I would be grateful for the advice of one of our technically minded
members:
The new radio I have coming merely states it's power consumption as
210VA, as it is a multivoltage radio.

What consumption in watts/amps does this translate to at 240 volts AC
mains?
Also. if I used an inverter to drive it off a 12 volt DC battery, what
would the power consumption in amps then be?

A friend who helped me wrote:
Watts = Volts * Amperes so 210VA = 210 Watts

210 Watts means 210 / 240 Amps which is .875 Amps.

If you want to use a 12V battery, 210 Watts means 210 / 12 Amps or
17.5 Amps. This assumes the AC supply is as efficient as the DC
supply. It won't actually be quite as efficient, so you're likely to
need fewer Amps, maybe 14 or 15 but that's a guess. Maybe you can ask
as the DC current depends on their design which is not known to us
yet.

Those numbers look very high to me. I suspect they've made a little
mistake.

I replied:
it does seem very high to me for 210VA. at 240 volts AC mains.
As just a poor guess I would estimate
0.5 amps at 240 volts AC mains
and 8 amps at 12v DC
but I cannot calculate it.
_______________________________

So what do the experts out there think?

Would be grateful for your help.

John Plimmer, Montagu, Western Cape Province, South Africa
South 33 d 47 m 32 s, East 20 d 07 m 32 s
RX Icom IC-756 PRO III with MW mods
Drake SW8 & ERGO software
Sony 7600D, GE SRIII, Redsun RP2100
BW XCR 30, Sangean 803A.
Antenna's RF Systems DX 1 Pro Mk II, Datong AD-270
Kiwa MW Loop, PAORDT Roelof mini-whip
http://www.dxing.info/about/dxers/plimmer.dx