I've never seen a SOX version of these big post-tops in real life, they were all SON around my area.

They were common down my way at many roundabouts, installed in the 1970s and 1980s, until there was a big blitz of them in the late 1990s to early 2000s. There is still one survivor in Portsmouth. I believe it is 3x 90w SOX rather than 3x 135w SOX, but I could be wrong.

I bet a 3x135w SOX post-top was extremely bright! Certainly much more cost-effective than putting a load of (at least) 150w SON lanterns on seperate columns all around the roundabout as they tend to do nowadays  

The large GEC SOX saucers were always with horizontal lamps, they are not deep enough to have the lamps vertical. 90w was I believe the max wattage, lay 3 x135w SOX lamps in a triangle add some space for lampholders and see how massive a lantern you would need...  



The majority were SOX versions and quite often the canopy would come adrift or be lost altogether. As the P42 detector was attached to the canopy, this would then turn them into a dayburning open air lantern. There were also a few SON examples but these were less common.

There is a SOX Phosco P222 in the Old Market in Wisbech, cambs. On looking at it, the glow of the lamps look big enough to be 135w - and it's pretty bright too!

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Well according to Mike's Phosco catalogue both the P169 and P222 could indeed take 3x 90w or 3x 135w SOX lamps.

They are also smaller in diameter than the GEC saucers, so although GEC listed 3x 90w SOX as the lamp type, I wonder if those too were also available as a triple 135w option?

GEC ZD10839 1220mm diameter
GEC ZD10547 1143mm ( Hex saucer like mazeteam used to have)
P169 1109mm
P222 1070mm

The P222 is smaller than the Flying Saucer?? I did not know that, they always looked bigger!

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I did have both a GEC ZD10547 and a GEC ZD10517, but sold them on, as they took up way too much room. These things are fine if you've somewhere to store/display them.

There's one in Carlisle near to the bus station, it’s a Phosware P555, sadly my younger brother did not allow me to use his camera, so no photos.

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From streetlighting to radio, dance through the night whilst the streetlights are glowing outside.

Doesn't Carlisle bus station have P222's....


Oh you got rid of the fishbowl too?

This is the problem though: storage! Having the Flying Saucer was OK when my collection was smaller, but that was two and a half years ago... I hadn't got a couple of garages to use, and combine that with moving house (and me being told there'd be no room on the vans for the flying saucer) then sadly I had to sell it on. Bob Cookson has it now, along with another one I think. Maybe in the future the chance will come, with bigger storage, to get the big lanterns back again!

I still miss it every now and then. Shame GEC didn't do a baby version of the ZD10547 that took a single 80w MBFU lamp!

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