Shown here in the September 1927 issue of Popular Radio is Capt. Hawthorne C. Gray of the U.S. Army Air Service, preparing for the flight in which he achieved the record for the highest altitude from which radio broadcast reception had ever been made.  According to the magazine, Capt. Gray’s balloon was equipped with an Atwater Kent Model 32, a seven-tube receiver with single dial control and loop antenna.  During the flight, he was able to pull in stations KMOX and KSD, and he was able to determine bearings to the stations at all times during the flight.  “Up to the time that the aviator became unconscious at 31,000 feet, the receiver was working satisfactorily, with a total lack of interference.”

The date of the flight is not stated in the magazine, but it appears to be the same flight that Capt. Gray recounted in the August 1927 issue of Popular Mechanics.

In that account, Capt. Gray notes that he was listening to a jazz orchestra playing in St. Louis, “the music coming in clear and loud on my radio, without a single trace of static.”

Gray made another attempt at an altitude record on November 4, 1927. On this attempt, his luck ran out. The barographs aboard the craft showed that he had reached an altitude of over 43,000 feet, but his lifeless body was found in the balloon basked in a tree near Sparta, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, and he is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.