Category Archives: Radio history

Radio Prices & Grocery Prices, 1923

1923Aug25OmahaBeeA 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.

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1963 Transatlantic Tropo Scatter Network

1963AugRadioElecShown 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.



1923 Vacation Time Radio Ideas

1923AugSciInvA 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.



1948 Three-Tube “Pocket Size” Portable

1948AugPM1948AugPM3Seventy-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.

 

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1923 Vacation Radio

1923AugPMA 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.

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VOA Marathon, FL, 1963

1963AugPE1In the wake of the Cuban missile crisis, the U.S. Government realized that it needed a way to directly reach the Cuban people with a message of democracy. That was the job of the Voice of America (VOA), but the broadcaster’s shortwave transmitters were ill suited to blanket coverage of the island only 90 miles away from the United States.

The standard AM band was the way to go, and the station shown here was hastily put together, and the facilities in these three trailers were used to relay the VOA Spanish program with a 50,000 watt signal on 1180 kHz, beamed south to blanket Cuba. The frequency was shared with WHAM in Rochester, NY, but because of the directional antenna, very little of the signal could be heard in North America.

The August 1963 issue of Popular Electronics carried an article by William I. Orr, who got a tour of the station and wrote a description.

The VOA had another transmitter in Florida covering Cuba, which broadcast on 1040 kHz, a frequency shared with WHO in Des Moines. That frequency is no longer in use, but the 1180 kHz frequency is still used. In 1983, Radio Marti was spun off, which content targeted specifically to Cuba. In 1990, a television signal was added, broadcasting from a tethered balloon dubbed “Fat Albert” by locals.

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“Doc” Burkhart, Hanceville Drug Co, AL, 1943

1943AugRadioRetailingShown here is “Doc” Burkhart of Hanceville, Alabama, in the August 1943 issue of Radio Retailing. Next to his workbench, you might see some packages that look out of place, because Doc is actually a pharmacist, the proprietor of Hanceville Drug Company. He had turned his hobby in radio into a business. The store had a radio sales department for some time, and he had become the town’s only radio repairman.

In this picture, he was converting battery sets. Since batteries were hard to come by during the war, this allowed them to go back into service, doing their part to keep the nation informed and entertained.



1933 Crystal Set for the Kids

1933JulPMNinety years ago, the humble crystal set was already regarded by many as obsolete. But it still had its uses, and one of those was for use by kids, who could tune in their own programs while the family listened on the big set in the parlor.

The July 1933 issue of Popular Mechanics shows everything you need to know about making one. If you had a broken down radio, the tuning capacitor and coil could be salvaged, meaning that you already had most of the necessary parts. The simple design here was said to work well if you had a station within 25 miles. For a larger version of the article, click on the image above.



Sinclair Slimline Radio, 1963

Sixty years ago this month, the July 1963 issue of the British publication Radio Constructor carried this ad for the Sinclair “Slimline” micro-radio receiver kit. It was reportedly “acclaimed as the most amazing receiver ever,” and the set, measuring 2-3/4 x 1-5/8x 5/8 inches, would pull in both British and European stations with staggeringly good quality.

The parts were sold by Sinclair Radionics Ltd. of Cambridge. If the name, and the general style of the advertisement, look familiar, it’s because the proprietor was the same Sir Clive Sinclair who went on to market the Sinclair ZX80 computer, a version of which was sold on this side of the Atlantic as the Timex Sinclair.



1963 CB Walkie Talkie for Junior

1963JulPEThis young man, Joseph Guy, from somewhere in the midwestern United States, has been collecting Social Security for a few years now, but sixty years ago, his mother gave him this CB handheld radio to stay in touch on his way to school.

This photo was taken on a 22-below-zero day, and immediately after the picture was taken, young Joey was camouflaged with a heavy scarf, hat, and mittens. While his mom stayed at the 5-watt base station at home, he walked to school, and mom reminded him to look both ways before crossing busy intersections. When he reached school, he called to report his safe arrival.

The only downside was his occasionally failing to turn it off when he reached school. But rechargeable batteries partially solved that problem. Other mothers, whose children were following him, would often call to see if their children reached school safely.

The photo and story appeared in the July 1963 issue of Popular Electronics.