You can say one thing for this woman: She had her priorities in the right place. The battery in the radio was dead, so there was nothing to do but go home. The cartoon appeared in the November-December 1949 issue of RCA Service News. It was reprinted from the New York Herald Tribune, apparently the August 10, 1949 edition.
Of course, if her dealer had heeded the advice on the next page and sold her genuine RCA batteries, this probably wouldn’t have happened.
The English high school students shown here in the November 1959 issue of Electronics Illustrated put together this Radio Telescope, at a total cost of about $40. Led by sixteen year old Doug Miller, the students at the Dartford Grammar School near London had already pulled in signals from the Milky Way, the sun, and the constellation Sagittarius. Parts for the receiver came from donated a donated TV set.
The young man shown here is pulling in the short waves thanks to a simple receiver designed around wartime parts shortages. The set used three tubes, which could be types 30, 199, or 201-A, obsolete tubes used by older battery sets. It featured two stages of audio amplification, and could drive either headphones or a small speaker. It pulled in shortwave signals from 160 to 10 meters with homemade plug-in coils. The detector was regenerative, with a variable capacitor controlling regeneration.
If B batteries were unavailable (a likely scenario given wartime shortages), then the transformerless battery eliminator shown here could be used. The set appeared in Popular Mechanics 75 years ago this month, November 1944.
Shown here in the November 1939 issue of Radio News is a mobile installation dubbed the “Diplomatic,” which could be used by hams, or also for other mobile applications such as police radio. It is shown here in a 1939 Pontiac, but the same equipment is also shown mounted in a Chevy. The receiver, a Howard 438, is tucked away in the glove compartment, and most of the transmitter is located in the trunk. The dial on the dash is hooked to a stepper relay in the trunk, and is used to turn on the filaments and turn the bandswitch.
Eighty years ago this month, the November 1939 issue of Boys’ Life shows Boy Scouts lending a hand at NBC radio stations. The images here are taken from network headquarters in New York, as well as WMAL Washington. The magazine shows scouts with Lowell Thomas. And Scout Stan Groner of Troop 248, Bronx, NY, is shown with Charlie McCarthy wearing a scout uniform, although it’s unclear whether McCarthy could pass the Tenderfoot requirements.
Shown above, from the November 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics, is one of the operators at an FCC Radio Intelligence Division monitoring stations. He was rotating an antenna capable of narrowing down the incoming signal to one degree, in order to track down a clandestine transmitter somewhere in the U.S., or even abroad.
The majority of operators were hams, and they had the procedure down to a science. They scanned the bands looking for unfamiliar signals. As soon as an unknown station was heard at one station, other stations were immediately notified by teletype and took bearings. Those bearings were then sent to Washington for a fix. At that point, one of 50 mobile units was notified, and would sniff out the transmitter. Finally, an RID man would find the exact location on foot. And as shown below, they would then raid the offending location, presumably with FBI men accompanying with the machine guns.
Before the war, there was little need for such extensive monitoring. But from 1940 to the date of the article, over 9000 cases of unlicensed and subversive transmitters had been spotted. Over 200 spies had been rounded up in South America thanks to RID bearings.
Some transmissions were high speed code, but the stations were equipped with recording devices, and transmissions could be played back at a lower speed. The stations were also invaluable for locating downed aircraft, both military and civilian.
The universal remote control is nothing new, as shown by this photograph from 50 years ago, in the November-December 1969 issue of Elementary Electronics. The accompanying article dealt with some of the finer points of operating a public address system, such as dealing with hum and feedback. Sometimes, the remedy for feedback was just shutting off the offending speaker. This ceiling speaker in a hotel banquet room had a convenient on-off switch, and this hotel maintenance man is shown shutting it off with what those in the industry called a “skyhook.”
Today, remote controls are typically electronic rather than mechanical, but there are some jobs where having a long stick is what you need. For those jobs, having a golf ball retriever or a painter’s pole can quickly save the day, and you can order them from Amazon. They are telescoping for easy storage, and once you get one, you won’t know what you did without it. In addition to being useful for extending your reach, they can be used for applications such as supporting an antenna or being a tent pole.
Eighty years ago this month, the November 1939 issue of of Radio Retailing, carried this description of what it called a “community record player. ” The system was operated from a studio in a New York office building operated by the Wire Broadcasting Corporation of America. The company provided two channels, each free of commercial advertising. One channel provided dance music, with the other carrying concert selections. Broadcasting took place from 11:00 AM until 3:00 AM the next morning. The signal was sent out by leased telephone lines.
The subscribers to the service were apartment buildings, such as the Essex House apartment hotel shown in the picture.
The young woman shown here is on a weekend jaunt, but that doesn’t stop her from tuning in her favorite radio programs, thanks to the four-tube set described in the November 1939 issue of Popular Science. The set was specially designed for overnight travels, since it nested inside an overnight luggage carrier. The entire piece of luggage could be built according to the plans in the magazine, or it could be made up at the local luggage shop. Both the radio and the baggage were attractively covered in airplane-luggage fabric. When she arrived at her destination, she simply took the radio out of the top of her case, plugged it in, and she was again connected with the world.
The receiver itself was a four-tube TRF design. A curtain burner cord provided the filament voltage.
This wistful look at the possibilities for postwar home appliances appeared in Radio Craft magazine 75 years ago this month, November 1944. The idea had been sent in to the magazine by George Predential of Schenectady, NY, and penned by cartoonist Frank Beaven. One wonders what they would think of modern bread machines, some of which are shown below.
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