This beauty of a valve radio was bought for just £2 from a boot sale. It’s a Roberts, valve, shortwave, and portable..
Valves and batteries are not an easy marriage. Typically you need over 100 Volts at a fairly low current for most of the electronics and a low voltage high current supply for the valve heaters. Such batteries are large, expensive, heavy, and not easy to find these days.
If you are willing to sacrifice portability there is another way. Instead of batteries you can add a box of electronics which creates the necessary supply from the mains. This radio was fitted with an Amplion Convette battery eliminator.
Lovely though this radio is, I would not use it daily. While i could probably get it going, there is potentially a lot of work involved and the safety implications of those tubes make it a difficult job. I Chose to pass on it and a lucky eBay punter with more time on their hands snapped this up for less that £40.