Category Archives: Radio history

Radio Girl Perfume: 1945

Radio Girl® perfume is the official perfume of OneTubeRadio.com. This ad for the product appeared 75 years ago this month in the December 1945 issue of Radio Mirror magazine. As you can see, you can pick up a bottle at the local beauty counter for only a dime. But we recommending splurging and buying a large bottle for a quarter.

As the ad points out, it is a true, captivating perfume that bespeaks romance. Its delicate fragrance is so completely feminine, so appealing, it will tempt his heart.

Distance Learning, 1940

Distance learning due to public health emergency is nothing new, as shown by this item in Radio Guide 80 years ago today, December 14, 1940:

How time has changed our educators, time and polio. As we write this, several hundred radio educators are gathered in Chicago in a conclave of importance to every person who listens to broadcasts, and that conclave, too, grew out of the passage of time and infantile paralysis.

Several years ego. Chicago was like most other American cities. It had only a shallow idea of how radio might be useful to its grade and high-school students. Polio changed that abruptly when child after child went down in what seemed to threaten to become on epidemic. Schools could not convene, yet it was the start of a new school year. In Chicago a man named Harold Kent, who had been a school principal, surveyed the situation and decided that children could go to school, but that they would have to attend by radio.

Network stations and local stations. schoolteachers, parents and students all cooperated to set up what was probably the first radio classroom of such magnitude. Problems presented full understanding. Chicago newspapers and Movie-Radio Guide published those pictures. Parents took them home to sons and daughters, who then tuned in to synchronized broadcasts. Thus, teaching continued even though students and teachers were many miles apart. When the polio scare was over, school took up where the radio left off and not a pupil was behind in his work.

From the lessons learned in that “education-under-fire” experience, Harold Kent drew important conclusions. One of them was that educators did not know enough about teaching-by-air. So he established an annual conference. This year is the fourth during which teachers have come from all over America to tell what they are doing and to leorn what others are doing.

So teaching-by-air progresses. Educators are aware now that knowledge for the classroom is not knowledge for the sitting-room. Musty lectures are out. Showmanship is in. Now pupils
can listen and learn joyously.

Such meetings as the Fourth School Broadcast Conference now being held in Chicago are stepping stones to better and more effective broadcasting. From ideas discussed there today
will come tomorrow’s “Town Hall” and “I Am an American” and ‘School of the Air” broadcasts

Mme. Tetrazzini Sings to the Fleet: 1920

Shown here a hundred years ago today, in the December 12, 1920, edition of the New York Tribune, is Italian Soprano Mme. Luisa Tetrazzini.

According to the newspaper, she is warbling from her New York apartment to every battleship in New York Harbor, courtesy of the wonderfully ingenious radio telephone.

Mme. Tetrazzini died in 1940. The dish tetrazzini is named after her.

Transatlantic Signals Heard in 1920?

Today marks the 99th anniversary of the ARRL Transatlantic Tests. On that date, the signal from 1BCG in Greenwich, Connecticut, was heard in Androssan, Scotland, the first successful Transatlantic transmission on shortwave frequencies.

But a hundred years ago this month, the December 1920 issue of Radio News reported the Transatlantic reception of the signals of 2QR, the station of brothers Hugh and Harold H. Robinson of 13 Walnut Street, Keyport, NJ.

The signals were allegedly heard in Scotland by amateurs George Benzie and James Miller, who reported hearing voice, phonograph records, and the 2QR call sign. The letter received from Scotland is shown in the magazine. The magazine did report that “even today there is considerable doubt entertained by many leading amateurs as to whether or not it was done.” When the issue went to press, the American amateurs had written to Scotland seeking more details, such as the exact time of the transmission and the records heard.

It turns out that the signals had not been received. In January 1922, QST carried the results of an investigation carried out by a committee of the Radio Club of America, headed up by Edwin Armstrong (one of the principals of the successful 1921 test), who concluded that the signals were not heard in Scotland. Apparently, the follow up from Scotland reported reception at a time when 2QR had not been on the air.

The RCA report did conclude that the Robinsons had acted in good faith. It was silent as to whether the committee believed that Benzie and Miller had, indeed, heard something.

