The young man shown here is presumably the son of Popular Mechanics author Arthur I. Rattray, and is shown next to the radio-phonograph assembled by his father, as described in the July 1945 issue of the magazine.

In the article, he notes that perhaps readers might have a small boy or girl who would like to play records and listen to the radio with a phono-radio combination of their very own. He notes that such units would undoubtedly be plentiful after the war, “but that does not solve the immediate problem.” Therefore, he decided to put one together himself. He did so by combining an old midget radio (probably similar to the $7.95 set featured in an earlier post) with an old table phonograph. He housed them in the legs and braces from a discarded radio console.

He ran the phono cartridge directly to the radio’s audio output tube. He noted that this hookup “does not permit full volume, which is an assset rather than a liability,” but that the volume was sufficient for both radio and phono.

I doubt if anyone is going to recreate this particular project. But one warning is in order. One side of the phono cartridge (and probably the metal tone arm) is connected directly to the radio chasis. Depending on the set, there’s a 50/50 chance that this is hooked directly to the hot side of the AC line cord.

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