Seventy years ago this month, the December 1954 issue of Popular Electronics showed this mobile radio station of the Inter County Amateur Radio Club in Detroit, W8IGS. Shown in th epicture are a number of executives of the Dodge Division of Chrysler, which had donated the truck to the club.
The vehicle was equipped with stations for 2 and 10 meters, including 2 meter Radio Teletype. The club had also assembled 25 portable walkie-talkies for use in conjunction with the station.
Seventy years ago, this British gentleman was putting the finishing touches on his valve tester or, as we would say on this side of the Pond, tube tester. The plans were found in the December 1954 issue of Practical Wireless. The circuit would perform the usual tests on tubes, and it also had the option of hooking it up to your oscilloscope to check the exact operating condition.
We’ve previously covered kerosene-powered radios, but the December 1939 issue of National Radio News covers a similar concept. Apparently, there were radios that were powered a home’s natural gas supply. This item is lacking in details, but it appears there were at least two such sets. One was somewhere in Britain, and the other one was displayed at the New York World’s Fair.
Like the kerosene sets, electricity came from a thermocouple. The British version ran the filaments directly off the thermocouple, and the voltage was stepped up to provide the B+.
Eighty-five years ago, this young woman is enjoying some musical entertainment at the beach, thanks to her General Electric model HB-408 portable radio-phono. The set featured a mechanical record player, which could play two ten-inch records on a single crank. The electronics consisted of four tubes (1A7G, 1N5G, 1H5G, and 1Q5G), powered by one 1.5 volt A battery and two 45 volt B batteries. It featured a four-inch speaker. She had no trouble getting it to the beach, as it was a featherweight 19.5 pounds.
The picture appeared in the December 1939 issue of National Radio News.
Seventy years ago, this homemaker was able to prepare her family’s holiday meal while she was entertained by high-fidelity music, thanks to this portable sound system mounted on a household teacart. The photo was provided by Regency, and the equipment consisted of the Regency HF -150 high- fidelity amplifier, the Webcor “Diskchanger,” and the Jensen “Duette” reproducer.
The photo appeared on the cover of Radio News, December 1954, and the magazine noted that eagle-eyed readers might notice the lack of interconnecting cables. This was explained by the possibility that she didn’t want to finish hooking it up until dinner was on the table.
One hundred years ago this month, the December 1924 issue of Radio Age showed Claiborne Foster, and in the inset below Allan Dinehart. They were both appearing in the play Applesauce, which was then playing in Chicago, where it was broadcast live from the stage by KYW.
Actress Claiborne Foster was prolific on Broadway, and Dinehart was most famous as a director. His son by the same name also went on to fame in Hollywood as a television writer and producer. His credits included the Fllintstones and Gilligan’s Island.
Eighty years ago this month, the December 1944 issue of Radio Craft showed this schematic for a one-tube regenerative receiver. The dual tube, a 1D8, was used for local oscillator, mixer, and detector. It had been sent in to the magazine by one Max W. Schmukler of Pueblo, CO, who reported that it outperformed a regenerative set.
When I first saw this cover of Radio News, December 1939, I thought perhaps she was building the wireless mike, the field strength meter, or maybe the full-range amplifier. But one way or another, she looks like she knows how to handle a soldering iron.
But it turns out she’s a ham, and undoubtedly working on one of her rigs. Her identity was obscured by the mailing label, but fortunately, her call sign was barely visible. She was Lenore Kingston, W9CHD, later Lenore Jensen, with calls W2NAZ and W6NAZ. She was an actress with NBC in Chicago, and pestered the engineers so that they taught her enough code and theory to get her license. After she moved to New York, she kept in touch with one of those engineers, who proposed over CW and became her first husband. Upon his passing, she remarried another radio engineer. She continued her career in broadcast radio in California
She was born Lenore Bourgeotte, but a publicist changed her name to Lenore Kingston when she started her radio career. When World War II broke out, she taught Morse Code to Navy radiomen. She co-founded the YLRL, and handled thousands of phone patches and traffic for servicemen during the Vietnam war. She passed away in 1993. You can read a full obituary in the July 1993 issue of World Radio.
Seventy years ago, you couldn’t go wrong giving a radio as a gift, and GE’s colorful two-page ad in the November 29, 1954 issue of Life Magazine gives you ideas for the perfect gift for everyone on your list.
And, of course, for that person whose spelling needs a little help, the same issue contained this ad:
This 40 and 15 meter transmitter designed especially for the novice appeared on the cover of QST for November 1954. The construction article for how to build it, however, didn’t appear until the December 1954 issue.
The set was designed by Lew McCoy, W1ICP, and was billed a stable transmitter especially for the novice. It was pointed out that a 40 meter dipole would work well on both bands, so only a single antenna was necessary, and the article included details for how to make it.
A shielded enclosure was deemed a necessity, because of the possibility of TV interference while using 15 meters. The set employed a 6CL6 oscillator, 6BQ6-GA amplifier, and a 5Y3 rectifier in the built-in power supply.
