• Home - This Page.
• History - Some background information.
  • Design For Living - A short opinion piece on British portable radio design with a real-life example.
  • Silicon Kills! - The death of the valve.
  • Books - Classic service literature.
• Batteries, Begone! - A look at the various means of Providing Power
• Downloads - various manuals, articles & schematics for free!
• My Collections - What I Have...each item has its own page with more detail.
  • My Collection - The Proud Portables that started it all.
  • Anchors Aweigh! - My growing 'boatanchor' collection of heavy comms. receivers.
  • Testing, Testing! - My also growing collection of test gear.
• Restoration Hints - Making It Work and Look Good. Includes an excellent troubleshooting guide.
• Links & Stuff - Other Folks in Other Places

All this is brought together from varied sources and seasoned with my own opinions, judgements and knowledge in an easily referenced point of information for this forgotten corner of post-War radio technology. Additionally, there are some schematics, manuals, period advertisements and magazine articles to enjoy.

Featured inside are:

• Model Listings - with photos and specifications

  • Now Featuring some classic American Portables!

• Restoration Hints & Tips

• Battery Eliminator Designs

• General history including

  • Opinions On Design

  • Silicon Kills!

• Favoured Links

• Downloads -things for free!

• Surfing The Shortwaves - DXing

• 'Boatanchors' - My Collection Here!

• Testing, Testing!

As my collection and interests have grown, I have added vintage test gear and heavy communications receivers - 'boatanchors' - for further interest.

I know there are several sites on the web dealing in vintage radio but, invariably, these are wooden cased mains-driven table or floor console models. Radios have always been portable (even before transistors made them into a fashion statement) but I couldn't find much information about valve portables. So, in the finest tradition, I thought, "Why not build a site dedicated to the valve portable yourself and incorporate all the knowledge and wisdom you have acquired into an easy to find site?".

So, here is the result thus far of my particular choice of esoteria in the already obscure world of vintage radio. And please note, my moving to the other side of the Atlantic has meant that the focus on British portables is to be weakened somewhat if the collection is to continue to grow - sorry!

A Note Concerning Copyright: The copyrights on the material in this site rests with the author or as shown in any copyright statements. Visitors are allowed to freely copy anything useful but acknowledge its source if being reused (including use for Ebay auctions!).This site is provided as enjoyment and not as a commercial venture so please don't try and make any money off it! Attention Webmasters - please feel free to link to this front page if you have a relevant site and let me know so I can provide a reciprocal link. Thanks.