Though an amateur in the field (his real job was as an insurance official), Davey earned freelance income in the years before World War 2 with articles for Practical Wireless and other radio journals.
However, they did not make him well-known because many were published without attribution (a list among his papers claims authorship of around thirty articles including a 13-part series for Practical Wireless entitled "At the Short-Waver's Bench").
[2] Many of the titles sound quaint today, but reflect the excitement that many felt about radio at a time when, despite the fact that broadcasting in Britain had existed for some thirty-five years, manufactured sets were still expensive acquisitions.
Davey's subsequent articles and books covered almost every aspect of radio, shortwave listening, high fidelity and electronics for the amateur.
However he never entirely forsook valves (vacuum tubes), recognizing their usefulness as an introduction to basic principles and their continued availability in many parts of the world.