Monthly Archives: December 2015

Funeral Gigs for 1940 Sound Men

The electronic entrepreneur 75 years ago always had his eye open for a business opportunity, and

Ray W. Winter of Jenk’s Electric in La Habra, California, was no exception. In the December 1940 issue of Radio Craft magazine, he offers a case study of how he sold sound to local funeral directors and ministers.

A prominent physician had been killed in an auto accident, and an overflow crowd was expected for his funeral. The evening before the funeral, the minister and funeral director contacted Winter to set up a public address system covering the lawn and sidewalk outside the church. The diagram above shows the setup that was used.

A single microphone was used, about 5 feet from the pulpit and 8 feet from the choir and singers. This was close enough to ensure good pickup, but far enough away to avoid loud blasts if someone spoke too loudly too close to the microphone. The amp was set up a moderate distance from the speakers where the operator could monitor the levels. At the end of each solo or talk, he momentarily lowered the volume to avoid a loud blast, and then readjusted it for the next portion of the program.

The amp put out about 4 watts to each of the speakers. The amp had ten tubes, and could accomodate two mike inputs. In addition, for other work, the owner had a turntable and tuner available. He charged $6-12 for a funeral, and he reported that the total cost of all of his equipment was about $340. He always carried a few extra tubes as a safety factor.

Winters hoped that his idea would prove useful for other sound men. He noted the importance of making contacts with the local funeral directors.

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Neutral Ship Wireless in the European War Zone

The Seguranca in Havana Harbor

A hundred years ago this month, the December 1915 issue of Wireless Age carried an interesting account of J.K. Noble, the wireless operator aboard the steamer Seguranca, recounting the ship’s voyage from Pensacola to London with a cargo of naval stores and lumber. The ship left New York en route to Pensacola on May 30, and the most remarkable incident on that leg of the voyage was a hawk which perched itself on the ship’s mast looking for a meal. It set its eyes on the ship’s mascot, a kitten named Booze, and finally swooped down on the cat. The cat fought back and managed to break free. The ship’s crew attempted to shoot the hawk, but the bullet went wild and the bird flew away.

The trip across the Atlantic was initially uneventful. Noble points out that the wireless gave the latest news every night from Cape Cod and Poldhu, England. He was able to copy the French war news from FL, the Eiffel Tower station, up to 1600 miles from Paris. The French time signals were also used to check the accuracy of the ship’s chronometer.

As the ship neared England, the traffic picked up, the call signs were unfamiliar, and almost all messages were coded. The call signs he heard included ZAAW, ABMV, CX, A27, 51M, XXJ, and YCF.

On July 7, Noble copied a message sent by the Poldhu station to the Saxonia, then serving as a troop ship, with a warning of a possible bomb placed on board by a fanatic who had attacked J.P. Morgan (apparently Erich Muenter).

As the ship entered the war zone, the Seguranca kept her neutral American flag illuminated at night, as well as the letters “U.S.A.” which had been painted on both sides of the ship. The lifeboats were slung out. Two submarines were sighted, but they kept a considerable distance.

The Seguranca’s lifeboats at the ready as she enters the war zone.

The ship entered the English Channel through the Strait of Dover, passing through two light ships. The British ordered the Seguranca to take down her aerial at this point. At Deal, the ship was stopped by a British patrol boat and its officers examined the Seguranca’s papers. After a few hours’ delay, a pilot boarded and the ship headed to London under torpedo boat escort.

Taking down the aerial off Dover.

The big guns in France could be heard, the sound ceasing only as the ship started up the Thames. To guard against air raids, the ship’s lights had to be covered at night, and the generator had been ordered shut off at 10:00 PM.

Because of a wartime shortage of stevedores, the ship remained in London for five and a half weeks while being unloaded. While in London, Noble was stopped more than one time by British officers trying to persuade him to enlist in the British forces.

The return trip gave Noble the opportunity to hear more radio traffic. After passing Dover, the aerial was reinstalled, and Noble was back on the air. On August 19, he first copied the Baron Erskine (MHF) reporting that it was being chased by a sub. One of the patrol boats reported that it was coming to her assistance. At 2:45, he copied an SOS, stating that it had been struck by two enemy subs. This ship gave a location, but didn’t sign a call sign. Noble concluded that this SOS had come from either the Arabic or the Nicosion. Since the reported location was 200 miles away, the Saguranca did not go to the aid of the distressed vessel.

