Seventy five years ago, the exact time and place of the D-Day invasion was a closely guarded military secret, but the fact that is was coming soon was no secret. 75 years ago today, the May 20, 1944, issue of the Milwaukee Journal carried this headline that Gen. Eisenhower had issued his first orders to the Underground.
The orders went out over American radio stations recently constructed on the continent. The commander-in-chief advised the underground to take minute and detailed note of every move of the enemy, with particular attention to the moves of his men, tanks, guns, as well as their markings and strength.
When this was published, the invasion was just over two weeks away.
Fifty years ago this month, the May 1969 issue of Boys’ Life carried a one-page primer on shortwave listening. It coached scouts on the basics of the hobby. The article noted that you could get started with a portable or table radio, but for the best experience, it recommended a communications receiver in the $100 price range. The bandspread was identified as the most important feature.
The article noted that the lower frequency bands up to 25 meters were best at night, with the higher frequencies being best during daylight hours.
It noted that it was possible to listen in on both U.S. and Soviet space shots, and noted that the frequencies of 17,655 and 20,186 kHz were the most likely.
Starting in about 2011, residents of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, reporting hearing what came to be called the “Windsor Hum.” The mysterious and annoying sound comes and goes, but it is a low-pitched sound of about 30-35 Hz with an apparent range of several miles. It’s often described as being similar to a truck idling nearby.
Long suspected as the source of the sound is Zug Island, an artificial island in the Detroit River, on the U.S. side of the international border.
Named after an early owner, Samuel Zug, the island was formed from a natural peninsula where he originally intended to build a luxurious estate. The swampy character of the land led him to abandon the idea, and he instead used it for industrial purposes. In 1888, he allowed a small canal to be cut, turning the peninsula into an island, and this canal was enlarged by Henry Ford in the 1920s for easier river access to the River Rouge Ford plant.
The island became a site of iron making as early as 1901, and the entire island is currently part of United States Steel Corporation’s Great Lakes Works. The portion of the plant on the island produces iron, which is processed into steel at facilities in Ecorse, MI, a couple of miles south. The island facility includes three blast vessels, which are believed by many to be the source of the sound.
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources concluded in 2011 that Zug Island was the source of the mystery sound. A 2014 report by researchers at the University of Windsor also concluded that the blast furnace operations on Zug Island were the likely source. However, because the intermittent sound was not present on days when some of the research equipment was deployed, the report found that “conclusive evidence of the source was not achieved.”
Interestingly, Zug Island also bears the distinction of being the scheduled destination of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald on her last voyage in 1975. Contrary to the artistic license taken by the song, she wasn’t “fully loaded for Cleveland.”
According to one published report (QST for May 2019), Zug Island is “governed by Homeland Security,” although I’ve found no evidence of this. As with any industrial plant, access is not granted to non-employees to come in and take a look around. Therefore, it’s understandable that the two bridges to the plant are “heavily guarded” as the article claims. The “governed by Homeland Security” claim probably arises from the fact that some of the “No Trespassing” signs posted by U.S. Steel, in an apparent attempt to add emphasis, include language that “under Homeland Security, any individual within 100′ of a docked ship must possess a TWIC card.” Since ships obviously dock on the island to load and unload cargo, this Homeland Security regulation comes into play, as it would at any maritime facility.
The existence of the hum has given rise to a certain amount of citizen science to collaborate in the identification and elimination of the hum. Much of this is carried out in a Facebook group created in response to official inaction.
If you want to hear the hum yourself, it is available at the following video, posted by the Facebook group’s founder . To listen, however, you will need a speaker system or headphones with very good bass response, in order to reproduce the 30-35 Hz. With typical computer speakers or headphones, you will not be able to hear the sound.
Conspiracy buffs might be disappointed, but while the source of the hum has not been pinned down with absolute precision, the likely source has been identified.
Author’s Note: This post is obviously a bit off-topic, since we normally discuss radio history at this blog. (However, we’re prone to branch off into seemingly unrelated topics, so this isn’t the first time we’ve done so.)
