Monthly Archives: November 2020

1920 Cigarette Ad: Ham Contacts Mars

This ad for Chesterfield cigarettes appeared in a number of papers, including the Pensacola (Florida) Journal, a hundred years ago today, November 30, 1920. The ad copy reads as follows:

Young Hiram Jinks
had tried for weeks
to talk to Mars
by Wireless.

He’d pounded his key,
calling “Mars, Hello, Mars,”
until his right biceps
was the village pride.
He hardly dared to sleep
lest he miss the call,
And say! One evening,
he got an answering buzz,
“yep, this is Mars.”
And Hiram shook all over
and stuttered back in Morse,
“have you any word,
for us on Earth?”

Quick came the answer.
“You can tell the world,
they satisfy!” Then silence.

Hiram ran to the corner store
and shouted in triumph.
“A message from Mars!
You can tell the world.
They Satisfy.”

But the village elders,
merely snorted “shucks
known that for years.”

While out in the army camp,
the radio man,
who’d been kidding Hiram,
threw away his butt
and laughed himself to sleep.

1920 Grocery Prices

Here’s a snapshot of grocery prices a hundred years ago, from the November 29, 1920, issue of the Great Falls (Montana) Daily Tribune.

When looking at pre-1964 prices, it’s always good to remember that one dollar meant ten silver dimes, four silver quarters, or one silver dollar, which was one ounce of silver. Today, that ounce of silver would be worth about $22, so one good way to compare prices is to multiply these by 22.

A box of crackers, “N.B.C. Sodas,” which I assume means Nabisco, was 38 cents, which sounds cheap. But when you put that into today’s dollars, it’s $8.36.

10 pounds of lard would set you back $2.50, which works out to about $5 per pound in today’s money. In the cereal aisle, you could get a box of Post Toasties or Kellogg’s Corn Flakes for 12 cents, or Shredded or Puffed Wheat for 14 cents. Thirteen bars of “Palm Olive” soap were a dollar.

Coffee was about 50 cents per pound, or about $11 in today’s money. Cans of milk, presumably condensed, were 25 cents a can.

1940 One Tube Audio Amp

These young men previously built a one-tube radio, but now they want to enjoy loudspeaker volume. So they are putting together a simple one-tube audio amplifier described in the November 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics.

To get that volume, they 90 volts on the plate of the 1Q5GT tube, whereas the radio probably required only 45 volts. The article describes how they can use two 45 volt batteries, one running the receiver, with an additional one added in series to supply the amplifier. The article noted that the amplifier could also be used with a magnetic phonograph pickup, or a carbon button microphone could be used to make a simple PA system. If the microphone was used, a different transformer was required on the input, and there would need to be 4.5 volts in series with the mike.

As the picture shows, Fahnestock clips were used for quickly hooking up to the input, output, and power connections.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from OneTubeRadio.com!

Thanksgiving this year will be different. But perhaps the things we took for granted last year will be things we are thankful for this year. A hundred years ago, a world war and a global pandemic were still vivid memories. And seventy-five years ago, the boys (and a few girls) had either come home or were on their way home, but some never came home.

Today, we offer another snapshot of prices back in the day. These were the prices for a Thanksgiving dinner 80 years ago, in 1940. Europe was at war, and most Americans, if they were honest, knew that they would soon be at war as well. Yet they were thankful, and they bought turkeys, and pumpkin pies, and all the rest. The ad appeared in the Pittsburgh Press 80 years ago today, November 26, 1940.

1945 One Tube Broadcast Set

Seventy-five years ago this month, the November 1945 issue of Radio Craft carried this circuit for a simple one-tube receiver for the broadcast band. The set used either a type 30 or 1G4 tube, with as little as 3 volts B+ on the plate. The circuit had been sent in to the magazine by Bill Buehrle, Jr., of Ferguson, MO, who reported that he was able to pull in a half dozen stations clearly from 25 miles away.

