Sixty years ago this month, the April 1963 issue of Popular Electronics carried the plans for this simple three-tube receiver for most of (50-53 MHz) the six meter amateur band. The circuit was unusual in that it combined a supereheterodyne front end, with a superregenerative detector. While unusual, this was said to provide extremely good selectivity and sensitivity for such a simple receiver. The intermediate frequency was 2 MHz.
A hundred years ago this month, the April 1923 issue of Radio Age showed how to put together this handsome crystal set. The plans were actually courtesy of the U.S. Bureau of Standards, and the construction article was a reprint of a government pamphlet. The set was an upgrade from an earlier Bureau of Standards model, and featured greater selectivity. The total cost was said to be about $15.00. If the earlier set had already been built, the additional components would cost about $5.00.
The article describe the construction of the variable couple, the inner coil of which slid on a wooden base into the larger. However, it also noted that a commercially built unit could be used.
Readers considering duplicating this circuit will be able to find many of the required parts on our crystal sets parts page.
Shown here is the radio repair shop of John B. Patrizi, 115 West Sherman Avenue, Newark, NY. The small but efficient shop seems to be in Patrizi’s home, and he sent the picture to the National Radio Institute (NRI) to report his success.
According to the 1940 census, Patrizi was born in about 1900 in Italy. According to his letter to NRI, he had been working on WPA projects for two years and didn’t know how to get out of that kind of work. But one day, he saw one of NRI’s ubiquitous magazine ads and decided to take a chance by signing up for the course. After just the eighth lesson, he was already getting some work from friends, and poured every penny of those earnings into parts and equipment for his shop. By 1943, he was making $65-80 per week. He was getting business from towns as far as 25 miles away.
He credited his wife (according to the census, Amelia D. Patrizi, with much of his success, including taking phone calls, bookkeeping, and sales. The photo and letter appeared in the April-May 1943 issue of National Radio News.
Sixty years ago this month, the April 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics showed this two-transistor shortwave radio kit. It’s made by Revell, and if the name and logo look familiar, it’s because they’re the same company that made, and still makes, plastic model kits. You probably didn’t need any airplane glue to put this kit together, but you probably did need a soldering iron.
You can see a nice example of the set on WA1KPD’s QRZ page, where he gives some details of what was his first shortwave receiver.
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A hundred years ago, radio was making itself known throughout the country, even in Plentywood, Montana, in the extreme northeastern corner of the state. L.S. Smith, the proprietor of the Plentywood Machine Shop, had constructed a radio which pulled in New York, California, Texas, and even Havana.
He took out this ad in the town’s newspaper, the Producers News, April 13, 1923, announcing that he had sets for sale at a reasonable price. You could write or visit, and he would arrange a demonstration in his home some evening.
This couple are getting ready to enjoy listening to a record on the Philco model 1401 radio-phonograph, which, according to the ad, played records by magic. You didn’t need to lift the lid, nor even look at the tone arm. You just inserted the record into the front, and it played automatically.
This ad appeared in Life magazine 75 years ago today, April 12, 1948. You can see a nicely restored specimen at this video:
Our younger readers might find this hard to believe, but there was a time when you didn’t have a phone with you while driving. If you were in your car, you were cut off from the rest of the world. Nobody could call you, and you couldn’t call anyone else. As alien as the concept might seem, you might need to wait to talk to someone!
Believe it or not, being incommunicado in this way has its advantages. It gives you the opportunity to relax, without being bothered by someone else’s trifling concerns. Of course, on rare occasions, there are legitimate emergencies. If you car broke down, you would either have to hike to the closest payphone, or wait until a good Samaritan stops to help. Believe it or not, good Samaritans were more common then, because they realized you didn’t have a phone. Today, when people see a stranded motorist, they assume (usually, but not always, correctly) that the person has a phone. But back in the day, when you saw someone by the side of the road in trouble, you knew that unless someone stopped, they wouldn’t get any help. Armed with that information, it wasn’t uncommon to be the someone, and stop to help.
Of course, most good Samaritans are good, but there are also bad people who might take advantage of someone, especially a woman, helplessly stranded by the road. Therefore, having some mechanism to communicate, especially if you were a woman, wasn’t a bad idea. The billboard above highlights this fact, and it was seen on American highways fifty years ago, as shown here in the April 1973 issue of Popular Electronics.
The magazine highlighted the efforts of REACT and other CB clubs and organizations to provide someone to respond to such emergencies. Since 1970, channel 9 had been designated as a channel for emergencies and motorist assistance. In most areas of the country, REACT and other groups did an admirable job of monitoring channel 9, and the magazine provided a summary of those efforts, and pointers on using your CB in case of emergency. It noted that in addition to routine monitoring of channel 9, many groups assisted with civil defense and emergency communications. It encouraged CB’ers to monitor channel 9 whenever possible as a backup, but it did encourage waiting for organized groups to help before jumping in, since this encouraged people to join the organized groups. One popular activity by such groups was providing coffee to motorists on holiday weekends, as shown here.
The billboard shown above was provided by the Electronic Industries Association as a public service. The magazine provided details on how local CB clubs could contact outdoor advertisers to obtain the materials for the sign.
On Easter Sunday 85 years ago, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale preached the sermon at the annual sunrise Easter service at Central Park, New York. He is shown here in the April 23, 1938, issue of Radio Guide. The service could be heard at 7:00 AM Eastern Time on CBS radio.
A hundred years ago today, here’s what you would have heard on the radio in New York and New Jersey. Stations were on the air as early as 11:00 AM, when you could listen to Frau Noemi C. Vetter of Vienna opine about the theater and opera in that city. Much of the days programming consisted of live music, but at 8:00 PM you could tune in to a talk by Nicholas Thiel Ficker on how to reduce labor turnover in industry.
At 6:15 PM, more distant signals would start rolling in, and you would be able to pull in stations such as KDKA in Pittsburgh, whose Little Symphony Orchestra would be putting on a dinner concert.
This listing was from the Perth Amboy Evening News, April 9, 1923.
Seventy years ago this month, the April 1953 issue of Radio News shows this young woman playing with her robotic turtle. She looks overjoyed, but we suspect her father, the turtle’s creator and article author Jack Kubanoff, got to play with it more than she did.
The turtle is actually quite sophisticated for its time. The head (made of a coffee can) contains both eyes(photocell) and tongue (tactile sensor) that allow it to go in search of “food”. The food is indicated by a flashing light that the robot homes in on. But the creature has an ability to learn, in that it can determine which sequence of flashing lights leads to the food. It also has a memory, and can keep heading toward the food, even when the flashing light is behind an obstacle.
The robot has its own entry at the Cybernetic Zoo. Kids today have more options when it comes to playing with robots. But the sophisticated models like the ones shown below are direct descendants of pioneers like Timothy the Turtle.
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