We can’t let December pass without noting that this month marks the 100th anniversary of the appearance of QST magazine. In honor, the ARRL has posted a high-quality scan of the entire issue, available to members who are logged in to their ARRL account.

The first issue was 28 pages and was financed by Hiram Percy Maxim and Clarence D. Tuska.  A trial subscription for the next three issues was offered for 25 cents, and the issue also carried an application blank for membership in the ARRL.  There was no charge at the time for the membership.

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Frankly, I’m a little surprised that this idea from 1930 didn’t get more traction. It probably worked about as well as any other indoor antenna, and it was conveniently out of the way and swept under the rug. The sole reference I’ve ever seen to the “Potter Rug Aerial” was this ad from the December 1930 issue of Radio Retailing.

The antenna was manufactured by the Potter Co. of 1946 Sheridan Road, North Chicago, Illinois. In addition to the antenna, they manufactured replacement condensers. They had common ones in stock, and promised to duplicate special units within 48 hours.

One reason that the rug aerial might not have caught on was the utter simplicity of the idea. Any piece of wire about the same length slipped under the rug would probably pull in the stations just about as well.

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80 years ago today, you could get this 6 tube all wave set for $24.95 at Sears, as advertised in the December 27, 1935, edition of the Milwaukee Journal.  The model number isn’t given, but it appears similar to a Silvertone model 1954.  You can see a restored one in action at this video:

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Sixty years ago, this kid’s electronic expertise was no match for Santa. The cover of the December 1955 issue of Radio Electronics.  The youngster had constructed the transistorized photocell alarm (using a CK722 transistor) from the plans contained in the issue.  But he failed to outwit Santa, as shown in this photo.

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Fifty-five years ago, Santa was getting ready to place a lot of transistor radios under trees, and radio engineer Richard Stollmack is shown above giving advice to one of Santa’s helpers on how to avoid getting taken by an unscrupulous retailer. Here, he took the back off a few high quality sets to show the consumer what one should look like: They were part packed, and obviously complex designs.

Stollmack first advised shopping at a store with a good reputation, where the dealer won’t misrepresent merchandise and will honor the warranty. He warned not to buy a radio with fewer than six transistors if you wanted worthwhile performance. Also, he stressed that you should look for a superheterodyne circuit, which would require a bare minimum of five transistors. Any doubt could be resolved by looking at the tuning condenser to see if it was a dual-gang unit.  Any set with less than five transistors should be considered a toy or novelty, Stollmack warned. He advised that you should insist on having the salesman open up the back of the set and let you see the inner construction and compare it to a higher priced set. Shoddy construction or a paucity of parts would be a major warning.

He also stressed the need to handle the radio and take it outside or close to a window. In this photo, he is showing a trick sometimes used by unscrupulous dealers to pass off cheap novelty sets as having better reception than they really offered. The set performs well when located near an induction coil, cleverly concealed under the counter, hooked to a longwire antenna. But when brought home, the set would be unlikely to get more than a couple of stations with loudspeaker volume.

Stollmack shared these tips in the December 1960 issue of Electronics Illustrated.

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A sampling of the author’s MF police QSLs.

I was surprised to learn that as recently as 1965, there were still some police departments using the MF frequencies just above the standard AM broadcast band.  Many receivers in the 1930’s and 1940’s included the police band, either by including a separate band, or by simply extending the tuning range of the broadcast band.  Surprisingly, a few of these police stations were still around in 1965, and the December 1965 issue of Radio TV Experimenter included a complete listing.

At the end of 1947, there were 700 police base stations operating between 1600 and 2500 kHz, but by 1965, the number was down to less than a hundred “hearty stations clinging to these channels”.

The author of the article, Tom Kneitel, K3FLL/WB2AAI (later K2AES and KBG4303, later still W4XAA) called these stations a “vanishing breed,” and that they would probably be gone in just a few more years.

Kneitel noted that the easiest way to log these stations was to park the receiver on a given channel and listen for an hour or two. He had listened to a dead frequency for 15 minutes only for it to come alive with several stations at the same time. One of his favorites was the New Hampshire State Police, KCA999 on 1682 kHz. Their signal had been regularly logged in Europe.

As shwon above, most of these stations would QSL. Kneitel’s advice was to include date, time, frequency, signal strength, equipment, and some specific detail about the transmission. Although a few of them had QSL’s printed up, most didn’t. Therefore, he recommended preparing a prepaid reply card for them to fill in, sign, and return.

Kneitel pointed out that within a few years, all of these stations would be gone, “little more than memories to be discussed around the table with other old time DX’ers, which made them seem even more interesting.

Tom Kneitel, 1971.

If the name Tom Kneitel sounds familiar, that’s probably because he wrote for numerous publications over the years, including Popular Communications, S9, and Popular Electronics, and a number of books.  I remember him mostly for his regular column in Electronics Illustrated,  dubbed “Uncle Tom’s Corner,” in which he provided usually useful, and occasionally snarky, answers to reader letters. A example of the latter is this one from the November 1971 issue:

I’m only beginning in Amateur Radio and I’d like you to explain what is the Voice of America.

-Stephen Baier
LaCrosse, Wisc.

Spiro Agnew.

Kneitel died in 2008 at the age of 75.

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The gentleman shown above is demonstrating a simple wireless telegraph, the plans for which appeared 75 years ago this month in the December 1940 issue of Popular Science. As you can see from the diagram here, the concept was nothing new, and is quite simple.  The transmitter sends an AF signal of about 75 volts at the buzzer’s frequency into two ground rods.  The receiver is also hooked up to two ground rods, and consists of an audio amplifier to detect the weak audio signal being sent into the ground.  This set was said to have a range of about 200 feet.

The concept is similar to the WW1-era field buzzer which appeared here previously.  With even a very weak audio signal, it’s easy to pick out the dots and dashes of Morse code, even though the signal is far too weak to make out speech.

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Seventy-five years ago, this pleased listener was tuning in a static-free program on her General Electric model JFM165.  The AM-FM set sported a 12 inch speaker for faithful reproduction of those high-fidelity FM programs.  This picture appeared in the December 1940 issue of Radio Today.

The set featured sixteen tubes and in addition to the standard broadcast band, covered the prewar 42-50 MHz FM band, rendering its FM capability obsolete after the war.  The set also covered, however, two shortwave bands, so it would pull in lots of interesting signals both during and after the war.

A nice example of the set can be found at this link.  As you can see, the FM tuner seems to be added in as a bit of an afterthought.  The FM dial is located in the top compartment the young lady is fiddling with.  The main tuning dial, covering standard broadcast and short wave, is at the front of the set.  The same tuner, the JFM90, was also available as a separate unit, and you can view a nice example at this link.

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