Soon thereafter, at 5:30, he copied an SOS from the steamer Bovic, call sign GDO, reporting that she was being chased by a sub. A patrol boat said that she was coming to the Bovic‘s aid, but at 7:30, the Bovic reported that she was sinking. The patrol boat reported that she would be there by 9:00.

Two days later, the steamer Georgia (call sign GDT) was requesting a doctor, since her chief engineer had seriously wounded himself with a rifle. The Minnehaha, MMA, had a doctor aboard, but had some doubts as to the veracity of the message, fearing that it might have been faked by the Germans. After some confirmation, a rendezvous was arranged, and an hour or two later, the Minnehaha reported that the wounded man was on board.

The remainder of the voyage back to New York was uneventful, and the “Seguranca steamed past the lights of Coney Island and headed up the bay while on the lips of those on board was framed a word full of meaning–home.”

According to the Nautical Gazette, the Seguranca was launched in 1890 and served until 1920.

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Loretta Brophy, WABD, 1945

Seventy years ago today, life was good. The War was over, television was becoming a reality, and you could buy a pack of Camels whenever you wanted. Shown here in the December 10, 1945, issue of Life Magazine is Loretta A. Brophy, getting ready to enjoy a Camel during a break from her busy job as program director at the New York DuMont television station, WABD.

The ad also showed Miss Brophy rehearsing with a song-and-dance team, but pointed out that the next day, it might be a quiz program or grand opera. Miss Brophy called her job “fast, exciting, fun!”

And when she called “cut,” that meant the show was over, but Camels were still in order. She reported that during the wartime cigarette shortage, “when I couldn’t get Camels, I smoked anything I could get, more different brands than I can remember. That’s when I learned really to appreciate Camels–there’s nothing like a Camel.”

Other than this advertisement, I wasn’t able to find any other references to Miss Brophy, although she was obviously one of the pioneers of television. She wasn’t alone, as women held a number of important positions.

While not mentioning Miss Brophy, the Spring 1945 issue of Televiser carried a feature entitled “Women in Television.” At WABD, when the wartime manpower crisis put a damper on hiring, “women in slacks blossomed forth as ‘cable engineers’ (studioese for people who haul co-axial cables out of the way of the cameramen). One of WABD’s early staffers was Dotty Wooten, shown here. She was hired as a stenographer in 1943, but was one day called in to fill an emergency slot as announcer. The magazine reported that she had filled the announcing post ever since.

In our previous post about WABD, we noted that the station really had no full-time staff when it first came on the air. The station was on the air three evenings a week, and was largely staffed by workers at DuMont’s New Jersey war plant. With men off to war, it wasn’t surprising that women were called on to staff the station.

The same issue of Televiser gave some insight into the challenges faced by Miss Brophy in her job. Directing a television program was challenging, as it involved careful choreography of the cameras. Each of the large cameras was fed with a thick coaxial cable from behind. Therefore (except perhaps with the assistance of one those cable engineers), it was impossible for one camera to cross behind another. Therefore, one camera had to be already in place for the next shot before the second camera “dollied in” for a closeup. Interestingly, the byline for the sidebar explaining this choreography was that of a woman, one Patricia Murray, also on the staff of WABD.

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FDR’s Secret Radio Car

70 years ago, the December 1945 issue of Radio Craft carried this previously secret image of the radio car of FDR’s wartime train.

It noted that the car, known as “No. 1401” was a converted passenger-baggage coach, and from this car, e ran a large part of the country’s war activities. It was equipped with wire and radio equipment that made it possible to telephone anywhere in the United States, carry on a radio teletype conversation “in virtually unbreakable code” at 100 words per minute, send and receive messages to ships at sea, or send and receive telegraph messages.

The article noted that the teletype machine was routed through a scrambler “which puts it into a code difficult to break because of its lack of uniformity.” When the train passed through a tunnel, the sending was automatically halted until the train re-emerged.

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1935 Audio Amp

Eighty years ago, the December 1935 issue of Popular Mechanics promised that the depression-era entrepreneur could make some money, as long as he was handy with a soldering iron. He could do so by building this 30-watt audio amplifier, for use at county fairs, dances, bazaars, basketball tournaments, dog shows, or anywhere that sound was needed. According to the article, the usual rental charge for such an amplifier, three speakers, a microphone, and phono turntable, along with the operator, was $15 per evening, or $75 for a week of fifty hours.

