Astor two-valve radio.

[Reece]

Rather odd design. I was not familiar with these tube/valve numbers. Looked them up: the 12B8 is a triode/pentode, and the 32L7 is a rectifier/beam power output. So you have the equivalent of a four valve/tube set. The heaters add up to 44 volts, to run from a 240 volt power line, so they had to add a transformer, which is not cheap. Then they added a dial light, which is usually left off a cheap radio, so I'm sort of getting mixed signals about where the money was going in designing/building this set! It has a field coil speaker so that must serve as the power supply choke: wow. There are cheaper ways to build a low cost radio but this doesn't seem to be the way? They could have added another tube and an IF transformer and made it into a superhet for just a couple of dollars more! There were some tiny two-tube US sets in the late '30's but I'm not familiar with them. They I believe used resistance line cords to drop the 120 volts to what the heaters wanted, something that only gun-totin' US cowboys would tolerate, and would not fly in the land of high-voltage Oz!

Keep us informed on what you find in this interesting set!