Category Archives: Radio history

USS Indianapolis

Front page story announcing ship's loss, Chicago Tribune, Aug 15 1945.

Front page story announcing ship’s loss, Chicago Tribune, Aug 15 1945.

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the greatest loss of life in American Naval history, the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis on July 30, 1945. On July 16, the Indianapolis left San Francisco with the enriched uranium which would be used in the Hiroshima atomic bomb. She reached Pearl Harbor on July 19 and raced on to Tinian with the cargo, where she arrived on July 26. After delivering this top secret cargo, the ship continued to Guam and then Leyte, where the crew was to receive training.

USS Indianapolis in 1937. Wikipedia photo.

USS Indianapolis in 1937. Wikipedia photo.

Shortly after midnight on July 30, she was struck by two Japanese torpedoes, sinking in minutes. About 300 of the 1196 crewmen went down with the ship. The remainder were set adrift with few lifeboats and many without lifejackets.

Due to radio silence and general miscommunication, the ship was not missed when its scheduled arrival time passed. The 880 men drifted forgotten. Most perished from exposure and dehydration, although the attack is most famous for the sharks the men had to contend with. Undoubtedly, some of the men were killed by sharks, but it is more likely that most of the victims succomed to exposure and dehydation, with the dead being driven off by sharks.

The men were discovered by accident three and a half days later when Lt. Wilbur “Chuck” Gwinn and Lt. Warren Colwell spotted the men adrift during a routine patrol fight.

Only 317 men ultimately survived. Over 800 men lost their lives.

Ironically, the disaster was not reported by the newspapers until August 15.  The greatest naval disaster in American history was decidedly a less important news story that day, since the papers also reported Japan’s surrender and the end of the war.

Of interest to radio amateurs is the recreation of the ship’s radio installation (whose call letters were NABD) at the USS Indianapolis Memorial.

References

History at USSIndianapolis.org

 

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1935 Rowboat Portable Receiver

1935RowboatPortable80 years ago, the September 1935 issue of Radio Craft magazine carried plans for this rowboat portable, shown here in use in Central Park, New York.  The four-tube superhet broadcast set was fully self-contained with a built-in loop antenna, and made use of newly available miniature B batteries which were mounted inside the cabinet.

The set was billed as ideal for the romanticist who was bound for one of the tens of thousands of lakes within the domains of Uncle Sam.  The set was small enough for easy transport in a rowboat or canoe.  The builder of this set could take radio programs along for accompaniment by waves gently lapping at the sides of the boat.

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1940 Philco Portable

1940PhilcoPortableSeventy-five years ago today, this ad appeared in the Milwaukee Journal, July 28, 1940, for what was one of the smallest, or perhaps the smallest prewar portable radios. The Philco Model PT-89C featured four tubes, and the loop antenna was inside the carrying strap. A surviving example can be found at this link and some other photos and a schematic can be found at this link.

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1941 National Youth Administration Sound System Project

1941NYAspeakers

The Pennsylvania students shown here are assembling loudspeaker enclosures for the sound system at the Roaring Spring, Pennsylvania, High School. The project of installing the new sound system was entrusted to the National Youth Administration (NYA). As I wrote in an earlier post,
the NYA was a depression-era program designed to give youth to develop skills in order to take an active part in the national defense program. As reported in the October 1941 issue of Radio News, the program had recently been expanded to cover the radio field, and the high school sound system was one of the first projects undertaken by NYA youth studying radio.

Roaring Spring classroom with new speaker in place.

Roaring Spring classroom with new speaker in place.

The installation covered 21 rooms in three buildings, one of which was across the street, necessitating the laying of an underground cable. The main console was located in the principal’s office, and included two microphone channels, an all-wave receiver, and a turtable capable of playing both 78 and 33 RPM transcriptions. In addition to its public address capabilities, the system was capable of two-way communication from any room. The powerhouse behind the system was a 15 watt audio amplifier employing two 6N7G tubes.

The students’ completion of the project was seen by all as a success, and dispelled any possible doubt as to the NYA radio shops’ ability to construct and install such equipment. After being placed in service, the equipment had required no service or adjustment.

