19 Set Control Unit Batteries

[Chris Suslowicz]

Originally Posted by rob love

I picked up a pair of those remote control units form the local surplus store back around 1979. I was in the militia then, and the old signals Sergent went into the back room and brought out some reasonably fresh batteries for the units. I'm not sure what else they were used in back then, but they were still in use with some piece of equipment or another.

Come to think about it, I have a portable desklamp hiding somewhere which also uses those same batteries if I recall correctly. I saw those go surplus in the 1980s, so likely the batteries were still around for use in those.

They go back at least to the first world war, when they were used in Telephone Set 'D' Mark II (and later models), Fullerphones, the Daylight Signalling Lamp, and other things that needed a small battery supply.

Switchboard U.C. (6-line or 10-line) uses three of them, the 10-line Magneto Switchboard (W.D.) used a pair for the "night alarm" (plus another pair in the operator's Telephone Set 'J').

It's possible that they're not completely obsolete yet, though adapters were made to fit a pair of 'D' cells in Telephone Sets J & L by the manufacturer, and modern field telephones tend to use C or D cells.

Chris.