In this day’s issue of Broadcast magazine 75 years ago, the Broadcasting industry was alerted to something that hams would soon figure out as they got back on the air in the following years: There was going to be a lot of surplus equipment hitting the market soon. There were already rumors of a warehouse full of transmitters, and some 250 watt transmitters were already hitting the market.

A broadcast engineer with time on his hands could probably even track down most of the parts necessary for a 50 kW transmitter. With the war still going on in the Pacific, there was already an estimated $30 million in surplus available. And when hostilities ended, this was estimated to hit $5 billion.