The reason why I posted this article is because QST, the membership journal of the American Radio Relay League, published in its May 2019 issue a similar article. I had a number of criticisms of the article, to the point where I thought that I could do a better job myself. So rather than simply criticize, I decided to go ahead and write my own article. The original QST article is probably more polished, as the result of better editing. But even though I wrote it in a day based upon online research, I think mine is better. Here are my concerns with the QST article:
First and foremost, every issue of QST carries on its masthead the words “devoted entirely to amateur radio.” This article, while perhaps interesting, really has nothing whatsoever to do with Amateur Radio. Notably, the author is not a ham, and probably not an ARRL member. Yet three valuable pages of the membership journal were devoted to this off-topic information (and one of those pages consisted of a stock photo). While the article might have covered a topic that was interesting to some members (including myself), it seems like a poor use of such valuable real estate. After all, most members are paying almost $50 per year for membership, and a good portion of that amount is earmarked for the magazine. It might have been a good choice to go on the ARRL website, but putting it in print seems to me to be poor use of membership resources. The editors appear to have noticed this, as they did interview a local ham, who reported that the hum hadn’t affected his radio operations, and that he didn’t know of any other hams who were affected in any way.
More importantly, Amateur Radio is a technical hobby, and if members are interested in this topic, then it stands to reason that they are probably interested in the technological aspects. On this point, the article really lets them down. It uses vaguely “conspiracy theory” oriented language rather than any technical facts. A few trappings of science are included. For example, it includes a graph purporting to show the sound wave. But no explanation is given of the waveform, much less any explanation of how the graph was produced. It’s undoubtedly an oscillograph of a waveform picked up by microphone, but the article doesn’t explain where, when, or how. In fact, the illustration inexplicably shows two copies of the same graph, one on top of the other. Significantly, the article lacked any footnotes or references where the reader might learn more.
And as noted in my article, the article makes the claim that the island is “governed by Homeland Security.” Then, in conspiracy-theory tradition, it goes on to pose questions as to why Homeland Security would be involved, but doesn’t answer those questions.
Also, my first reading of the article left me confused as to whether Zug Island was located in the United States or in Canada. When I started reading, I assumed that the article was talking about a Canadian island. After reading to the end, I correctly guessed that the island was actually on the U.S. side of the border. But I didn’t know for sure until I did independent research.
Other than being written by the producer of a “popular podcast,” I have no idea why this article appeared in QST. I don’t mind the occasional foray into off-topic material. In fact, I enjoy the “Eclectic Technology” column which usually covers non-radio technology that is still of interest to hams. The reason why that column works is because the author knows that readers will be interested in scientific and technical topics.
An article about the Windsor Hum would be at home in a magazine with a broad audience such as Popular Science. But even the editors of such a general-interest magazine would pay more attention to accurately reporting facts, rather than merely hinting at conspiracy theories. And QST readers certainly deserve better.
Seventy-five years ago this month, the May 1944 issue of Radio Craft carried this simple one-tube AC/DC circuit sent in by one Bob Smith of Montclair, NJ. The set uses a single 12A7 tube as rectifier and detector. According to Smith, the set would perform on either the standard broadcast band or on shortwave, with appropriate plug-in coils.
The filament voltage is dropped through a standard light bulb, although the schematic shows 70 watts, and the text shows 40 watts. I suspect 70 watts is the correct value, but we’ll leave it up to the reader to do the calculations.
Eighty years ago, the May 15, 1939, issue of Life Magazine introduced readers to the sometimes counter-intuitive geography that comes from living on a globe. In particular, the magazine noted that it was important for shortwave broadcasting. For example, it pointed out that the first reaction on how to reach Manila from New York would be to point the antenna toward Mexico and the Pacific. But by looking at a globe or an azimuthal map centered on New York, it’s clear that the shortest path is over Alaska.
Similarly, the magazine notes that it’s easier for Berlin radio to reach South America than it is for New York. This is because to reach the entire continent, the American station needs to have a beam 40 degrees wide. The German station, on the other hand, can get by with only half the power, since most of the continent can be covered with a beam of only 20 degrees.