1941NYAhamsAnother way in which the NYA was focusing on radio is shown in this photo from the September, 1940, issue of Radio News.  The Army was in the process of setting up an Amateur Radio network to link Army installations, and it was tapping NYA youth to build that network.  Shown here are Ruth Gaines and Jessie Suddath, both of Georgia, testing the ham gear that they had built.  According to the caption, both were licensed, although their call signs are not stated.

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U.S. Coast Guard SPARS Radio Operator, 1943

1943USCGradioThe cover of this wartime issue of Radio Craft magazine, May 1943, shows a radioman, as her designation is called, of the U.S. Coast Guard.  The accompanying article explained that she was a membe of SPARS,  the U.S. Coast Guard Women’s Reserve, which had just been created in November of 1942, and largely followed the Navy’s WAVES model of allowing women to serve in stateside positions. More than 11,000 women served in SPARS during the war.

The article explained that the women who would serve as radiomen underwent a sixteen-week training at the University of Wisconsin, which included Morse code, typing, and radio procedure and theory. At the conclusion of the training, the women would pass a code test at 22 words per minute, at which time they received a rating of Radioman 3rd Class.

 

 

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WHO Radio’s Flashing Neon Morse Sign

WHOneonsignShown here is the neon sign identifying the studios of WHO radio, which from 1932 to 1954 were located at 914 Walnut Street in Des Moines, Iowa.  This picture was taken in 1938 and appeared in the June 1938 issue of Rural Radio magazine.

The sign was recognizable to all as a flashing neon sign, but only an expert would be able to figure out what it was flashing.  The sign continually flashed in Morse code the station’s call letters:

   . – –       . . . .        – – –

References

 

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1940 Crosley Radio Glamour

1940CrosleyGlamor

When I think of glamour, one of the first things to cross my mind would be a wooden five-tube broadcast/shorwave receiver, and in this 1940 advertisement, the Crosley Radio Corporation agrees with me. It is taken from the July 15, 1940, issue of Life Magazine.

According to the ad, certain cities such as Paris and Hollywood have Glamour. (Apparently even Nazi occupation can’t erase the glamour of the City of Lights.) Glamour can be found in certain ships and trains. And it can be found in certain people: Athletes, actors, statesmen, and musicians.

And there was glamour in the Glamour Tone of the Crosley Radio, “a new type of fidelity in sound.”

The glamorous object shown here is the Crosley model 18AN, a five-tube two-band AC-DC superheterodyne which retailed for $19.95 (slightly higher in the West and South). It featured a personal tone control and tuned both the standard broadcast band and shortwave for pulling in war news direct from Paris and other capitals of Europe.

Another nice example of this radio can be found at the Radio Attic Archives.

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NRI Conar Twins, 1965

1965ConarEIIn an earlier post, we looked at the history of the National Radio Institute of Washington, DC. Started in 1915 as the National Radio School, it featured prominently in national publications for decades, as founder James E. Smith, who apparently never aged, announced in virtually every issue that he would train you at home in your spare time for a good job in radio.

 

One of the school’s most famous products was the “Conar Twins,” a transmitter and receiver marketed for the novice amateur operator. They were a CW transmitter and receiver covering the 80, 40, and 15 meter bands. Fifty years ago this month, they were reviewed in Electronics Illustrated, July 1965.

According to the review, both kits were relatively easy to put together, with the transmitter taking about six hours, and the receiver, ten. While a few errors in the assembly manual were mentioned, both kits were described as being easy to assemble. The transmitter was tackled first, and the author reported no reports of chirp on the signal of the simple transmitter.

The review of the receiver seems to confirm the popular opinion that the receiver is surprisingly good for its price, with the performance designed as “tops.” The circuit was a superheterodyne, with two stages of IF amplification. The review noted that the receiver could be aligned without any instruments, but that instrument alignment was really necessary for top performance.

In 1965, the new novice could get on the air with a respectable station for only a $64 investment thanks to the Conar Twins.

