considered small. Being 1950's technology it still used valves (vacuum tubes) rather than transistors and hence the need for the slightly scary 90 volt battery which I assume would have been potentially dangerous at that voltage. For the benefit of anyone who doesn't know, in simple terms, valves or some valves require relatively high voltages to function correctly unlike transistors which will work at much lower voltages. It also had the option to work on 240 volt mains. The aerial is concealed in the lid.

Sadly the radio no longer works but all the internals are there and so it is perfectly possible that it could be made to work.

[Bob Womack]

Just need to replace some caps, probably!

Bob

[Sapper740]

The old dynamotors in Wireless Sets No. 19 which were used well into the 1960's put out 550 VDC!

[browningautorifle]

Pic number 6...has a connector to insert into a light socket? Is that what it is?

[Flying10uk]

Is that what it is?

Yes, because if the appliance didn't exceed 5 amps it use to be considered acceptable to "tap into" a lighting circuit which were fused at 5 amps at the consumer unit. We wouldn't use a similar adaptor today and it wouldn't be considered safe or acceptable because all portable appliances are fused at the plug, in the UK today. None of the round pin plugs that were in common use in the 1950's in the UK had a fuse and all relied, solely, on the fuse at the consumer unit for protection.

As I understand it through talking to my late father the way that the round pin sockets were supposed to wired was one socket with one wire going back to the consumer unit for the 15 amp, yes 15 amps, round pin sockets, protected by a 15 amp fuse. If I remember correctly what my father said, for the smaller 5 amp round pin sockets it could be a maximum of 2 x 5 amp sockets with one wire going back to the consumer unit protected by a 5 amp fuse. As a consequence, generally, there use to be a lot less number of sockets in a house and was why sometimes people used a light socket as a power source. There was an adaptor socket available for plugging into light fittings that allowed you to carry on using the light while also tapping into the socket to power something like a radio. You did get people trying to increase the number of round pin sockets in their house by wiring sockets in incorrectly/inappropriately which was never safe and risked overloading the circuit and the possibility of causing a fire. The modern UK system of each portable appliance being protected by it's own fuse in the plug is a much better and safer system to how it use to be.

THE ABOVE IS FOR INTEREST ONLY AND SHOULD NOT BE TAKEN AS ELECTRICAL ADVICE. FOR ANYONE REQUIRING ADVICE FOR ELECTRICAL WORK A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN SHOULD BE CONSULTED.

[browningautorifle]

There was an adaptor socket available for plugging into light fittings that allowed you to carry on using the light while also tapping into the socket to power something like a radio.

I remember those well.