Category Archives: Radio history

Lenore Kingston Jensen, W9CHD, W2NAZ, W6NAZ

1939DecRadioNewsWhen I first saw this cover of Radio News, December 1939, I thought perhaps she was building the wireless mike, the field strength meter, or maybe the full-range amplifier. But one way or another, she looks like she knows how to handle a soldering iron.

But it turns out she’s a ham, and undoubtedly working on one of her rigs. Her identity was obscured by the mailing label, but fortunately, her call sign was barely visible. She was Lenore Kingston, W9CHD, later Lenore Jensen, with calls W2NAZ and W6NAZ. She was an actress with NBC in Chicago, and pestered the engineers so that they taught her enough code and theory to get her license. After she moved to New York, she kept in touch with one of those engineers, who proposed over CW and became her first husband. Upon his passing, she remarried another radio engineer. She continued her career in broadcast radio in California

She was born Lenore Bourgeotte, but a publicist changed her name to Lenore Kingston when she started her radio career. When World War II broke out, she taught Morse Code to Navy radiomen. She co-founded the YLRL, and handled thousands of phone patches and traffic for servicemen during the Vietnam war. She passed away in 1993. You can read a full obituary in the July 1993 issue of World Radio.



1954 GE Radios

1954Nov29LifeSeventy years ago, you couldn’t go wrong giving a radio as a gift, and GE’s colorful two-page ad in the November 29, 1954 issue of Life Magazine gives you ideas for the perfect gift for everyone on your list.

And, of course, for that person whose spelling needs a little help, the same issue contained this ad:

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1954 Novice Transmitter

1954NovQSTThis 40 and 15 meter transmitter designed especially for the novice appeared on the cover of QST for November 1954. The construction article for how to build it, however, didn’t appear until the December 1954 issue.

The set was designed by Lew McCoy, W1ICP, and was billed a stable transmitter especially for the novice.  It was pointed out that a 40 meter dipole would work well on both bands, so only a single antenna was necessary, and the article included details for how to make it.

A shielded enclosure was deemed a necessity, because of the possibility of TV interference while using 15 meters.  The set employed a 6CL6 oscillator, 6BQ6-GA amplifier, and a 5Y3 rectifier in the built-in power supply.

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1964 Six-Transistor British Portable

1964NovRadioConstr1964NovRadioConstr2Sixty years ago this month, the cover of the British magazine Radio Constructor, November 1964, showed a photograph of this handsome, but ambitious, six-transistor portable, that could be run off either 7.5 or 9 volts. An artist’s conception is shown at the left.

The set pulled in both longwave and medium wave broadcasts (200 to 500 meters and 1250 to 1750 meters). Any suitable cabinet could be used. This one was made of wood, “and covered with one of the various materials which can be purchased for such purposes.”

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1944 WLS School Time

1944Nov20BCWe’ve previously written about the School Time program on WLS Chicago, which started in 1937. Every day at 1:00 PM, the station carried a program especially for school children, which was played in many schools in the region.

Eighty years ago, the station boasts in this ad on the cover of Broadcasting magazine, November 20, 1944, about how successful it was. The station reports that a single announcement offering a color map of the Brookfield Zoo. 5,629 letters flooded the station asking for a copy of the map. While the ad noted that the School Time program wasn’t for sale, they had plenty of programs that were, and an ad on the station promised to deliver results.



1944 British One Tube SW Receiver

1944NovPracWir2Eighty years ago this month, the November 1944 issue of Practical Wireless showed how to put together this handsome one-tube receiver for the short waves. While the magazine pointed out that some treated the single-tube design with disdain, but it would pull in an amazing number of DX stations. It was said that it was capable of first-class results with headphones.

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1944 Admiral Ad

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Eighty years ago, the U.S. was still at war, but there would soon come a time when Johnny came marching home. And when he did, he would want a radio, a phonograph, and home appliances, things that were currently unavailable.

Admiral had already started advertising, and in this ad in the November 1944 issue of Radio Retailing, it reminded dealers about those ads, and encouraged them to get ready to start selling Admiral products.



 

1944 One Tube Radio and Phono Oscillators with Hartley Oscillators

1944RadioCraft01One tube radios don’t get much simpler than the one shown here, which appeared in the November 1944 issue of Radio Craft magazine, having been sent in by one Reggie Baker of Miami, Arizona. The circuit was described as a split Hartley with a type 30 tube. It could operate with two dry cell batteries.

Another Hartley oscillator was used in the circuit shown below, a phono oscillator. This circuit used a 6A8 or 12A8 pentagrid converter tube.  It had been sent in to the magazine by Ralph Day of Moncton, N.B., who pointed out that it could also be used as a signal generator, using either phonograph music or an audio oscillator.  It would appear that this is the same person as the Ralph Granville Day named in this 1959 marriage certificate, as the groom’s occupation is described as “T.V. and Radio.” He was born in 1924, which would have made him 20 years old at the time of the magazine submission. He died in California in 2003, and his obituary notes that he served during the war in the Canadian Merchant Navy, and after the war spent several years at sea as a radio operator.

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1939 Portable Sound System

1939NovPM11939NovPM2Eighty-five years ago, the gentleman shown here spinning the records put his entrepreneurial skills as well as his tech savvy to work with this portable sound system he designed. He is one Fred Dingman, who authored two construction articles about how to build the sound system in the November and December 1939 issues of Popular Mechanics.

He reported that the investment was only about $25, as all parts are inexpensive, and he built the enclosures himself. The finished circuit put out 10 watts of undistorted sound to two 12-inch speakers, meaning that he could provide adequate volume for small halls or outdoors. It was designed as an inexpensive substitute for small dance orchestras, and he had no difficulty obtaining engagements for fraternity and sorority parties, dancing clubs, or lawn gatherings in a middle west university town.

At a reasonable rate, he provided the equipment, operator, and records. For those wishing to follow in his footsteps, the magazine could provide a complete set of blueprints.  The system could also accommodate a microphone.

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