New battery arrived and installed. Both older power adapters tried and nothing whatsoever.

New adapter arriving next month, so let's hope that will help, maybe even revive the old batt, as hayne mentioned above.

Fingers crossed.

New battery arrived. Old power adapters not doing a thing with it.

So, waiting for the new power supply to arrive and more then...

New charger has arrived from China and it is Pukka.

Charges the new battery very well and, as hayne suggested it may, it has run a full charge into the old battery. The old battery is still listed in the Menu Bar as "Service Battery"??? Currently using the old battery, sans charger, to see what life I get.

It has now run down 15% in 20 minutes. More when the battery expires.

Doubt it will make a difference because I've never heard of the Service Battery warning being cleared by anything other than a new battery, but you may want to calibrate the battery. At the least, I guess you can milk whatever juice remains in that battery until it gives you no more functionality. I figure it will save your new battery at least a few cycles.

Old battery now down 26% in 47 minutes.

Have you opened System Profiler and looked in Hardware > Power to check the battery cycle count? Usually, if memory serves, a few hundred cycles is about the threshold before battery life noticeably diminishes. Not sure if your tropical climate may reduce it further since, if memory serves (again), batteries are ideally stored at cooler temperatures.

I am on 10.6.8 and cycles don't show.

ideas?

I'm also running that OS. In System Profiler, click the triangle left of Hardware so its sub-categories are showing. Next, click on Power. Over in the main part of the System Profiler window, at the top it should say Battery Information. The fourth sub-heading is Health Information, and directly below that is Cycle Count. My battery, as you can see, has been cycled 15 times (it's only 6–7 months old).