Looking for batteries for a portable

[YamahaFreak]

I scored a Motorola model 5P31A for a whole 3 bucks. It's a great sounding little radio, and I would like to find some batteries for it if i could. It uses an Eveready no. 479 90-volt A battery and a no. 707 7.5-volt B battery. I've tried eBay and Google with no luck. Are there any places I can still get these, or am I going to have to cram nine 9-volts in there???

The radio:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=006

[Celt]

Try http://www.tubesandmore.com

[YamahaFreak]

Originally Posted by Celt

Try http://www.tubesandmore.com

Wonder if I could fit two of their #S-Z415's in there? Looks to have the same connector.

P.S.-- I LOVE that avatar.

[ekimetsok]

90v Eveready 479 batteries are still available. Look here: http://www.handyacehardware.com/prod...spx?pid=116812

[fsjonsey]

Im using 10 rechargeable NIMH 9v batteries wired in series to power my transoceanic. I wonder if they would fit?

[70salesguy]

My brother (older) had one of those radios prior to 1963. I believe he received it for a Christmas present in 1961!!!

[Old1625]

Originally Posted by fsjonsey

Im using 10 rechargeable NIMH 9v batteries wired in series to power my transoceanic. I wonder if they would fit?

That is something I'll have to try with my Trans-O.

BTW love your sig!

I always have loved those old Zenith TVs!

That brings back some memories from the early '70s. In the mid-to-late '50s my grandparents had gotten one exactly like the one you show for my great grandmother who lived with them in her last years. She was a smart--and a petite-but-feisty lady--one that didn't take any BS. She was nicknamed "Small" by the family. I'm told she had met me, and held me in her arms when I was a baby. I don't remember it, and she was long gone by the time I would've been able to meet her and have any memory of it.

I watched programs such as the Three Stooges on WSBK channel 38 and WLVI channel 56 on that set years later when visiting the grandfolks.

Ah for the daze of innocence....

OK folks! Sorry for the hijack! I'll behave now....

[YamahaFreak]

Originally Posted by ekimetsok

90v Eveready 479 batteries are still available. Look here: http://www.handyacehardware.com/prod...spx?pid=116812

Thanks! Looks like that will work. Now I gotta track down the #707.

[batterymaker]

I make a 707 if you can't find a solution. Mine uses 5 AA batteries, looks and works like the original.

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by YamahaFreak

I scored a Motorola model 5P31A for a whole 3 bucks. It's a great sounding little radio, and I would like to find some batteries for it if i could. It uses an Eveready no. 479 90-volt A battery and a no. 707 7.5-volt B battery. I've tried eBay and Google with no luck. Are there any places I can still get these, or am I going to have to cram nine 9-volts in there???

The radio:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...MEWN:IT&ih=006

I think you have the type numbers of the two batteries transposed. Ninety volts is far too much for the filament supply, and the radio could not possibly work with only 7.5 volts B+ on the plates of the tubes.

BTW: I have heard of schemes such as you mention (connecting nine or ten nine-volt transistor batteries in series) to replace a 90-volt B battery in old tube-powered battery/AC portable radios when the normal 90- or 67.5-volt pack is unavailable. The improvised 90-volt battery will last quite a while, as the tubes in these old battery portables didn't draw much plate current. However, I wouldn't use anything other than alkaline batteries (nothing smaller than D cells) to replace the A (filament supply) battery, as the filaments in all the old 1- and 3-volt battery-radio tubes drew an awful lot of current; so much, in fact, that a four-tube battery radio (for example) would eat up a set of carbon-zinc batteries in a matter of minutes.

[YamahaFreak]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

I think you have the type numbers of the two batteries transposed. Ninety volts is far too much for the filament supply, and the radio could not possibly work with only 7.5 volts B+ on the plates of the tubes.

BTW: I have heard of schemes such as you mention (connecting nine or ten nine-volt transistor batteries in series) to replace a 90-volt B battery in old tube-powered battery/AC portable radios when the normal 90- or 67.5-volt pack is unavailable. The improvised 90-volt battery will last quite a while, as the tubes in these old battery portables didn't draw much plate current. However, I wouldn't use anything other than alkaline batteries (nothing smaller than D cells) to replace the A (filament supply) battery, as the filaments in all the old 1- and 3-volt battery-radio tubes drew an awful lot of current; so much, in fact, that a four-tube battery radio (for example) would eat up a set of carbon-zinc batteries in a matter of minutes.

You are probably right. I wasn't looking very closely.