Category Archives: Radio history

Back Seat Earphones: 1963

Sixty years ago this month, the February 1963 issue of Popular Mechanics carried this project designed to help parents of “youngsters who insist on raucous music and clatter from the car radio throughout a long trip.”

The solution to domestic tranquility was to let them listen to their heart’s content in the back seat, but through earphones. Then, “only plugged ears need hear the racket.”

The magazine showed how to make this small control box, which allowed switching from the car speaker to the headphones. It also included a volume control, in the form of a 20 ohm fader. Installation was easiest if the speaker were mounted on the rear shelf, and the work could easily be done through the trunk. If the only speaker were in the front, the job was only slightly more complicated, and required running two wires under the carpet.

With this modification in place, the rest of the family was guaranteed to be happy.

Amboy Lighting Company, 1923

If you needed radio supplies in the Garden State a hundred years ago, then the place to go was Amboy Lighting Company, 193-195 Smith Street, Perth Amboy, NJ, was the place to go.

According to this ad in the Perth Amboy Evening News, February 9, 1923, the store featured Atwater-Kent receivers, and had just received a shipment of Federal headphones.

1953 Hi-Fi Amplifier

Seventy years ago, this young woman was tasked with providing the high fidelity audio system for some important event, and she carried out the assignment by constructing this high-power low-distortion amplifier from the February 1953 issue of Popular Mechanics.

The amplifier, suitable for use with any high-quality speaker system, put out a respectable twenty watts with two 6L6’s running push-pull, with only 5% intermodulation distortion (IMD). At ten watts, the IMD was well under 1%.

The set boasted seven tubes, including rectifier, and as shown here, it was easily portable.

Nighttime Radio: 1923

A hundred years ago, radio was clearly a nighttime activity, as shown by this hapless radio buff on the cover of Radio News, February 1923. Hams were still mostly playing around with the medium frequencies just above the standard broadcast band. They didn’t know what the D layer of the ionosphere was, or that it was absorbing their signals as soon as the sun came up. What they did know was that their signals got out at night, but could communicate only locally by day.

So they worked the radio by night, and took care of other less essential activities (such as work and sleep) by day. It wasn’t until they started getting pushed up into the “useless” short waves that they realized that those frequencies promised world-wide communications by day or night.

Women in Radio, 1943

Eighty years ago this month, the February 1943 issue of Radio Retailing acknowledged that there had long been prejudice against women in the field of radio servicing. But the exigencies of war meant that the industry no longer had time for that luxury. Just as the armed services were incorporating women into their ranks, private industry was going to need to do the same thing. There was a war to be won, the men were overseas, and this meant that women would need to prove once and for all that they were capable of doing the work.

According to the magazine, “often we think of women as stenographers, clerks, small parts assemblers, and light machine operators. But that is no longer the case. Women are moving into the ranks of engineers, chemists, draftsmen and other technical and professional activities, as well as into any and every other occupation that once was reserved to men.” Just as there was a women’s corps in the armed services, the magazine stressed the need for a Women’s Corps for the Radio Store.

In hiring anyone, male or female, long experience was not required, but merely the proper training. And that training, more often than not, could take the form of friendly personal supervision, along with a free hand to exercise their natural talent for neatness and order.

The magazine concluded by noting that “women have made good in every occupation they have tackled, though it cannot be said that all employers have given women the same thoughtful selection, and training they have to men.”

Radio Facsimile: 1938

Eighty five years ago, they didn’t know it wasn’t going to catch on, but it looked like the next big thing was going to be facsimile. The January 1938 issue of Radio Retailing carried a feature discussing the state of the art. It acknowledged that television was right around the corner (and it was, with only a world war serving to delay it), but the magazine incorrectly predicted that facsimile equipment might find its way into American homes before television.

The idea seemed reasonable, since a number of stations were already licensed to send fax transmissions, as shown by the list at the right. In the Upper Midwest, both WHO Des Moines and KSTP Kansas City held licenses to broadcast with the new mode, on their standard broadcast frequencies.

The magazine acknowledged that standards had to be fixed before facsimile service became common. And testing needed to be done to see how well it worked in outlying areas. And it still wasn’t know if the receivers would be standalone units, or if a printer would plug into the loudspeaker output of a standard broadcast radio.

Shown above is a pioneer of facsimile transmission, W.G.H. Finch of Finch Telecommunications, Inc. Other contenders for a market share were R.C.A., Radio Pictures, and Fultograph. Facsimile service was seen as a way in which radio stations could take on the competition of newspapers. But when the War ended, television took off a lot faster than many people imagined, and radio facsimile service is relegated to a footnote in the history of radio.

SWL’ing Missile Launches and Nuclear Blasts

Sixty years ago this month, the British Radio Constructor carried the plans for this interesting project, suitable for monitoring missile launches. Or, if you were lucky and happened to be tuned in at the right time, you could hear the signature RF signals of a nuclear blast going off!

The project itself was quite simple. It consisted of a loop antenna, feeding to a one-transistor ELF detector and one stage of audio amplification.

1923 Radio at Home and On The Farm

A hundred years ago, radio was rapidly becoming a familiar part of the home, whether it was in the city or on the farm. The cover of the January 1923 issue of Wireless Age, above, shows an idyllic scene of radio by the hearth.

But radio was more than just a pastime for the urban upper class. It was rapidly making it’s way to the farm, and it was bringing rural people closer to the city. The magazine contained a feature describing how radio was rapidly becoming a necessity on the farm. Farmers could receive up-to-the-minute market reports, and the main complaint from farmers was that they were being read too fast to write down. And weather warnings could make a huge difference in the safety and profitability of farm life. But in addition to the purely practical, radio was changing rural life by allowing residents to hear news, concerts, and lectures. Shown here are Mrs. Albertina Schockweiler, her daughter and grandson, as the pull in a program on their farm in Osseo, Minnesota.

Oakford Music Co., Omaha, 1923

A hundred years ago today, the January 27, 1923, issue of the Omaha Bee carried this ad for the Oakford Music Co., 419 S. 16th, Omaha. The store announced that it was branching out into the radio business in a big way, complete with a special radio room. The new department was to be headed by radio expert and former aviator Lt. L.E. Stewart.

1948 QRP Transmitter

Seventy-five years ago this month, the January 1948 issue of QST showed this one-tube one-watt transmitter using a 1S4 tube. A flashlight battery supplied the filament voltage, and 30-90 volts of B+ was required. Coil data was shown for 80 meters, but the circuit could easily be used on other bands.

A balanced antenna could be connected to L2, or that coil could be dispensed with and the antenna connected to the point marked X, worked against ground. From Connecticut, the set made 22 contacts with 10 states over the course of 10 hours. It was sent to the magazine by Ernest Lindsey, W4BIW.

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