The chassis with all holes pre-drilled was available for $8, and the rest of the components for the ten-tube amplifier were readily available. With power transformer and two rectifier tubes, the unit was all set to plug in to normal household current. It was said to put out 30 watts of distortionless sound with excellent tone.

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Pearl Harbor Radio Coverage

USS Shaw at Pearl Harbor. Defense Department Photo.

Today marks the 74th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. A total of 2403 Americans were killed and 1178 were wounded. Eighteen ships, including five battleships, were sunk or run aground. Most Americans learned of the attack by radio. The first announcement was made by CBS’s John Charles Daly, at about 2:35 PM Eastern Time. That first announcement was never recorded.

The following recording, from Minneapolis station WCCO, apparently starts at about 2:30 Central Time, 3:30 Eastern Time with an announcement of the attack at the conclusion of the New York Philharmonic concert. The concert had started at 3:00 Eastern Time.

You’ve probably heard an announcement breaking into a symphony mid-note, with the words: “We interrupt this program to bring you a special news bulletin. The Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by air.” This was actually from a record produced by CBS in 1948. The first sentence of the announcement was apparently recorded in 1948. The second sentence came from an actual broadcast later in the day. You can hear the original at this link. You can hear the 1948 recording at 26:50 of this video:

References

Piezoelectrics For Your Time Travel and Post-Apocalyptic Needs

Completed piezoelectric speaker from 1968 article.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some plans for homemade microphones from 1945. One was very crude but easy to duplicate. But one was quite sophisticated, and could be made at home by growing a piezoelectric crystal from a saturated solution of Rochelle Salt.

The piezoelectric microphone is particularly intriguing because it should function equally well as a piezoelectric speaker. For this reason, it has an interesting application, albeit perhaps not one that is immediately practical.

Being Prepared for Inadvertent Time Travel

The knowledge of how to build such a speaker could come in handy in a couple of situations, at least one of which is probably unlikely. The first situation would be that of inadvertent time travel. If you get caught in a time warp and sent to the past, it would be wise if you could make the best of a bad situation and be able to “invent” some technological devices. (And as I’ve previously written, having a WikiReader in your pocket would make the situation much more bearable.) And as a loyal reader of this blog, it stands to reason that one of the technologies that you could “invent” would be radio.

While there are no documented cases of this ever happening, the science fiction literature is full of examples. Probably the oldest example is Mark Twain‘s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. Other examples include 1632 by Eric Flint and the Island in the Sea of Time series by S.M. Stirling.

Cobbling together a transmitter would be relatively easy, as long as the time period into which you were deposited had some rudimentary industries. You’ll need some wire for winding coils and putting up an antenna, some metal for building capacitors and a spark gap, some acid for making batteries, and a few other bits and pieces that should be readily available in the Middle Ages. With a bit of ingenuity, you should be able to come up with a transmitter with a range of hundreds of miles.

And with the exception of one component, a suitable receiver would be relatively easy to make. Once again, you’ll need some wire for the coil and antenna, a few pieces of metal for fabricating other parts, and something to serve as a detector. The detector would be quite simple. The most common material, which would give good results, would be a chunk of Galena (lead ore). If you find yourself in an area where this mineral is unavailable, there are many substitutes, as discussed in my earlier posts (this one and this one) about “foxhole radios” or my earlier post about emergency wartime crystal sets.

The one part, however, that will be difficult to procure is a suitable earphone. If you’re lucky enough to be transported back in time after the invention of the telephone, then your problem is partially solved. A telephone receiver will have an impedance that is too low for your receiver, but by rewinding the coil, you should be able to come up with a suitable headphone. If the telephone hasn’t been invented yet, you can of course take the honors and invent it. But if you want to jump ahead to radio technology, you’ll need to fabricate a suitable headphone to hook up to your radio.

This brings us back to the piezoelectric microphone we discussed earlier. This type of microphone works equally well in either direction: It can change electrical impulses to sound, as well as working the other way around and changing sound into electrical impulses. Therefore, if you build a piezoelectric microphone, you can hook it up to your crystal set and listen to that transmitter you put on the air.

