75 years ago this month, the January 1943 issue of Radio Craft carried this hint for winding coils.

The idea was sent in by one Tony Calabrese of White Plains, NY, and was billed as a good method for anyone to get a professional looking coil.

One end of a designated length of wire was attached to the wall or some other fixed object, with the other end attached to the coil form. After a couple of turns, the weight was placed on the wire to maintain tension.

When the coil was complete, the weight was slipped off, resulting in a neat coil with evenly spaced turns.

Fifty years ago this month, the January 1968 issue of Electronics Illustrated offered just the thing for aspiring spooks, namely, this homemade electronic bug. Housed in the ubiquitous cigarette pack, the tiny device transmitted on the AM band, and could be picked up 10-50 feet away.

It was billed as suitable for listening in on “your neighbor, close friend, worst enemy, bookie, business partner, the business competition, or even you.”

As shown here, the parts had a price tag of about $20, although the article noted that the price might be lower if slightly larger components would be acceptable.

The circuit used four Motorola transistors, three 2N4123’s and one MPS3646 handling the RF output duties. It was constructed on a circuit board with holes drilled for the components, with wiring on the other side.

The battery shown here is a Burgess H-177 9.8 volt battery, although the article pointed out that a standard 9 volt battery could be used if the slightly larger size were acceptable.

Shown here is Gerti Daub, Miss Germany 1957, along with two other avid SWL’s, tuning in a program on their Blaupunkt Palma 2435 receiver.

The seven-tube set retailed for 390 Deutschmarks, and tuned both the longwave and mediumwave broadcast bands, FM (up to 100 MHz), and  shortwave.  You can see the set in action at this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K9ebaR8SDtI

The young comrades shown here are constructing their first radio receiver, according to plans contained in the 1955 Soviet book, Мой первый радиоприёмник (My First Radio Receiver), by V. Borisov , part of the series Библиотека юного конструктора (Library of the young designer), a series of small books published between 1937 and 1964 showing various construction projects, many related to radio.

The first set in the book, shown here, is not immediately recognizable, but it is a simple crystal set, with a tuning range of 200 to 2000 meters (150 – 1500 kHz), to cover the longwave and mediumwave broadcast bands.

The largest component is the dual coil, which appears to be a manufactured part.  The two binding posts on the left are for the antenna (A) and ground (3).  The knob in the center is a switch for selecting taps on the coil.  The actual detector is not shown.  It plugs into the terminals at the top right of the top drawing.  The headphones plug in to the other set of terminals.

The detector, shown below is a manufacture fixed detector.

The book’s second crystal set, shown below, is slightly more advanced, and is shown below.  This set also uses the same fixed crystal, and includes a variometer, which also appears to be a manufactured unit that the builder purchases.

The final crystal set is shown below.  It uses the same fixed detector, and includes a variable capacitor for tuning.  The fixed coil in this one appears to be much simpler than the ones employed in the other set, but there don’t appear to be any instructions for winding it.  So I assume that this is also an item that the builder simply purchases.

After showing these crystal set designs, the book moves on to some simple vacuum tube receivers.  The basic one-tube receiver is shown at left.  Since I can’t read much of the text, it’s a little unclear exactly which circuit is shown here.  The text includes a number of different schematics, along with different pictorial diagrams for the tube socket.  I assume this is because different builders might get their hands on different tubes, and the diagrams are shown for various common tube types.  A representative example is shown below, the circuit diagram for use with a 1Б1П tube.

Since B batteries might be hard to come by for struggling soviet radio builders, the book also includes plans for a power supply, using a transformer and 5Ц4С dual rectifier (the equivalent of a Western 5Z4G).

The book also contains plans (but unfortunately, no picture of the completed set) for a two-tube regenerative receiver with one stage of audio amplification to drive the speaker.  This set is presented after the rather complex power supply is shown, so I assume it’s a project for the advanced student.

