This ad for General Electric portable radios appeared in Life Magazine 75 years ago today, May 19, 1941. The main model featured, model LB-530, was a five-tube broadcast set with a tube lineup consisting of 1A7GT, 1N5GT, 1N5GT, 1H5GT, and 1Q5GT. While billed as being able to run off the internal storage battery or AC, this wasn’t entirely correct. The set always ran from the 2 volt battery, getting its 90 volt B+ from an internal vibrator power supply. The AC current would merely charge the battery, meaning that the set couldn’t really be run without a battery in place. I did have a similar model at one time, and by the time I got the radio, the lead-acid battery was long gone. The set would pull in a few strong stations without the battery in place, but the battery was an indispensable part of the circuit. The set also had provision for charging from a 6 volt car battery.

A nice example of the set can be found at this site.

The radio had a retail price of $39.95. The ad also featured other portables designed to run from dry cell B batteries, starting at $16.95.

Click Here For Today’s Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Cartoon