were there ever any portable AM/FM tube radios made? That ran off batteries? I've seen tons of AM battery powered tube radios ( I have a bunch) but I've never seen an AM/FM.

Thanks, Mark

Mark - I had often wondered the same thing and found the answer a few months ago - not in the US.
This website gives a nice dissuasion of the reasons:
http://www.somerset.net/arm/fm_only_wanted.html

It reads, in part: "The difficulty of making portable FM sets with vacuum tubes also inhibited the popularity of FM. Tubes that operated reliably at 100 Mc were not easy to make, and only very specialized tubes were very good for low-power operation at high frequencies (e.g. nuvistors). Thus, FM failed as a band for portable radios. There are some European AM/FM portable tube sets (e.g. Philips L4x71AB) and there are a few rumors of FM-only European sets..."

Perhaps, if we had stayed with Major Armstrong's original 45 Mc FM band, there could have been.

Robert,

Thanks for the info, interesting stuff.

Mark

:Mark - I had often wondered the same thing and found the answer a few months ago - not in the US.
:This website gives a nice dissuasion of the reasons:
:http://www.somerset.net/arm/fm_only_wanted.html
:
:It reads, in part: "The difficulty of making portable FM sets with vacuum tubes also inhibited the popularity of FM. Tubes that operated reliably at 100 Mc were not easy to make, and only very specialized tubes were very good for low-power operation at high frequencies (e.g. nuvistors). Thus, FM failed as a band for portable radios. There are some European AM/FM portable tube sets (e.g. Philips L4x71AB) and there are a few rumors of FM-only European sets..."
:
:Perhaps, if we had stayed with Major Armstrong's original 45 Mc FM band, there could have been.