12 August 2026 Eclipse

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The next total solar eclipse will take place on August 12, 2026. The path of totality passes through Greenland, Iceland, Spain, and a tiny piece of Portugal. You can see it as the black dot on the animation at left, and in the path of totality shown above.

Seeing a total solar eclipse from within the path of totality is a once in a lifetime experience.  If humanly possible, you want to take yourself and your kids there to see it!  Please note that even a few miles away from this band, it’s an interesting phenomenon, but nothing even close to actual totality.  Don’t let anyone convince you that, for example, a “99% eclipse” is almost as good.  The truth is that the 99% eclipse is millions of times brighter than a total eclipse.  If you turn a light switch 99% of the way to off, the light is still on.  And eclipses work the same way.  If you are in Europe, you owe it to your kids to take them to see the eclipse.  When I ask students who have visited the path of totality during a North American eclipse, I ask them if it’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen.  Invariably, they say yes.

Our original plan was to travel to Spain to view the eclipse (as we did in 2017 and 2024 in North America).  Unfortunately, that didn’t work out this year.  But for Western Europeans, it will be the first chance since 1999, when a total eclipse was visible in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

What is overlooked this time is that the eclipse will be visible in North America.  It will be visible in Alaska, Canada, and most of the northeastern United States.  It’s only a partial eclipse, and as noted above, a partial eclipse isn’t a spectacular cosmic event like a total eclipse.  But it’s still an interesting phenomenon, and worth viewing if you live there anyway.

To view a partial eclipse safely, you will need eclipse glasses.  Our sister site, MyEclipseGlasses.com, has them available.  We also have them for sale at retail locations in England and Spain.



1941 Five Tube Superhet

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Eighty-five years ago this month, the July 1941 issue of Radio News featured the plans for this five-tube superheterodyne for hams. The set covered the shortwave spectrum with plug-in coils to cover 1.7 through 32 MHz, and featured a BFO for CW reception.

The circuit doesn’t look unfamiliar, as it’s not that different from a typical All American Five, but has an IF of 1500 kHz, which seems like it would leak through if you had a broadcast station on that frequency and didn’t have it well shielded.



Building a Station, 1946

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Shown here, 80 years ago, is Radio News staffer Corinne Sullivan. She was working on her amateur license, and to make sure she was able to get on the air as soon as the FCC sent her the license, she is hard at work building a two-meter transmitter and receiver. This image appeared on the cover of the July 1946 issue, and the magazine promised that the design of the rigs would appear in a forthcoming issue.



1951 4-Tube Regen

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Seventy-five years ago this month, the July 1951 issue of Radio Electronics carried this circuit for a four-tube shortwave regenerative receiver. The circuit was provided by the editors in response to an inquiry from a reader, who specified these specific tubes. They are familiar as coming from an “All-American Five” AM radio, so they were, and still are, easy to find.



1945 One Tube Regen

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Eighty years ago, the September 1945 issue of Radio Craft magazine carried this circuit for a simple one-tube regenerative receiver, which had been sent in to the magazine by one Jim Gary of Kenedy, Texas. With a good antenna and ground, he reported that he had pulled in both New York and San Francisco with the set, which could be built in a cigar box.

B batteries were hard to come by during the war, and this circuit ran on four flashlight batteries. One powered the filament, and the other three provided the 4.5 volts of B+. With that low voltage, a large tickler coil was necessary for regeneration.

It appears that the author was 17 years old, having been born in 1928, and he passed away in 2001.



1951 Halford Bicycle Ad

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The cyclists in this 1951 British ad were children during the war. But with that behind them, they were able to acquire these high quality Halford bicycles. The ad appears in the July 1951 issue of Practical Mechanics.



The Ideal Radio Service, Pueblo, CO, 1946

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Shown here 80 years ago is radio man B.F. Headrick of The Ideal Radio Service of Pueblo, Colorado, in the June-July 1946 issue of National Radio News.  Headrick had taken the National Radio Institute course, and by the 20th lesson, he started taking in some jobs in his home attic workshop. As he gained more experience, the business kept rolling in, and he charged regular prices for his work.

He later enclosed his house’s porch as his shop, and soon bought a shop of his own in the business district. He hired two more servicemen, and all three of them stayed busy 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. He had earned the reputation as the best and most honest radio repair man in town.

These 1960 obituaries for one Bueford F. Headrick seem to be the same person, and reveal that he died at about age 44.



Crosley 45BV Commuter, 1941

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Eighty-five years ago this month, the July 1941 issue of Radio Craft carried the servicing details for the Crosley model 45BV, the “Commuter.” The four-tube superheterodyne portable ran off one flashlight battery for the filaments, and a 67-1/2 volt battery for the B+.

Speaking of batteries, those would soon become hard to find, as the War took them off the civilian market. We previously mentioned this radio, as it appeared in a 1943 article on battery shortages. In that case, the magazine showed how to make a battery eliminator to run the set at home.



Electroplating

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A student looking for ideas for the next science fair might get some ideas from the July 1966 issue of Elementary Electronics, which gives some pointers on home electroplating. You probably have most of the components lying around the house, or readily available. If you don’t have the transformers shown here, it’s possible to do it with batteries. Even though the old-fashioned dry cells aren’t available, a set of alkalines from the dollar store will do just fine. You need an anode of the metal that you want to be the plating, and the cathode is the object you want to have plated. You just fire up the current, and the electricity does all of the work!



1966 Two-Tube 40 Meter CW Transmitter

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Sixty years ago this month, the July 1966 issue of Electronics Illustrated showed how to make this 40-watt transmitter for 40 meters. It was geared mostly to the needs of the Novice, but a General-class operator could certainly make good use of it. The main feature was the fact that ten crystals were mounted internally, meaning that one could quickly change frequency with the flip of a switch.

It uses a 6CL6 oscillator and 6DQ5 final. No power transformer is required, since it uses a voltage-doubler circuit to supply the B+. Voltage is kept off the key with a relay. It is equipped with a spotting switch to quickly find your new frequency after switching crystals.