As discussed in my earlier post, the piezoelectric microphone/headphone should be relatively straightforward. All you need, in addition to the scraps of metal you already procured, is a piezoelectric crystal. And the article linked there gives you the basics of growing one. In addition to water, all you will need is Rochelle Salt, also known as potassium sodium tartrate tetrahydrate. This compound was first prepared in 1675 by Pierre Seignette. So if your time travel lands you after that date, you should be able to procure it. Of if it’s about 1675 and you’re anywhere near La Rochelle, France, you would be advised to look up Monsieur Seignette and collaborate with him on the project.

If you arrive before 1675, all hope is not lost. According to this site, you can whip up a batch using the ingredients cream of tartar and washing soda. Cream of tartar is a byproduct of the wine making process, so it should be available at any time after the invention of wine, which dates back to antiquity. So as long as those ingredients are available, you should be able to recreate radio.

An alternative method of building the headphone is described in the book The Voice of the Crystal by H. Peter Friedrichs. This is a magnetic headphone which would require a very fine gauge of insulated wire, but a good jeweler of almost any era should be able to help you procure the components.

Rebuilding Civilization After a Collapse

The other time one would need to recreate radio technology would be after a collapse of society. There are billions of radios in existence, any many more component parts, so it is very unlikely that you would need to start from scratch. Even after hundreds of years of dark ages, many relics of our current technological society would still be available to provide usable parts. This scenario is discussed in detail in the book The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Civilization in the Aftermath of a Cataclysm by Lewis Dartnell, which I previously reviewed.

The most abundant source of headphones for your post-apocalyptic crystal set would probably be the microphones from the billions of cell phones currently in existence. In most cases, these are probably piezoelectric, and would work well for a crystal set headphone. (The billions of stereo headphones and earbuds probably wouldn’t be of much use, since they are too low an impedance to work properly with a crystal set.)

Science Fair Project

Even if you don’t anticipate time travel or TEOTWAWKI (The End Of the World As We Know It), a homemade speaker or microphone could be part of a most impressive science fair project. Even very young students could fabricate the simple three-nail microphone shown in my earlier post. And more advanced students will be capable of making speakers or microphones that rival commercially available ones.

A More Refined Version of the Piezoelectric Speaker

Near perfect crystals from 1968 article.

The 1945 piezoelectric microphone linked in my original post is probably suitable for all of your time travel or post-apocalyptic needs. However, a more refined version, shown at the top of this page, is from the May-June 1968 issue of Elementary Electronics. While the 1945 article probably gives enough detail for the experimenter to grow a crystal and put it to work, the 1968 article goes into much greater detail. It gives detailed instructions on growing the crystal, and the completed crystals, shown here, turn out nearly perfect. In particular, the 1968 article gives detailed instructions on starting with a seed crystal and maintaining the temperature of the saturated solution as the crystals form. While the 1945 article would probably result in a usable crystal looking like a piece of rock candy, the details in the later article result in a crystal that can be further ground to dimensions that would make it quite sensitive.

Construction details of 1968 piezoelectric speaker.

The construction details of the final speaker are shown above. The crystal is ground and polished to about 1/16 inch in thickness, and then sandwiched between two pieces of aluminum foil. (If your time travels take you to a time when aluminum was still considered a precious metal, substitution of other metal shouldn’t present a problem.) A current applied to the two pieces of foil causes the crystal to vibrate. The author of the 1968 article used the cone of a defunct 12 inch radio speaker, which could be replaced by some other type of cone. For use with a crystal set, the large cone might prove a detriment, since the crystal set might not be putting out enough audio to set it into vibration. Constructing some sort of headphone would probably be more suitable for a crystal set.

The photo above shows a matching transformer, but this would not be necessary for use with a crystal set. The example shown in the 1968 article was designed to replace a standard low-impedance permanent magnet speaker. The high impedance of the piezoelectric speaker would be perfectly suited to the output of a crystal set.

For even more details on growing crystals, the author of the 1968 article recommends the book Crystals and Crystal Growing by by Alan Holden and Phylis Morrison, which is still available and in print. And if you’re just looking to make a crystal set and want to buy a piezoelectric earphone (or other needed parts), you can find them on my crystal set parts page.