Even though the circuit was published after V-J Day, it’s likely that it was perfected while the War was still in progress with its attendant parts shortages. The author points out that parts weren’t critical. In addition to the tube and headphones, the circuit required only six manufactured parts, two resistors, two fixed capacitors, and two variable capacitors. The coils and the RF choke could be wound at home.

The circuit could be easily duplicated today. The tube is still readily available on eBay. The type 30 and the 1G4 are electrically identical, but my preference would by the 30, since its glass has the classic styling of the 1930’s era bottle, as opposed to the more “modern” octal style 1G4. It’s such a simple set that it would form the basis for an excellent science fair project. And with only 3 volts involved, it would even be a safe project. The original article contains some suggestions on how the circuit could be modified, so comparing some of these modifications would make the project very worthwhile. The young scientist needing to track down the parts will find some helpful leads on my crystal set parts page.

1970 Soviet Antenna Ideas

While we’re not able to decipher most of the text, most of these diagrams are self-explanatory. Figure 1 shows a fine longwire running from a mast on the dacha to a convenient tree. Figure 2 shows some details of the insulator, and figure 3 shows how to bring the lead-in inside.

I’m not sure what figure 4 is showing, although the vertical element at the left is labeled as the mast. Figure 5 shows how to make a good ground connection, and figure 6 shows how a knife switch can be used to disconnect the antenna when not in use.

For the young comrade without a dacha, figure 7 shows a slightly dangerous but effective idea. The component is labeled “kondensator”, which is obviously condenser or capacitor. One end is plugged into the receiver’s antenna jack, and the other end goes to the 220 volt AC mains. The same thing was done on this side of the Iron Curtain, such as this 1956 emergency crystal set which used the AC mains as an antenna. As long as the capacitor doesn’t short out, nothing could possibly go wrong!

1960 Grocery Prices

Yesterday, we looked at 1950 grocery prices, and today we move to 1960. Here’s a snapshot of what grocery prices looked like sixty years ago, with an emphasis on Thanksgiving fixings, from the November 21, 1960 issue of the Pittsburgh Press.

The turkey itself would set you back 39 cents per pound. If you were a non-traditionalist, hams started for about 69 cents per pound.

The cranberry sauce was two cans for 45 cents. If you were going to make your own cranberry sauce, the berries were 19 cents per pound. And if you were making your own pie (which you probably did), the pumpkin was two cans for 39 cents.

Mayonnaise was 69 cents for a quart, and you could get 8 one-pound cans of Van Camp Pork and Beans for a dollar. Jello was 12 boxes for a dollar, and cake mixes were three for a dollar.

In the produce department, oranges were two dozen for 79 cents, and lettuce was 2 for 35 cents.

1950 Grocery Prices

Here’s a snapshot of grocery prices 70 years ago today, from the November 20, 1950, edition of the Pittsburgh Press.

With Thanksgiving just around the corner, it was only natural that turkeys featured prominently, at 69 cents a pound (or 59 cents a pound for those 16 pounds and up). For 29 cents, you could get two pounds of cranberries, two pounds of apples, or three pounds of sweet potatoes. If you preferred your cranberries out of a can, the canned cranberry sauce was 7 cans for a dollar.

If you were stocking up on other meat, pork roasts were 33 cents a pound, and beef roasts were 59 cents a pound.

For the pantry, you could get ten cans of Campbell’s Tomato Soup for a dollar, a two pound jar of grape jelly for 43 cents, olives for 43 cents, and asparagus five cans for a dollar. Two loaves of bread were 27 cents.

You could wash it all down with a carton of cigarettes for only $2, and for the bathroom, four bars of soap would set you back 36 cents.

1960 Handwriting Recognition

Shown here in the November 1960 issue of Electronics Illustrated is 17-year-old Belmont Frisbee, then a student at Burroughs High School in China Lake, California. He was one of the winners of the 1960 National Science Fair and is demonstrating his winning entry here. The device he constructed is dubbed “Adicof,” and allowed the entry of numbers into a computer by writing them by hand.

The digit is written with a metal stylus onto a panel with inlaid copper strips, as shown in the diagram below. For example, when making a “2”, the stylus will pass over strips 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7.

