A hundred years ago, this youngster is literally getting off on the right foot, thanks to this walking chair on which an eastern mother has installed a radio. Any station could be tuned in, and the child left to enjoy a concert or stories from the air. “Meanwhile, the child is able to push itself about and be entertained, and the cares of the mother are lightened.”
The photo appeared in the September 1923 issue of Popular Mechanics.
Shown here is Miss Dorothy Benkeser, from the August 1923 issue of Science and Invention, , in which she described building her first radio set. When she decided to make a radio, she told a friend (presumably male), and was told “when you need my help, just call me up.” She vowed not to call him, no matter how much assistance she needed.
She bought the parts, and managed to put it together. She had only the tools from her mother’s sewing machine, which seemed to get the job done, until soldering was needed. For that, she tried using a curling iron, the type which was heated up on a stove. While she was able to do some soldering after it got red hot, it didn’t prove completely satisfactory. Eventually, she borrowed an alcohol powered iron, and got the job complete.
She had another friend help with the antenna:
In order to attach one of the poles, I tried to climb on a little ledge which is a good deal higher than the rest of the roof and quite near the edge. My friend told me it was very foolish to do this for the house was old and she thought any part of it might be very apt to become detached and besides, she didn’t think the chimney was a safe thing to hold on. I asked her if
she were making any reference to my weight and told her to “unhand me” for I was very confident the chimney was strong enough to hold me. This she refused to do and I was struggling to get away from her and to pull myself up when the piece of the chimney which I held gave way and had she not held me, I should most likely have landed on the cold and unsympathetic pavement three or four stories below.
She reports that the set had been in service for about two months, and picked up distant stations with little difficulty. She concluded with, “no, I do not wear overalls.”
Sixty years ago this month, the August 1963 issue of Popular Electronics carried the plans for this outboard BFO, dubbed the “Code Bander.” The two-transistor circuit would add CW and SSB capabilities to any receiver, making them useful for the novice ham.
No internal connections were required to the radio, because this BFO operated not at the receiver’s IF frequency, but on the same frequency as the received signal. It covered 3.5 – 4 MHz, the 80 meter ham band. It was usable on the other ham bands thanks to the harmonics.
The designer and author is familiar to our readers, Hartland Smith, W8VFD, later W8QX. Smith became a silent key in 2022, but we were privileged to exchange a few e-mails with him prior to his death.
This one-tube circuit appeared in the British Practical Wireless 80 years ago this month, August 1943. It made the best of wartime parts shortages, since the single tube, a P220, did double duty as both RF and AF amplifier. A fixed crystal was used as detector.
It had been sent to the magazine by R.J. Amblin of Bath, England, who reported that with 18 volts of anode (plate) voltage, it gave good volume through the headphones, and he was able to pull in the BBC Home Service with as little as 1.5 volts. For normal listening, he left it at 4.5 volts, which proved quite satisfactory.
A hundred years ago this month, this illustration appeared on the cover of the August 1923 issue of Radio News. Most radio listeners had graduated beyond the crystal set, but this gentleman purports to have a super crystal set that can not only pull in a station 2000 miles away, but provide loudspeaker volume.
His friend is apparently convinced, but he doesn’t see the man’s confederate under the table, actually pulling in the program with a modern vacuum tube set.
A hundred years ago, radio was rapidly becoming a national phenomenon, and if you didn’t already own a radio, you would have one soon. If you lived in Omaha, this ad from the Omaha Morning Bee, August 25, 1923, showed you that you could get everything you needed at the newly expanded radio department of the Brandeis Store.
The easiest way to get started on a budget would be the Little Gem crystal set. For only $10.45, you would get not only the radio, but also headphones and aerial wire.
The General Electric crystal set was $5.95, but by the time you bought headphones and antenna wire, the price was probably about the same.
If you were well heeled, you could get a complete three-tube Radiola, complete with batteries, tubes, antenna, and tubes, for $142.50.
If you need something to compare those prices to, this grocery ad appeared on the same page. A yard of spaghetti tubing would set you back a dime, but three packages of real macaroni would be a quarter.
Shown here, in the August 1963 issue of Radio-Electronics, is the path of a telephone call made from Washington to London, as part of that year’s Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) convention. The call was carried by conventional telephone lines at the beginning and end, but between Goose Bay, Newfoundland, and Flyingdales, England, it was a series of 13 hops over Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and Britain, via tropospheric scatter.
While not identified in the article, the system appears to be the North Atlantic Radio System.
A hundred years ago this month, the August 1923 issue of Science and Invention included a number of pointers for making the most of vacation time radio. The magazine advised against just storing the radio away and waiting for your return.
For example, a self-contained set with a loop antenna was perfect for the job, as shown in figure 1. If you need an antenna, figure 2 showed one way of putting it up, using a kite. If you didn’t feel like flying a kite, you could possible use the body of your car as the antenna, with a stake driven into the earth to serve as ground, as shown in figure 3. If you’re lucky, there will be a fence, which you can use as in figure 4. The car battery can probably be used, as shown in figure 5.
We’ve talked previously about using trees as antennas, and this idea is shown in figure 6. Figure 7 shows how you can put a wire, insulated by a rubber tube, underwater. And finally, figure 8 shows an idea before its time, namely, the slinky antenna, not unlike the one we showed previously, but prior to the invention of the slinky.
Seventy-five years ago, this young man with large pockets was pulling in a program with this three-tube “pocket size” receiver. He built it according to plans in the August 1948 issue of Popular Mechanics, and the set was ideal for taking to a ball game or on hikes.
The regenerative set had a built-in loop antenna, and ran on a 45 volt B battery, with flashlight batteries in parallel to light the filaments.
A hundred years ago, this couple are relaxing by listening to a radio broadcast, after a day exploring the wilderness on their camping vacation. The plans for the set appeared in the August 1923 issue of Popular Mechanics, which described the set as the simplest to both build and operate.
The set was said to be good even under unfavorable conditions. It called for a relatively short antenna, no more than 50-70 feet. With a 45 foot antenna 30 feet high, the set pulled in from New York WDAP Chicago, WLW Cincinnati, and many others.