It’s not a coincidence that New York and Berlin were chosen as the examples. Shortwave radio was an important force in World War II. For more information, see our earlier post.
This ad appeared 75 years ago today in the May 1944 issue of Broadcasting. It shows the facilities of WMTW, one of the stations of the Yankee Network’s FM network, broadcasting from Mount Washington, New Hampshire.
The network relied upon daisy-chaining the signals, and WMTW received its signal from WGTR, Paxton, Mass., 142 miles away, on 44.3 MHz, and rebroadcast on 43.9 MHz.
Sixty years ago this month, the May 1959 issue of Radio Electronics magazine showed how to construct this simple baby monitor. The device consisted of a two-tube (plus selenium rectifier) audio amplifier and speaker, with a remote crystal microphone at the end of a long cord. The mike could by placed over the baby’s crib, and the parents could keep their ears open in another room while dining or watching TV.
A hundred years ago this month, the May 1919 issue of Popular Science tackled the topic of communications with Mars. The magazine quoted Prof. Percival Lowell as saying that Mars is much older than Earth, and therefore it was reasonable to assume that the Martians had more time to evolve into creatures far superior to ourselves.
The magazine seemed to believe that radio waves wouldn’t do the trick. It noted that radio engineers on Earth require about 400 kilowatts to communicate 4000 miles. Thus, to make the millions of miles to the red planet, it looked bleak for wireless telegraphy.
A suggested alternative was to use light, and the magazine proposed setting up a lighted display of the Pythagorean theorem in the Sahara desert. “The Martians ought to recognize that Euclidean theorem, and reply with another. Picture would follow picture, until at last some kind of interstellar code would be established.”
With manufacture of civilian radios being suspended for the duration of the war in 1942, radio dealers had to seek other avenues to augment their income. Of course, servicing sets became especially important, but dealers also diversified, and that often meant selling records. Shown here, on the cover of the Radio Retailing for May 1944 is the colorful record display at Paramus Tire Exchange, 150 E. Ridgewood Ave., Ridgewood, N.J. The unusual name for a radio store (much less a kids’ record store) is explained by the fact that owner Cy Jacoby had diversified into the radio business in the 1920’s. The article noted that he was one of the many automotive men who took on radio way back when lots of music merchants were not interested.”
The address proved to be a good one from a merchandising point of view. With the inability to sell radios (or tires) during the war, Jacoby put together this display. In fact, since the shop was wired with intercoms, he even put a speaker behind the display and would speak to kids as the looked at the display of books and records.
The magazine warned of another kind of diversification that was illegal. Some dealers were buying broken radios and using the parts to rebuild new sets. In some cases, the rebuilding consisted of putting a refurbished chassis into a new cabinet. But the magazine reported that the War Production Board had taken the position that this was illegal.
There had apparently been no prosecutions, although the magazine did note that there had been several cases of action taken against dealers who had converted automobile sets to home use. Presumably, making the conversion at home (as described at this post and this post) were OK, but a dealer could not do the conversion and sell the set.
The May 1939 issue of Radio Retailing offered some advice for radio men thinking of diversifying their business–the electric fence. The magazine pointed out that a fence needs to be “pig tight, horse high, and bull strong,” but that this ideal has never been fully arrived at. But a small electrical jolt will encourage all animals to shun the fence completely, at a much lower cost.
The article noted that the concept of an electric fence was fairly new, and that a Wisconsin survey showed that only about ten percent of the farmers in that state were employing them. Many states had adopted regulations prohibiting the direct connection to the electrical mains, so even in areas of rural electrification, the dealer would be able to sell batteries and chargers to satisfy the need.
Seventy five years ago, the exact time and place of the D-Day invasion was a closely guarded military secret, but the fact that is was coming soon was no secret. 75 years ago today, the May 20, 1944, issue of the Milwaukee Journal carried this headline that Gen. Eisenhower had issued his first orders to the Underground.