 

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Mary Philbin’s Radiola Superhet

In an earlier post, we showed one silent movie star, Hope Hampton, soldering together a crystal set. A couple of years later, we see here another silent film star listening to the best set on the market.  In this picture,  Mary Philbin is listening to her RCA Radiola Superheterodyne model AR-812, which came out in 1924.

Mary Philbin and Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera. Wikipedia photo.

Mary Philbin and Lon Chaney in The Phantom of the Opera. Wikipedia photo.

Miss Philbin, who was about 22 years old when this photo was taken, was most famous for starring aside Lon Chaney in the 1925 film The Phantom of the Opera.

The radio, the RCA Radola Superheterodyne model AR-812, was the first home superhet on the market when it came out in 1924.  This was a very advanced receiver for the day, and carried a hefty price tag of $269. (When converting prices to today’s dollars, I always remember that the 1920’s price would be paid with 269 silver dollars, which would be worth about $4000 today.) The set had six tubes, although most of them did double duty through the “reflex” principle. The oscillator tube also served as the detector, a scheme that initially caused problems for inventor Edwin Armstrong. Since the oscillator and the incoming signal were so close in frequency (the set had an IF of 40 kHz), they kept hopelessly interfering with one another. The problem was solved by mixing the incoming signal with the second harmonic of the local oscillator. This kept the two signals far enough apart so that the the same tube could at the same time oscillate at one frequency and detect at another.

The set used six UV-199 tubes and was battery powered. The batteries were housed behind the doors on either side of the front panel. The set had a built-in loop antenna, but it appears that Miss Philbin was intent on pulling in more distant stations with the external loop. As seen in the picture, the set drove a loudspeaker, which appears to be a Radiola UZ1320.  As can be seen in the picture, the set sported a carrying handle.  Since it was fully self-contained, it was a true portable, albeit a bit on the bulky side.

Armstrong and RCA jealously guarded the patents for the superheterodyne circuit. The nameplate on the front warns that it was “licensed only for amateur, experimental, and entertainment use, and only to extent indicated in attached notice.” Most of the electronics, including the transformers, were encased in wax to protect the components from moisture, and also to add an extra level of protection for the intellectual property concealed inside.

Mary Philbin came from a middle-class family in Chicago.  She went to Hollywood in about 1920 after winning a beauty contest sponsored by Universal Pictures.  In addition to Phantom of the Opera, she starred in the 1928 film The Man Who Laughs.

Like many other silent actors and actresses, she wasn’t successful after the transition to sound and had only a few roles early in the sound era, including dubbing her own voice in a talkie re-release of Phantom of the Opera. She was twice engaged, but never married. She made few public appearances after he departure from the screen, presumably preferring to stay home and listen to the radio.  She died in California in 1993 at the age of 90 (New York Times Obituary).

The entire 1925 Phantom of the Opera, as well as other films featuring Mary Philbin, can be viewed at YouTube:

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Tom McKee of the Inland Marine Radio History Archive for allowing me to use the photo from the Archive’s website.  That site, which will undoubtedly be the inspiration for future posts, contains a wealth of historical information about marine radio on the Great Lakes and inland waterways.  I’m unsure of the origin of the photo, although it’s believed to be in the public domain.

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Les Paul’s Radio Station, 1940

LesPaul1940

 

75 years ago, 25-year-old Les Paul had his own radio station in the basement of his New York apartment building, as shown here in the July 1940 issue of Popular Science.  Paul had moved to New York in 1938, performing with Chet Atkins‘ older brother on Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians radio program.

The building was equipped with an antenna and ground wire that had never been used, and Paul took advantage of it by installing his station’s studio in a soundproof room near the furnace.  A control room was located in his second-floor apartment.  On Friday and Sunday evenings, they transmitted to the other tenants in the building.  Occasionally, big-name guest musicians and announcers would drop by to take their turn at the mike.

The next year, Paul nearly electrocuted himself while experimenting in his apartment.  He relocated to California where he recuperated.  In 1943, he was drafted and served as a performer on the Armed Forces Radio Network.

 

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