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World War Two Coastwatcher Battery

SAG 180

Titanium
Joined
Sep 17, 2007
Location
Cairns, Qld, Australia
Today I saw an interesting artifact: a World War Two Coastwatcher radio battery. The Coastwatchers were civilians placed around various pacific island locations along with radio equipment to observe enemy movements and pass the intelligence back to Australia. It's a lead acid 24 Volt unit made by Exide, it's dated "1940" and "Admiralty" on the sides of wooden box that contains the 12 rectangular glass cells with some sort of hard rubber lids and rubber caps. The cells are linked with lead covered brass screws and nuts, the writing is in black ink on both wood sides and mentions specific gravity when charged and flat as well as charging currents but it's a bit hard to make out after 79 years.

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I've seen very small wet cell batteries very similar used in early radio's. They were no longerthan 4" in length but made exactly the same way. Pricey little devils !

As a ten year old kid getting started in radio I would have been all over that battery. I was given a lot of vintage radio stuff that I promptly pulled apart: HAC-1 radios from DC3 aircraft.
 








 
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