When I show vintage electronics projects on this site, it’s usually just for the nostalgia value, since the modern replacement is usually much better and much cheaper than recreating the old version. Today’s project, however, turns out to be an exception. It’s such a niche product that there’s really not much available off the shelf. Forty years ago this month, August 1975, Popular Electronics carried the plans for this electronic scoreboard-timer for use in athletic events. The display could be toggled between showing the score or showing the time, and the clock could count either up or down. There was provision for adding a horn to sound when the clock got to zero.

The display board shown here measured 48 by 14 inches, and would be easily visible in a large gymnasium. But the entire device, including the display, was homemade, and it could easily be adapted to a larger size.

Interior detail of the display.

The individual digits each contained seven 7.5 watt christmas tree bulbs, along with two extra bulbs to serve as the colon when the time was being displayed. Each segment was turned off and on by a relay, making the basic design adaptable to an even larger scoreboard.

The guts of the unit consisted of 24 integrated circuits, most 74xx series TTL. The unit included a power supply (which used the AC power at timer for the clock) for the TTL voltages, and the lamps in the display unit ran directly off 120 volts.

The article billed the parts as costing about $100. Most of the parts (or modern equivalents) should be readily available from suppliers such as Jameco Electronics, probably for less money.  While the price of a complete comparable scoreboard is probably lower today than it was forty years ago, a comparable one such as the one shown here is still considerably more expensive than the component parts for making one yourself.

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Based upon the available photographic evidence, the conclusion seems inescapable that American girls of the 1920’s spent most of their time at the beach listening to the radio. Here, we see another piece of evidence supporting that proposition, from Wireless Age magazine of August 1925.  This young lady, according to the caption, is listening to her Radiola portable between dips at the seashore.

According to the accompanying article, there was more interest in summertime radio than there had ever been before.  In addition to being the perfect adjunct to swimming, it also went perfectly with boating, motoring, picnics, or the “nineteenth hole” at the golf course.

For use while boating, the article gave a number of ideas for dealing with the question of erecting an antenna and ground.  For a larger craft, a suitable aerial could be erected from the mast.  But for smaller craft, the article suggested the arrangement shown here, the general principle of which should be self-explanatory.

 
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Seventy-five years ago, the August 1940 edition of Popular Science provided an admittedly ingenious solution to a nonexistent problem, in the form of this one-control radio.  The set is a rather unremarkable crystal detector followed by a one-tube audio amplifier.  In other words, it will pull in about as many stations as any other crystal set, only louder.

The gimmick is that the set has but one control, a tuning knob combined with an on-off switch.  In other words, instead of turning the set off by clicking the volume control (which it doesn’t have), you turn it off by rotating the tuning control to the bottom of the dial.

This was accomplished by coupling the shaft of the variable condenser to a rheostat.  Before doing so, you flow solder over the windings of the rheostat, turning it into an on-off switch.

I suppose this adds a certain level of convenience.  But whatever seconds are gained by not having to disconnect the battery are lost by the set’s having three separate antenna connections.  One connection is for maximum selectivity, another is for maximum sensitivity at the expense of selectivity, and a third is for use with a short antenna.  The antenna switching is done not with a switch, but by manually moving the antenna to a different connector.

Still, it’s an attractive little minimalist set.

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80 years ago, the September 1935 issue of Radio Craft magazine carried plans for this rowboat portable, shown here in use in Central Park, New York.  The four-tube superhet broadcast set was fully self-contained with a built-in loop antenna, and made use of newly available miniature B batteries which were mounted inside the cabinet.

The set was billed as ideal for the romanticist who was bound for one of the tens of thousands of lakes within the domains of Uncle Sam.  The set was small enough for easy transport in a rowboat or canoe.  The builder of this set could take radio programs along for accompaniment by waves gently lapping at the sides of the boat.

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Seventy-five years ago today, this ad appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, July 28, 1940, for what was one of the smallest, or perhaps the smallest prewar portable radios. The Philco Model PT-89C featured four tubes, and the loop antenna was inside the carrying strap. A surviving example can be found at this link and some other photos and a schematic can be found at this link.

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