Seventy-five years ago today, the April 23, 1944, issue of the Milwaukee Journal carried this article noting that recruiters from the Signal Corps were in Milwaukee looking for women to take jobs in Arlington, Virginia.
It’s likely that the women thus employed were part of the operations of radio station WAR, such as the operator shown below.
Sixty years ago this month, the April 1959 issue of Popular Electronics contained this project, a two-transistor regenerative receiver for the broadcast band. The circuit used a 2N247 (or 2N274) transistor as regenerative detector, with a 2N109 (or 2N217) serving as audio amplifier to drive headphones. A built-in ferrite loopstick served as antenna for portable use, although there were terminals for external antenna and ground to pull in more distant stations.
On Easter Sunday, 1939, a sunrise Easter service was held at the Hollywood Bowl and carried live over the Mutual Broadcasting System. The photo here (presumably of the 1938 service) appeared in the April 15, 1939, issue of Radio Guide. The magazine noted that Mutual would carry not only the service from the Hollywood Bowl, but also from Mt. Rubidoux in Riverside, Cal., and from the steps of the state capitol in Olympia, Wash.
Was it a morning like this?
We previously posted pages 1-12 of a catalog from Minneapolis radio distributor Lew Bonn Co. from about 1941. Here are pages 13-19, and we’ll post more pages in the future. Click on any page to see the full image. And in most browsers, click a second time for the enlarged version.
Today’s section covers mostly tubes and batteries. Eventually, we’ll post the full 168 page catalog.
The young man shown here is diligently hitting the books, but he’s also entertaining himself, thanks to the combination radio-bookends described 80 years ago this month in the April 1939 issue of Popular Science. The radio is built into one bookend, and the speaker into the other. The two ends can fold down for easy transport, as shown below.
The circuit itself contains four tubes. A 6SJ7 pentode serves as regenerative detector, with a 6SF5 and 25A6 as audio amplifier. A 25Z6 full-wave rectifier rounds out the tube compliment. According to the text, the antenna is built in, although the schematic shows connections for external antenna and ground for pulling in the distant stations.
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2019 fire. Wikipedia photo: LeLaisserPasserA38 [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Construction of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, which is burning today, began in 1160 and was largely completed in 1260. It was wired for sound in about 1925, as shown in the illustrations above. At left, a microphone is visible above the pulpit. At right, a speaker is mounted on a pillar near the chancel. One of the cathedral’s distinctive rose windows is visible in the background. The pictures appeared in the July 1925 issue of Radio News, which reported that the then-700-year-old cathedral had finally been modernized. According to the magazine, the speakers were installed “so that the congregation may hear the services.”
Another picture, shown below, is also of Notre Dame, but is not immediately recognizable as such. From the 1918 issue of Electrical Experimenter, the picture shows air raid sirens installed atop one of the towers. For an look at a 1914 air raid on Paris, see our earlier post.
Castro in Washington, 1959. Wikipedia photo.
Sixty years ago today, on April 15, 1959, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro began his eleven day tour of the United States. But as you can see from the page of that month’s Popular Electronics shown above, another familiar Cuban name was making his mark in the U.S.
The article is a one-page feature on TV DX’ing, and offers little detail. The image at the top is a screen shot of WPST-TV in Miami, captured in Havana, Cuba. And the author of the article is none other than Arnaldo “Arnie” Coro, Jr., CO2KK, one of the founders of Radio Havana Cuba, and a popular host of the station’s DX program.
Eighty years ago this month, the April 1939 issue of Radio Retailing carried this ad for Sentinel portable sets, featuring the country’s lowest priced battery set, the model 170-BL. The three-tube superhet sold for $14.95, including battery, and featured a tube lineup of 1N5G, 1N5G, and 1A5G. Filaments ran off a 1.5 volt A battery, with a 90 volt B battery.
Shown here in the April 1934 issue of Short Wave Craft magazine is the well equipped station of Henry L. Carter, Jr., W8FTB, 45 Sheldon Terrace, Rochester, N.Y., at the time, the youngest licensed amateur in the United States. Carter was first licensed at the age of 10 on January 14, 1932. He got his first station set up with the assistance of his father, ex-8BOW, who had been licensed in 1923. The transmitter was a crystal controlled three tubes on 3530 and 3840 kHz. Carter reported that he could copy “20 per, and send ‘plenty fast.'”
He had worked stations throughout the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, and held an Army Amateur Radio Station appointment. He was also the youngest member of the Scout Amateur Radio Net, and as you can see from the uniform, he kept himself busy with Scout work. His troop had organized a radio club consisting of sixteen members.
According to a Sept. 27, 1939, article in the Rochester Times Union contained in this scrapbook,
Carter, then residing at 297 Plymouth Ave. S., joined the Army Signal Corps at the age of 18.
I wasn’t able to find any reference to Carter after the War. If he had gone back to Rochester, his call would have become W2FTB, but I wasn’t able to find any reference to him holding that call. He would be about 97 today, so if Mr. Carter or a relative is out there, we would enjoy very much hearing from you to follow up.
Seventy years ago this month, the April 1949 issue of Popular Mechanics showed how to put together this simple two-tube broadcast set. Running off AC power, the set would drive a loudspeaker. It used many of the same parts as a one-tube set published in the January issue, allowing the radio student to upgrade the simpler set.
A 6J6 dual triode carried out the RF duties, with a 6AK6 pentode AF amplifier driving the speaker. The set employed a selenium rectifier.
One unobtainium part is the permeability tuner, similar to the one used in a 1948 Popular Science receiver.
