No18 set power source

[Mike Gurr]

I have a No 18 set which a friend is to try and restore to working condition, he is experienced in working with valve radios and has done 19 sets before as well as civilian radios but is stuck on how to provide a suitable power source as apparently there are no batteries suitable now available. If anyone has done this before any advice would be welcome.

[Chris Suslowicz]

Pietro Noto in Italy used to make a small inverter module that used a 6-volt sealed lead-acid battery to provide all the necessary voltages (3 volts for the valve filaments, -12V grid bias & +150V HT), but I'm not sure if he is still doing that.

You could take a 996 lantern battery apart and connect it in series/parallel for the 3-volt supply (that was the make-up of the original LT section, two pairs of 'F' cells in series/parallel), and 8 x AA cells in a holder for the grid bias section, but the 150 volts will always be a problem.

(I regret not buying some of those inverters when I had the opportunity.)
Chris.

[Bruce MacMillan]

drop Pietro an email and ask about availability. pietronoto@tiscali.it
I have one for my WS48 which is the same. Besides the battle battery a static battery was available which was comprised of different batteries in a box. 16 or 17 9V batteries in series should be ok for HT.

[Mike Gurr]

Thank you both, I will email him.

[Mike Gurr]

Reply from Pietro today, he does still make them but out of stock until the end of next month. A great result again for the power of MLU!