24-05-2012, 01:35 AM
The curious truth is, it wasn't just Hacker who took a while to introduce transistor portables able easily to be powered either by batteries or from the mains: every other UK manufacturer dragged their feet in that regard too. It wasn't until the middle of 1962 that the first mains/battery UK transistor set was introduced, Ekco's MBT414: it was followed in the next few months by Pye and Ferranti clones, but that, for quite a while, was that, and so presumably there wasn't much of a market there to be tapped at the time. Batteries for valve portables had been quite a serious expense, and mains/battery models had abounded: in more instances than a few they were supplanted by transistor sets using the very same cabinet designs, but always battery-only. The price of a PP9 which sticks in my mind is 3s 9d: I can only guess that was a small enough fraction of the cost of the radios that used it, and of the cost people were used to paying for radio batteries, that hardly anyone wanted to fork out an initial extra amount for a mains p.s.u. then have the inconvenience of connecting and disconnecting the radio according to where it was to be used, all for the sake of saving 3s 9d or 7s 6d every year or so.
Portability... well, a Sovereign's portable enough to be taken from room to room (given that the houses even of Hacker owners in the 1960s would have tended only to contain one or two radios), out into the garden as Mark says, maybe into the car for use there or on a picnic... how portable does a radio need to be?
It's less of a lump than a Sky Queen, never mind most of the portables and "transportables" that flourished before the war... I wonder how often say an Ekco ADT95, a lump of around 35 lbs in a big bakelite case with lifting handles at the sides and built-in frame aerials so it could just be plugged in and used anywhere, would have been moved between rooms by a typical owner.
I confess to a small sideline in "ghetto blasters" myself, the bigger the better: like Sovereigns, the great compensation for their bulk is the sound quality they deliver. Mp3 players are fine for one listener at a time, but attempt to share any music other than by wiring people together, hazardous in itself, and the result's horrendous as anyone will know who's sat on a 'bus a few feet from half a dozen children gathered round a matchbox-sized Thing sounding as though it was crammed with angry wasps busily stinging one another to death. Would that I'd had a trusty 1980ish JVC or Panasonic there to displace the distorted misery with some music recognisable as such, that morning I'd have settled for practically anything...
Paul
Portability... well, a Sovereign's portable enough to be taken from room to room (given that the houses even of Hacker owners in the 1960s would have tended only to contain one or two radios), out into the garden as Mark says, maybe into the car for use there or on a picnic... how portable does a radio need to be?
It's less of a lump than a Sky Queen, never mind most of the portables and "transportables" that flourished before the war... I wonder how often say an Ekco ADT95, a lump of around 35 lbs in a big bakelite case with lifting handles at the sides and built-in frame aerials so it could just be plugged in and used anywhere, would have been moved between rooms by a typical owner. I confess to a small sideline in "ghetto blasters" myself, the bigger the better: like Sovereigns, the great compensation for their bulk is the sound quality they deliver. Mp3 players are fine for one listener at a time, but attempt to share any music other than by wiring people together, hazardous in itself, and the result's horrendous as anyone will know who's sat on a 'bus a few feet from half a dozen children gathered round a matchbox-sized Thing sounding as though it was crammed with angry wasps busily stinging one another to death. Would that I'd had a trusty 1980ish JVC or Panasonic there to displace the distorted misery with some music recognisable as such, that morning I'd have settled for practically anything...
Paul
