"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Bill M wrote:
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:
If you go onto an American military base in Germany
today, you'll still
see Edison outlets at 110V. Americans have always
carried our power with
us wherever we have gone.

But in the summer of 1944, you would not have found any
(110 volt
power or US bases) in Europe. The whole point of the
unit was to be
a portable radio station, not something you had to build
a base around.

I thought France was still on 110 in those days. I've
restored some
French sets both pre and post war, some I think were 110
only.

France was spotty, with some places being 110 and other
places being 220
and a few places having weird line frequencies too. This
led to a legacy
of lots of weird incompatible light bulb bases too, which
the EU is only
finally getting cleaned up.

Remember, this was an era when there were no large scale
power grids,
and individual cities had their own generating plant and
their own
standards. Well, Germany started to have a grid, but we
took it out....
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

FWIW, the third edition of _Reference Data for Radio
Engineers_ dated 1949 shows France has having DC power at
110, 120, 125, 220 volts and AC at 110, 115, 120, 125, 220,
230 volts and both 50hz and 25hz. It indicates that the
predominant power was 110 or 115 VAC at 50hz.
A this time power frequencies of 25hz, 40hz, 42hz, 43hz,
45hz, 100hz (Malta) could be found in various parts of the
world.
50hz has always been the most common power frequency in
Europe and 60Hz in the USA and Canada. 25hz is used for
industrial purposes, particularly for electric railways
because core losses are lower in motors and transformers
(less heat dissipated). I have no idea of the origin of the
40hz series. Power voltages and frequencies in "third world"
countries usually follows the preferences of the countries
that colonized them.
In the Los Angeles area until about the mid 1950's one
could find both 50hz and 60hz power. The city, which is
supplied by the publicly owned Department of Water and Power
was 60Hz, the outlying areas not incorporated into the city
mostly got their power from Southern California Edision
which was mostly 50Hz. I remember seeing hydro-electric
generators at the old St. Francis power station that were
originally 50Hz but were run overspeed to generate 60hz.
These survived the St. Francis dam collapse and subsequent
flood.


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL