Sixty years ago this month, another Boys’ Life radio contest was underway, as shown by these scouts pictured above in the February 1956 issue of the magazine.
The issue carried an extensive article detailing how scouts could pull in numerous stations, both amateur and broadcast, from around the world.
Shown here in the February 1936 issue of Radio News are the members of the World Explorers Club of Kern Road Junior High School in East Detroit, Michigan. According to the magazine, the club’s purpose was to enjoy and understand transmissions of the people of foreign lands over shortwave radio. The magazine noted that the list of stations they received regularly was too long to publish.
A hundred years ago today, American radio amateurs showed that they could successfully relay a message coast to coast, as part of the Washington’s Birthday relay. At 11:00 PM Central Time on February 21, 1916, a soldier from the Rock Island Arsenal delivered a sealed envelope to W.H. Kirwin, 9XE, in Davenport, IA. By pre-arranged routing, the message was flashed across the country in a matter of minutes.
The message from the commander of the arsenal was delivered to the governors of the several states, to the mayors of large cities, and even to the White House. The message read as follows:
QST QST QST DE 9XE
A Democracy requires that a people who govern and educate themselves should be so armed and disciplined that they can protect themselves.
(Signed) Colonel Nicholson, U.S.A.
References
Ninety years ago, this date’s issue of Radio Digest, February 20, 1926, featured this picture of eighteen year old Fay Wray, who is probably best remembered for her role in the 1933 film King Kong.
Her fame on the cover of this magazine was a result of her being named one of the thriteen WAMPAS Baby Stars for 1926, in a program broadcast by KNX in Los Angeles. The honor was conferred by the Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers, which each year honored thirteen young actresses believed to be on the threshold of stardom. Other familiar names in the class of 1926 included Mary Astor and Joan Crawford.
Canadian-born Wray resided in Hollywood, and had appeared in a number of minor roles. After the recognition brought about by the WAMPAS award, she was contracted by Paramount, where she made more than a dozen movies. Her most famous role in King Kong was for RKO.
She died in New York in 2004 at the age of 96. Two days later, the lights of the Empire State Building were extinguished for fifteen minutes in her memory.
The advertisement shown here for the Hallicrafters S-29 receiver appeared 75 years ago in the February 1941 issue of Radio News. This early portable communications receiver, dubbed the Sky Traveler, covered the broadcast band through 30 MHz in four bands. It could run either on internal rechargeable batteries or from AC power. It had a lineup of 9 tubes, including the 50Y5GT rectifier. All other tubes were one volt filament types. The set did have a BFO for listening to code, with one tube (a 1G4GT) dedicated to that purpose.
The full manual for the receiver is available online. You can see a restored version in operation at the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOMNPVFMcb8
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Imperial War Museum image, © IWM (COM 501).
The crystal set shown here is from the collections of the Imperial War Museum.
The Channel Islands were the only part of Britain that were under German occupation during World War 2, and while islanders were initially allowed to keep their radio sets, they were eventually confiscated. In response, many residents obtained crystal sets such as the one shown here. This one was manufactured in Guernsey in 1944.
Evening Post photo of confiscated radios in Guernsey, via TheIslandWiki.org.
The plans for the set were broadcast by “Colonel Britton” of the BBC. This set, along with about 50 others, was manufactured by the person who donated the set to the museum. The coil was made of wire stolen from a German car, and the crystals were made by mixing sufur and lead, baked in a fire in a German rifle cartidge case.
Occasionally, the wavelength of the BBC broadcast would change, at which time “Colonel Britton” would announce that more windings would need to be added to the coil. Either a radio headphone or a telephone receiver could be used to listen.
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There was a time when Americans dressed up for coffee and donuts. The ad here appeared in Life magazine 75 years ago today, February 17, 1941.
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The February 1936 issue of Popular Science shows the plans for this simple portable receiver. “By careful planning and the use of midget parts and space-saving metal tubes, a complete three-tube circut, loudspeaker and all, has been crammed into an ordinary cigar box.” Despite the small size, it could “be built by anyone who boasts a jack knife, a pair of pliers, a screw driver, a soldering iron, and a small drill.”
The circuit consisted of a 6K7 serving as RF amplifier and detector, with a 6C5 serving as audio amplifier to drive a three-inch speaker. A second 6C5 was used as rectifier. A “curtain burner” cord was used to reduce the line voltage to 18 volts in order to light the filaments of the three tubes wired in series.
In testing, the set gave good volume on more than a dozen stations, with a sixty-foot outside antenna.
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Big Hole Battlefield, Wyoming. NPS photo.
Tim, AE7PJ posted an interesting video showing his experience as an activator in the ARRL National Parks On The Air (NPOTA) event. He was operating from near Wisdom, Montana, at a point where three National Park Service units converge: The Big Hole Battlefield, the Nez Perce Historic Park, and the Lewis and Clark Trail.
The Lewis and Clark Trail traces the route of the 1804-06 Corps of Discovery from Illinois to Washington. This particular spot was along the route of Clark’s return journey, following the Yellowstone River and then along the route of modern day Interstate 94. The Big Hole National Battlefield is the site of the August 9, 1877, Battle of Big Hole between the U.S. Army and the Nez Perce encamped there. The National Battlefield is one of six units in four states of the Nez Perce National Historic Park, devoted to the history and culture of the Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) people and the 1877 conflict.
Tim condensed his two-hour operation into a nine-minute video, and it sounds like he listed all of the call signs he worked and has a brief snippet of everyone’s audio. You can see my call, W0IS, scroll by at 5:46, and you’ll hear me saying “59 Minnesota” at 6:08.
Tim was running a Hamstick vertical antenna
The video references the NPOTA Facebook group, which has become a very active forum for discussing NPOTA, and also providing spots to help other chasers find the stations in the parks, some of which can be quite weak. In Tim’s case, he had posted his plans, and a number of us kept tuning the band looking for his signal. I think I was the first one to spot him, but he was too weak to work when he first came on. While waiting for him to show up, I did have the pleasure of working WC8VOA, the ham station located at the former Voice of America relay station in Bethany, Ohio. For many decades, that station broadcast worldwide, as documented in the video below. Two historic sites in one night–not a bad use of radio.
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Happy Valentine’s Day from OneTubeRadio.com, and from Humpty Dumpty, as shown here on the cover of the February 1961 issue of Humpty Dumpty magazine.
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