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1935 One Tube 5 Meter Transceiver

Stanley Johnson, W9LBV, of Grand Island, Nebraska, is shown here in the December 1935 issue of Popular Science operating his $3 five meter transceiver. The set contains a single tube, a type 76 triode. He reports that “probably the first radio distress call ever sent from a moving bicyle was transmitted with this compact set. During tests, the author, operating the transceiver as he pedaled along a country road, noticed that the front tire on his bicycle had developed a leak. A hurried call on the radiotelephone to a brother experimenter back in town brought the necessary repair materials long before the tire was entirely flat.”

He reports that when used mobile with 135 volts of batteries, the rig had a range of a couple of miles. The range was limited primarily by the voltage of the B battery. When used at a fixed location with higher plate voltage and a better antenna, the range was considerably greater.

The circuit is simplicity itself, as revealed by the schematic. The tube served as a Hartley oscillator which was used as a superregenerative receiver. Flipping the switch to transmit shorted out the headphones, removed the grid leak resistor from the circuit, and hooked up an absorption modulation circuit.

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1915 War Toys

A century ago, Santa was getting ready to leave a lot of politically incorrect toys under the tree, as shown by this sampling of popular war toys from the December 1915 issue of Popular Mechanics.

With the European conflict serving as inspiration, there was “hardly a new war tool of importance which has not to some degree furnished a pattern for a child’s bauble.”

One of the “most ingenious toys” was the machine gun. “This is mounted on a tripod, is 22 in. long, and has a businesslike appearance.” It even shot real wooden bullets, about two inches long, which were fitted to a tape and passed over the barrel, being able to shoot a hundred times without reloading. Other lucky youngsters might get an automatic rifle capable of firing 10 shots in three seconds, with a range of about 20 feet.

And “with all of these death-dealing implements, hospital and ambulance provisions are needed,” including an ambulance powered by a clockwork mechanism, complete with stretchers.

And naval battles were not overlooked. The offerings including a dreadnaught that is blown apart in a realistic manner when torpedoed.

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Mary Ann Estes, WLS National Barn Dance, 1940

Seventy-five years ago this month, the December 1940 issue of Radio Varieties profiled a rising country star, Mary Ann Estes of WLS radio’s Saturday night National Barn Dance program. Then 21 years old, she also appeared on other WLS programs, including “Smile-A-While” at 5:00 AM daily, the “Prairie Ramblers” at 6:30 AM Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, and on “Merry-Go-Round” on Saturday afternoons.

Miss Estes was born in Crescent, Ohio, population 300, in 1919. She grew up listening to WWVA, Wheeling, WV, and “learned to play the guitar and sang because she liked to.” She made a number of amateur appearances, including a minstrel show in Wheeling. Another quartet in the show appeared regularly on WWVA, “were intrigued by the singing of this cute little brunette and demanded to meet her.” They suggested she audition at WWVA, and she appeared regularly over the next three years.

In 1940, she went to Chicago and approached WLS, and was accepted as soon as she had sung her first number. The photo at the left is from the station’s 1941 Family Album. She was not shown in the 1942 edition. According to an item in Billboard, Feb. 3, 1945, she was then with Buddy Starcher on WXVA, Harrisonburg, Virginia, on “Buddy Starcher and His All-Star Round-Up.” According to the September 27, 1947 issue, the show moved to WPDX, Clarksville, WV, that year.

According to this source, Mary Ann Estes was a stage name for Mary Ann Vasas. She apparently married Buddy Starcher, and appeared with him on his television show on WCHS-TV, Charleston, WV, from 1960-66. Mary Ann Estes died in 2003 at the age of 83; Buddy Starcher died in 2001. Starcher’s greatest commercial recording success was a spoken word recording, “History Repeats Itself,” which can be heard in this video:

I’ve been unable to find any recordings of Mary Ann Estes. If you’re aware of any, I’d appreciate if you would leave a comment below.

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Monthly Archives: December 2015

Funeral Gigs for 1940 Sound Men

Neutral Ship Wireless in the European War Zone

Loretta Brophy, WABD, 1945

FDR’s Secret Radio Car

1935 Audio Amp

Pearl Harbor Radio Coverage

Piezoelectrics For Your Time Travel and Post-Apocalyptic Needs

1935 One Tube 5 Meter Transceiver

1915 War Toys

Mary Ann Estes, WLS National Barn Dance, 1940