The nearly forgotten art of relay logic is used to determine which number was being written. A partial diagram is shown below. Each strip is attached to the coil of a relay. The first relay is single pole, double throw (SPDT). The next one is DPDT. The one after that is 4PDT. Unfortunately, there probably weren’t any 128PDT relays on the shelf for the seventh relay, so multiple relays were used for the higher stages.

I believe the circuit shown here is simplified in one respect: For this to work, it would be necessary to use some type of latching relay, since the stylus would no longer be in contact with the pad when the next pad is contacted.

The simplified diagram shown here uses light to indicate the digit drawn, but for his exhibit, Mr. Frisbee hooked the output to a computer.

Today, it’s a trivial matter for a computer to recognize hand input, but the concept is nothing new. Sixty years ago, a high school student accomplished the task with electromechanical relays.

Mr. Frisbee continued as an engineer after high school. He was issued at least two patents (4,477,812 and 8,009,084), both of which involve radar, and both of which list the U.S. Navy as the assignee.

The magazine highlighted some other winners of the 1960 National Science Fair. Remarkably, it includes an electron microscope constructed by Marvin Hutt, a New York high school student, despite having experts tell him that making one at home was impossible. For students looking for inspiration for a science fair project, perhaps there are a few who could build an electron microscope from scratch. But in an age when computing power is taken for granted, there’s something to be said for being able to use mechanical relays for programmable logic. The science teacher might not even realize that it’s possible, and proving the impossible is always a good way to take home the blue ribbon.

Pulling In Blacked Out Games: 1970

I don’t remember if I saw this particular magazine, the November 1970 issue of Popular Mechanics, but I did see magazines like it, and I was intrigued. I had absolutely no interest in sports, but I was interested in pulling in distant TV stations. We had it pretty good for television signals in Minneapolis-St. Paul. We had 5 VHF stations, and if you moved the loop antenna just right, you could pull in channel 17 on the elusive UHF dial. Our local newspaper and the local edition of TV Guide listed only these channels. In the paper, channels 2-11 were shown in a grid, with the schedule for channel 17 printed in small type in a corner of the page.

But occasionally, we would travel to surrounding areas, and when we did, if I could scrape together enough change, I bought a copy of TV Guide. The Minnesota edition listed all of the Twin Cities stations, but it was also chock full of listings of other stations. By and large, they were all the same programs. But some of my favorites were on at different times. I just needed a way to pull in these stations.

We never did it, because the rabbit ears worked just fine for our local channels. But I dreamed of putting up an outdoor antenna to pull in those elusive signals. Articles like this spurred my dreams.

This particular article was penned by prolific electronics writer Len Buckwalter. The target audience was sports fans. Games were “blacked out” in those days. Football was particularly affected by these “blackouts”. Today, sports is a television event. But then, the thinking was that if the game were on TV, attendance at the stadium would suffer. They figured that nobody over a hundred miles away would drive to see the game, so it was safe to put it on TV there. But unless the game was sold out, it wouldn’t be televised locally.

So if you were in the team’s city, if you wanted to watch the game, you had two choices. Either you could buy a ticket and see it in person, or you could watch it on a distant TV station. Some people drove to other cities to watch the game. It was cheaper to rent a hotel room and drive there, so that’s what some people did. But some people put up a big enough antenna so they could watch the game at home, and that’s what Buckwalter’s article told you how to do.

He explained a number of possibilities. If you already had an outdoor antenna, then what you needed was a rotor, so you could steer it toward the city where the game was playing. Of course, your picture might still be full of snow, so putting a pre-amp on the mast might do the trick.

Particularly avid sports fans could purchase a separate yagi antenna tuned to the channel carrying the game, and point that toward the out-of-town station. They could install a knife switch like the one shown here. On game day, they would switch on the yagi. On other days, you would switch back to the antenna receiving the local channels.

To demonstrate the art, the article carried screen shots showing a baseball game broadcast on Channel 8 in New Haven, CT., being pulled in by an antenna in New York City. With an outdoor antenna a pre-amp, the picture quality was actually better than a New York channel with an average antenna setup.