Category Archives: Radio history

1937 Zenith 4-B-132 Farm Set

This young woman is now close to 90 years old, but she is shown here, according to the calendar on the wall, in September 1937, in her living room in a farm house near Northome, in Koochiching County in far northern Minnesota. The house looks humble, and I’m not sure exactly what’s going on there in the corner. They don’t have electricity, as evidence by the kerosene lamps, but they do have a radio, and it’s a rather impressive radio.

The radio is a Zenith model 4-B-132. You can see a beautifully preserved example at the Radio Attic Archives. (In fact, if you want to buy that radio, it’s for sale at the Radio Attic.) Most farm sets used two batteries–a low-voltage battery to run the filaments, and a B battery of something like 90 volts. But with this set, Zenith used a different tactic, which probably saved the owner a lot of money over the years. It used a single 6-volt battery, and, like a car radio, it included a vibrator power supply to generate the B+. When the battery got low, it could be recharged with the car or tractor.

Now that we know what the radio is, we want to know what they were listening to. And if we do a close-up of the dial, we can see that it’s tuned between 1400 and 1500 kHz. That makes it easy. The only logical suspect is KSTP, which was then (prior to the NARBA switch, when they moved to 1500) on 1460 kHz, with 25,000 watts day and 10,000 watts night. At 206 miles away, the station would come in loud and clear at night, and probably during most of the day as well. It was a good receiver, there was little in the way of electrical interference, and there were few other stations close to it on the dial. In fact, a 1937 promotional brochure from the station claims the county’s 2400 radio homes (out of a total of 3345 families) as being part of the station’s secondary service area, along with counties in Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas.

The photo was taken by Farm Security Administration photographer Russell Lee, and is available at the Library of Congress website. Another picture featuring the family and the radio can be found at this link.

Some people look at a picture like this one and feel sorry. There was a depression going on, and there’s a reason why there aren’t a lot of farms these days in Koochiching County. Life was undoubtedly tough. But despite their otherwise austere living conditions, they owned a $40 radio ($854 in 2023 dollars) which undoubtedly brought much pleasure during the long winter nights. And by zooming in on the left side of the picture, we see that this girl, along with her brother and sister, also owned this pinball machine. We suspect this girl had a happy childhood, and a happy life.

Unfortunately, while many of these old Farm Security Administration photos include a caption with the names of the people, this one does not. All we know is that this family lived on a farm near Northome, probably in the house shown below, which was the next negative on the roll.

It’s a longshot, but if you know the people in the picture, or you are a member of this family, we would love to hear from you at clem.law@usa.net.

1923 Giant Radio Truck

We’re not sure where the speaker is, but a hundred years ago, this radio truck was going to replace the marching band in parades. It appeared in the December 1923 issue of Popular Science.

1953 One Tube Loudspeaker Set

Mom and little sister are busy decorating the Christmas tree, but Dad and Junior are doing something even more exciting: They’re putting together this simple one-tube radio, following the plans in the December 1953 issue of Popular Mechanics. While the circuit is simplicity itself, it’s powerful enough to provide loudspeaker volume. It’s designed for young builders to put together, perhaps, like here, with a little bit of help from Dad. The magazine billed the set as “Safe, Simple, and Sensitive.” Safety came from the use of batteries. Simplicity was the result of a wooden chassis and panel, and sensitivity was ensured with an efficient circuit.

And the set was more than just a novelty for kids: The magazine pointed out that it was a good idea to have a battery-operated set as a standby receiver for power failures or other emergencies.

The set uses a regenerative detector using a 3V4 tube. The feedback goes through C3, which is a fixed capacitor. The article notes that some experimentation might be required to get the value just right. The author used a .004 μF capacitor, but the article noted that if signals were too weak, this should be increased. On the other hand, if the set whistled due to feedback, then the value should be reduced.

A short indoor antenna could be used. If a long outdoor antenna was used, then it was coupled capacitively with a loop of wire, since this would improve the set’s selectivity.

The end result was that Junior would have a set that he built himself, or perhaps with a little help, and the family would have a battery set for use in emergencies.

The author of the article is Lothar Stern, who went on to write Electronics Made Easy,
which was published by Popular Mechanics in 1956. He was with the magazine until 1960,
when he went to Motorola, where he authored Fundamentals of Integrated Cirucits in 1968.
According to a review of that book in QST for December 1968, it was “one of the most complete texts on basic integrated circuits and their applications that has been published, and a valuable addition to any electronics man’s technical library.”

