28 May
2024
28 May
'24
6:23 p.m.
Could this be the answer to the question we have been studying?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cleaning-crew-discovers-one-world…
cheers,
Nigel
On 2024-05-28 13:45, Nigel Johnson Ham wrote:
In line with my memories completely, Tony, although I was just a wee
sapling back then.
It is also where the terms 'A', 'B' and 'C' supplies come from,
since
there were three batteries per radio, grid bias, HT, and heaters. The
grid bias battery lasted a long time since there was very little
current drawn.
And I have fond memories of learning to play the piano by gaslight,
since the elderly spinster piano teacher and her mother refused to let
the house be connected to the electric mains as they were afraid of it!
Then of course there was the Ronan Point gas explosion which blew out
a whole floor of a high-rise building in London that might have
changed people's minds!
73 de Nigel ve3id
On 2024-05-28 13:17, Tony Duell via cctalk wrote:
--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591
On Tue, May 28, 2024 at 6:06 PM
ben<bfranchuk(a)jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
--
Nigel Johnson, MSc., MIEEE, MCSE VE3ID/G4AJQ/VA3MCU
Amateur Radio, the origin of the open-source concept!
Skype: TILBURY2591
Just what is a gas radio?
A radio that runs off gas rather than plugging into the electricity mains.
Let me explain. The main use for either gas or electriciy in UK homes
until the mid 1920s was heating (including cooking) and light. Both
energy sources could easily be used for that. But then a large number
of electric appliances using motors started to appear, along with
other things, like radios that ran off the electricity mains (rather
than a dry battery for the HT supply (B+) and a single-cell lead acid
accumulator for the valve filaments).
The gas supply companies were worried they would lose business as a
result and designed gas powered version of all the mains electrical
devices. One classis was the table fan which had a small Stirling-type
hot air engine to turn the blades. There was of course a little gas
burner to run the engine. The only problem was the heat of the flame
rather negated the cooling effect of the fan.
Anyway, the gas radio. This was a wooden floor-standing console
cabinet looking like most other radios of the time. The bit I
repaired (for a museum, where I understood it would be run off a
normal electrical power supply for obvious reasons) was the radio
which was a normal-for-the time 3 or 4 valve (tube) set. There was a
speaker in the cabinet too. At the bottom was the power supply. This
consisted of a gas burner with a thermopile (array of thermocouple
junctions) on top to provide the valve filament and HT voltages.
There was no flue. The combustion products were simply vented into the
room, And yes the gas burner was inside the wooden console cabinet, so
it was something of a fire risk to be polite about it.
AFAIK they were never sold to the public, thankfully.
-tony