Thanks, David & Tony, re. details of MSF.

As regards my battery-backup issue, here's an update, all, on progress.

After much trouble trying to get through to the right people at Sony, I
have been told by two people there that the "Sony ICF-CD855L CD Clock
Radio" does NOT have the usual form of "battery backup" but that there
IS "battery backup". One of these two people then went on to say she
could find no details about its exact nature OR for how long the backup
would operate in the event of a power failure, though she dared to say
(sounding rather unsure to me) that she thought that all pre-sets and
clock-settings would be preserved "for at least two hours". The other
person is still to come back to me with further details.

Has anyone heard of this apparently new form of "battery backup"?
Sorry, if I appear to be ignorant about it, but almost all the gadgets
that I possess which have battery backup have an aperture somewhere
round the back or underneath into which you fit a good old-fashioned
battery of some sort, if not some slender little battery of the disc
variety. The Sony ICF-CD855L has no such opening in its casing.

The only thing I can think of is that its "backup" system is something
like that in the electronic timer which I bought the other week - in
order to have our washing-machine do its stuff after midnight, during
the cheap period. Its display is LED and if I take the timer out of the
socket, the correct time is retained on the LED screen. So presumably
there's some kind of "battery" in there, though like the above clock
radio there's no aperture in the casing for the fitting of a battery.

So, are they fitting some kind of "eternal" self-charging battery inside
gadgets these days? If so, how "eternal" are they? What's their
life-span?

Thanks.

Eddy.