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1938 Four Tube Portable

The young men in this picture would, in just a few years, be on their way overseas to fight the Germans and the Japanese, but in 1938, they were relaxing outside, and enjoying a radio broadcast thanks to the four-tube superheterodyne receiver described in the December 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics.

The magazine pointed out that many earlier so-called portables weren’t very portable at all, due to their size. But this one weighed in at only ten pounds, including batteries. The performance was said to be above average, and the drain on the battery was low. It drew only 8 mA from the 90 volt B battery, and 300 mA from the A battery.

California Ramblers, 1923

A hundred years ago tonight on the radio, you could listen to the California Ramblers performing over WEAF, New York. But it wasn’t just any broadcast, as seen from the clipping above, from the January 1923 issue of Talking Machine World. Due to the radio. Columbia records noted that the lid of many a long forgotten phonograph had been frozen. They fought back with radio, and purchased time on WEAF every Tuesday and Thursday at 9:15. Each broadcast featured a Columbia recording artist, and was broadcast right from the recording studio. If people liked what they heard, they could buy a record, enabling them to listen to it whenever they liked.

According to Columbia, listeners around the country had tuned in. The group is shown here, in 1931, in the June 1931 issue of What’s On The Air. You can hear them in their 1925 recording of “Five Foot Two Eyes of Blue”, below.

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Catalina Island Telephone Link: 1923

We previously reported the construction, in 1921, of a radiotelephone link between California and Santa Catalina Island, 26 miles across the sea (40 kilometers, for those in leaky old boats). That link was in use for only two years, as reported here in the November 1923 issue of Popular Science.

In 1923, a cable was installed for both telegraph and telephone connections, both of which were multiplexed to allow multiple conversations. One advantage of the new system, alluded to in the original article, was that radio conversations could be listened in to. While some scrambling was put in place, the signals were transmitted over the air. In addition, the radio license was surrendered, and that wavelength made available for broadcasting.

1948 British Two-Tube Bedside Portable

The plans for this two-tube British bedside portable appeared 75 years ago this month in the November 1948 issue of Practical Wireless. The set was designed to pull in the BBC Light and Home Service programs with loudspeaker volume, using commonly available components. It ran on battery power, and used two tubes. Because a small frame antenna would be used, the author realized that at least one stage of RF amplification would be necessary. Therefore, the first tube was a dual tube, servicing as RF amplifier and detector. Another tube served as AF amplifier to drive the speaker.

1923 Brandeis Department Store Radio Dept.

If you were looking for radio supplies in Omaha a hundred years ago, the Brandeis department store was the place to go, as shown in this ad in the Omaha Bee, November 24, 1923.

You could get a complete Radiolet crystal set, normally a $10 value, for only $6.95. That included everything you needed to start pulling in stations, since it included the headphones and antenna.

And they knew that the secret of selling radios was to get the kids campaigning for a set. So in addition to their normal radio department on the main floor, they were to be set up in the toy department on Saturday so that the kids could make sure Santa knew the family needed a radio.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from OneTubeRadio.com!

As you serve your Thanksgiving dinner, you very well might have the radio playing in the background, and, if so, you are part of a century long tradition. This ad, from the October 28, 1923 Washington Sunday Star, for the Lansburgh and Brother Department Store, 420-430 7th St. NW, displays various accoutrements you’ll need for Thanksgiving dinner, such as an electric percolator for only $12.

But the close-up below shows how to really impress your guests. There were sure to be special Thanksgiving broadcasts, and you could entertain your guests with them with a brand new Radiola IV for only $275. It would be a wonderful source of pleasure for your home.

A Knock On the Door: 1943

In America 80 years ago, a knock on the door, even when you are listening to the radio, meant that a friend had come to call.

But as this RCA ad in the November 22, 1943, issue of Life magazine reminded readers, things weren’t the same in the Axis countries. It could mean the Gestapo and death if they knocked when you were listening to an American or British broadcast.

In America, you could even listen to enemy propaganda without worry, and it was often good for a hearty laugh. For now, American manufacturers such as RCA were supporting the war effort exclusively. But the ad reminds Americans that they would soon be back with fine radios and other electronic products.