A century ago today, Radio Corporation of America (RCA) took out full-page advertisements in newspapers across the country, including this one in the September 13, 1926, issue of the Washington Star, to make a historic announcement: the formation of the National Broadcasting Company (NBC).

By 1926, an estimated 5,000,000 American homes had radio receivers, representing an audience of roughly 21,000,000 listeners. But as the ad candidly pointed out, the market was running into a fundamental economic problem. RCA was in the business of manufacturing and selling receiving sets and vacuum tubes, but nobody would buy a set if there was nothing worth listening to on the air. Individual local stations could not afford the high cost of first-rate talent, symphony orchestras, and grand opera on their own.

To solve the problem, RCA purchased station WEAF in New York from AT&T for $1,000,000, leased the telephone company’s nationwide equalized long lines, and organized NBC as an independent service company owned jointly by RCA, General Electric, and Westinghouse. Former Syracuse postmaster and business executive Merlin H. Aylesworth was named president.

The manifesto made a point of addressing widespread public fears of a radio monopoly. RCA Chairman Owen D. Young and President James G. Harbord promised that the company would not monopolize the ether, invited other broadcasters to tap into the network’s programs, and announced an advisory council of prominent citizens to ensure the service operated in the public interest:

“The Radio Corporation of America is not in any sense seeking a monopoly of the air. That would be a liability rather than an asset… It is hoped that arrangements may be made so that every event of national importance may be broadcast widely throughout the United States.”

Two months later, on November 15, 1926, NBC made its formal on-air debut with a four-and-a-half-hour gala broadcast from the Grand Ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York, linking 24 stations across the country and launching the golden age of American network radio.

The stations carrying that first broadcast were:

• WEAF – New York, NY (Key Station)
• WJZ – New York, NY
• WEEI – Boston, MA
• WBZ – Springfield, MA / WBZA – Boston, MA
• WTAG – Worcester, MA
• WTIC – Hartford, CT
• WJAR – Providence, RI
• WCSH – Portland, ME
• WGY – Schenectady, NY
• WGR – Buffalo, NY
• WLIT / WFI – Philadelphia, PA (time-share)
• WRC – Washington, D.C.
• KDKA – Pittsburgh, PA
• WCAE – Pittsburgh, PA
• WTAM – Cleveland, OH
• WWJ – Detroit, MI
• WSAI – Cincinnati, OH
• KYW – Chicago, IL
• WGN / WLIB – Chicago, IL
• WOC – Davenport, IA
• KSD – St. Louis, MO
• WCCO – Minneapolis–St. Paul, MN
• WDAF – Kansas City, MO

Michael Foran via Wikipedia. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. You can hear it as it unfolded on WABC radio at this link. The day starts out routinely, and the first reports can be heard at about 10:30 on the recording.

We’re not sure we entirely agree with the premise, but the September 1956 Popular Electronics construction article for this one-tube superheterodyne receiver begins with the observation that “single-tube radio receivers are always in the novelty class.” But notwithstanding that observation, it shows how to make a one-tube superhet that will drive a loudspeaker, at least on strong local stations.

The circuit uses a dual 6U8. The pentode half of the tube is reflexed to serve as both IF and AF amplifier. The triode section is the local oscillator, and semiconductor diodes are put into action for the mixer and detector stages. Before a beginner starts on the project, the editors warn that you’ll need a 250 volt DC power supply, and to align the radio, you’ll need a signal generator.

But novelty or not, you get loudspeaker volume from a single tube.

One hundred years ago this month, the September 1926 issue of Popular Mechanics showed this self-explanatory idea for installing an antenna on a narrow city lot. It was particularly helpful if you needed an antenna running a certain direction, which happened to be the narrow dimension of your lot. The problem is solved in a neighborly fashion, and both properties benefit.

Sixty years ago this month, the September 1966 issue of Popular Mechanics showed how to put together this simple one-transistor regenerative receiver for the broadcast band. It was said to be sensitive, and provided adequate headphone volume. The set was a particularly good one to make if you had a rotary switch and a bunch of trimmer capacitors lying around, since it provided ten presets for local stations, in addition to a manual tuning dial for pulling in DX stations.

It was dubbed the “autogen” due to combining automatic tuning with a regenerative detector. It called for an antenna of 100 feet, and also had a switch on the ground connections. For normal use, the ground was not connected, as doing so would make the set less selective. But if more volume was desired, the ground could be switched back in.

This handsome two-tube two-meter receiver was featured in the September 1966 issue of Electronics Illustrated. The magazine noted that there was a great deal of activity on two meters in most areas, and this set would pull those signals in, perhaps with a TV antenna. The set was both superheterodyne and superregenerative. A local oscillator tuned 8 MHz below the band, and the superregnerative detector picked up the resulting 8 MHz signal. A speaker was built in, but there were provisions for headphones, for pulling in the weak signals.

The word has gone out of style, but back in the day, “physic” was a polite synonym for “laxative.” This cartoon appeared 80 years ago in the September 1946 issue of Radio News.