The book shows how to set up an antenna, and shows diagrams of nice outdoor antennas, complete with lightning switches, passthroughs to get them into the house, and grounds.  But for those who didn’t want to go to all that bother, it also shows the self-explanatory method shown below for using the house wiring as an antenna.  The same idea was featured on this side of the iron curtain, as can be seen at this post.  Both great minds had the same idea:  Connect a radio to the house wiring, using a capacitor to let the RF through, but keep the high voltage out.  It’s a great idea unless the capacitor develops a short, in which case the headphones on your head suddenly become energized with the household current.

Many an American kid got his start in radio when he discovered Alfred Morgan’s book in the elementary school library.  I wouldn’t be surprised if there were Soviet kids who did just the same thing when they discovered Borisov’s book.

This book, and thousands of other old Soviet books and magazines, can be found at can be found at Журналы СССР.  Even if you can’t read the text, the site is worth exploring.

If you need a fuse but the store is closed, then you can just make your own the way they did it 90 years ago, as shown in the January 1928 issue of Popular Mechanics.

The exact current values are not shown, but the accompanying article describes the use of the fuse on a radio. The fuse itself is made of tinfoil from a gum or candy wrapper. For the A battery, the article called for a strip 1/16 inch thick. For the B battery, which would use less current, it called for a strip 1/32 inch wide.

The idea had been submitted to the magazine by one R.J. Williams of Chicago.

The avid shortwave listener (SWL) will probably dispute it, but this picture contains a certain glimmer of truth. Junior is tuning in a program on the short waves on the family’s console radio, much to the dismay of the rest of the family. The picture’s caption, in the December 1937 issue of Radio Retailing, notes that “novelty rarely wears well–We (radio retailers) have been headlining thrills…police calls, aircraft, ships at sea, distance merely as “dx” . . . so long that the public erroneously assumes that shortwaves have little lasting entertainment value.”

The accompanying article, “Is Our Short Wave Selling All Wrong?” makes a strong case that it is.  The author, writing under the pen name Zeh Bouck,  starts by saying that he was paid for listening to shortwave broadcasts, one of his jobs for the past fifteen years, and that the novelty, if it ever existed, wore off a decade earlier.  He starts by noting that retailers were selling the shortwaves as a novelty, on which listeners could hear the sounds of Big Ben, along with “aircraft! Amateur Stations! Police!”

He then proceeds to show why the novelty wears off so fast. The hams are “vaguely reminiscent of a phonograph record with a crossed groove, and of similar interest to anyone but an amateur. Police broadcasts are distinctly a novelty and hold no permanent entertainment value except for some Milquetoast who derives therefrom a vicarious satisfaction at some drunk beating up his wife in a third floor rear.”

Fortunately, Bouck goes on to explain that there might be a right way to sell shortwave. He noted programs of actual entertainment value, and recommended that retailers get their hands on program guides.

The author, Zeh Bouck, was born John W. Schmidt in 1901, and held various calls over the years, starting with 2PI, until his death in 1946. He eventually legally changed his name to Zeh Bouck. He was a prolific writer about radio, including a number of articles in Boys’ Life. You can find a good biography of him at this link.

In upholding our reputation as a website with suspected Russian ties, we present this 1950 Rosetta Stone for those needing to translate between CW and Russian.

On a serious note, hams in the former Soviet Union were always incredibly skilled, and this guide shows why language was never a barrier.  There are many common abbreviations in use on Morse code, often (but not always) derived from English.  This chart shows the abbreviations in Cyrillic letters, in Roman letters, and the meaning in Russian.  For example, GB is an abbreviation for goodbye, and this chart tells the Russian operator that GB means “do svidannya.”

This is from the book Простейший коротковолновый приемник, which we promise you’ll be seeing more of.

The portable tuned both the medium wave and long wave bands, and ran off a 90 volt B battery, with the filaments powered by a 1.5 volt A battery.  The set contained a built-in loop antenna, and the power switch was built into the case, with the set coming on when the lid was opened.

The set appeared in the December 1957 issue of the British Radio Constructor magazine.