1940 Antenna Mast

When antenna adjustments were necessary, this 1940 family was able to effect them quickly, thanks to this “well-sweep” antenna mast, constructed with 18 foot lumber. The support consisted of two 4×4’s four feet part, set in cement. The mast itself is hinged at the midpoint and counterbalanced for ease of raising and lowering.

Here, while Little Sister supervises, Junior tends to the antenna wire while Father makes the required adjustments. When he’s done, he’ll hoist it up to its 31 foot height, pin it in place, and go inside to pull in the distant stations. These plans appeared in the December 1940 issue of Popular Mechanics.

1970 One Tube VLF Receiver

Fifty years ago this month, the December 1970 issue of Science and Electronics showed how to make this one tube VLF receiver with a tuning range of 13-28 kHz. The set used a 6U8A dual triode-pentode, with half serving as regenerative detector and the other half AF amplifier.

The tuned circuit used two fixed capacitors in parallel, with one switched in or out to adjust the tuning range. Tuning was accomplished with a variable inductor, originally intended as a TV horizontal oscillator coil.

The author reported that from his Michigan location, he had excellent reception, day and night, of NAA in Maine, NSS in Maryland, and NPG on the west coast. He reported that he copied CW signals consisting of five-letter code groups, as well as plain language press reports, all intended for nuclear subs around the world.

I don’t believe there is normally any CW on the air on these frequencies, although stations such as NAA are still there, sending FSK transmissions which could be heard, but not decoded. One signal that could be decoded, definitely in Europe, or perhaps in North America, is the annual test transmission from SAQ in Grimeton, Sweden, which sends a CW message on Alexanderson Day, each year in June or July.

The author of this project is a familiar one, Hartland Smith, W8VVD, now licensed as W8QX. We previously highlighted his projects such as a steam powered CW transmitter, a 65 watt transmitter, and a shortwave preamplifier. Remarkably, in 1958, he received Transatlantic TV signals with a modified U.S. television set.

Testing CRT: 1945

This employee of the National Union Tube Company of Landsdale, PA, is performing a laboratory test on a 10AP4 cathode-ray tube that had just rolled off the assembly line. She is measuring the engineering performance of the tube under actual load and operating conditions.

The picture appeared 75 years ago this month on the cover of the December 1945 issue of Radio News.

Pearl Harbor

USS Shaw at Pearl Harbor. Defense Department Photo.

Today marks the 79th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941. Here are links to some of our earlier posts marking that event:

Selling Recorders in 1940

Shown here transporting a set are Cleveland radio dealer Louis Schwab and Rev. W.P. Schmidt of the Parma Evangelical Lutheran Church, 2625 Oak Park Ave., in suburban Cleveland. The photo is from an article in the December 1940 issue of Radio Retailing, which details Schwab’s success with selling recording phonographs. The article noted that less than 5% of the phonographs sold included recording, but with salesmanship of the type employed by Schwab, this number could be increased. The magazine noted that once the set was sold, sales of blank records were almost sure to follow. One family with musically inclined offspring bought two packages of records a week. And another customer did “recording parties,” at which he would go through at least three dozen disks.

The sale depicted in the photograph resulted from the fact that the church organist was going to have a baby. Rather than pay a substitute during her maternity leave, the church sprang for the radio-recorder shown here. The organist pre-recorded the hymns to be played during her absence, and the machine took over the musician’s duties. The set was used at other church gatherings to listen to broadcasts and recorded music.

The church shown here appears to be the predecessor of Parma Lutheran Church, which is now located about a mile away from its 1940 location.

1920 French Crystal Set

A hundred years ago this month, the December 1920 issue of Radio News showed this French receiver designed for receiving time signals from the Eiffel Tower. If it looks familiar, it’s because we featured it before. The same receiver appeared in Popular Mechanics in 1914, so it had been on the market for at least six years before showing up on the cover of Radio News, which gave more details of the set and of the time signals sent from the Eiffel Tower.

In the magazine, we learn that the receiver is known as the Ondaphone, and consists of a galena detector mounted on the back of the telephone receiver. One wire is connected to a convenient ground, such as a radiator, and the other wire is connected to an antenna. In the picture here, a light fixture is used for the antenna. In a rural area, the article suggests that even an umbrella might form a suitable antenna.

Despite any inductor, the set was said to work well throughout Paris, and even in outlying areas.