A century ago this month, the cover of the September 1920 issue of Radio News featured this man teaching the art of radio to his companion.

The issue also featured an article by Marianne Brown, 2AOA, whom we profiled in an earlier post, from the magazine’s April 1920 issue. Her training was much more formal than the woman shown on the cover. With the U.S. in the war, she decided to do her part by getting trained as a radio operator, and then waiting for the government to put her to work. Unfortunately, that never happened, but she did secure a position in the testing department of the Marconi Company, and she writes about her experiences there as “one of the gang.”

The plans for this 2-transistor pocket portable receiver appeared in Radio-Electronics magazine 60 years ago this month, September 1960. The circuit was the result of prodding from the author’s son to produce a pocket radio in time for the World Series, hence the name of the set, the World Series Special.

The author noted that pocket portable typically came in two categories–they were either superhets that were difficult and expensive to build, or else simple one or two transistor sets that wouldn’t pull in anything without a 50 foot outdoor antenna. This set was a good compromise, since it would pull in the strong local stations (presumably including the one that was broadcasting the World Series) without an external antenna.

The circuit had a regenerative RF stage, followed by a crystal detector. That was followed by two stages of audio amplification. It used two transistors, the venerable 2N170 NPN, and the 2N107 PNP. The 2N170 was reflexed to serve as both RF amp and first AF stage. The 2N107 was the final audio transistor. The article stressed the importance of using a good earpiece, since a sensitive one would have much better volume. Regenration was fixed, and there was a separate volume control. It was powered with a 7.5 volt mercury battery that was soldered in place, since the author apparently had faith in his son to turn the radio off when not in use.

The author noted that layout was not critical, with one exception: It was important to keep the battery as far away as possible from the antenna coil.

This woman is listening to the radio in her kitchen, but she’s doing it at the fraction of the cost of a new radio, thanks to the remote speaker described in the September 1950 issue of Popular Science.

The radio is playing in another room, up to 150 feet away. It’s an easy matter to run a speaker wire to another room, but this means that to adjust the volume, you need to go back to the radio. If you want to install the remote speaker in a noisy location, this can pose a problem.

The magazine provides a solution, as this is more than just a remote speaker. It actually contains a one-tube amplifier using the always useful 117N7GT tube, whose filament runs right off the line current. It’s hooked to the radio speaker terminals through a transformer, and the variable resistor at the input allows you to easily turn the volume of the speaker up or down, without having to adjust the radio.

The article points out that the idea would work equally well with an automatic phonograph with a stack of records.

If you wanted to become a ham sixty years ago, the September 1970 issue of Electronics Illustrated had everything you needed to get started. It contained a 16-page special section with a number of articles by prolific author Len Buckwalter, K1ODH.

The section began with an introduction noting that barely a week went by when amateur radio didn’t hit the news. For example, it noted that hams had recently handled life and death message traffic after a Midwest tornado, and that hams on the U.S. East Coast and England had successfully worked each other by bouncing signals off an earth satellite. The magazine showed how to obtain a license and a station to join in this fascinating fraternity.

The first hurdle was the code, but the article pointed out that this was easy with records or tapes. To study for the written test, the magazine provided three pages of questions and answers of the material that would be on the exam, in the same format as the ARRL License Manual. Despite protestations of hams as to how hard the tests were back in the day, it’s clear that the 1960 Novice test could easily be passed by anyone of even modest intelligence.

According to the article, it was taking about six weeks for the license to arrive in the mail, and this time could be spent putting together the transmitter-receiver shown on the cover. The receiver is a one-tube regenerative receiver for 80 and 40 meters. It used a 6U8, half of which was a regenerative detector, and the other half an audio amplifier to drive the headphones. The transmitter used a 6V6 tube, and a power supply with transformer and 5Y3 rectifier was built right in, making the unit a complete station in one cabinet. Plug-in coils were used for both transmitting and receiving. The receiver was running all the time, with the antenna switched between transmit and receive. This made it easy to calibrate the receiver dial by using the crystal: The transmitter coil was removed to keep it from overloading the receiver. With the key down, the signal would be easy to find on the receiver dial. For an antenna, pointers for setting up either a longwire or dipole were given.

Seventy-five years ago this month, the September 1945 issue of Radio Craft carried these pointers by Joseph Dante Amorose for making a crystal set that did well. The author had been working on crystal sets for a quarter century, and he reports that this one was “LOUD–louder than any set I have tried in 25 years.” The article is not so much plans for a set, but a discussion of the attributes that made the set pull in the stations so well and so loudly.

While the article hit the newstands after peace had been won, the author noted the value of a crystal set in the time of war in which the article was written: “In this day of scarce electric radios, that should provide something of value; a radio set that stays constantly on the job is a real asset these days.”

He began by noting that the aerial should be at least 150 feet of 14 gauge wire, but 500 feet showed noticeable gain. The antenna led to a loading coil, which the author said must be used to add volume and improve both selectivity and range. He found that 60 turns of number 24 wire on a 3 inch bakelite form worked best.

The ganged condenser not only saved money, since they were cheaper than two separate units, but also added gain since there was coupling between the two capacitors. The article included much discussion of the tuning coils, and then turned to the detector. The author recommended using multiple detectors and using a switch. He noted that the loudest crystal was steel galena. But when there were a lot of local stations, then iron pyrite would provide more selectivity. And for experimentation, a fixed detector should be used. When swapping out components, any change in volume would be very apparent if the detector was not adjustable.

An extremely good ground was required. In the country, the best was the pipe running to the well. In the city, it would be the cold water pipe, and not the steam pipe. He notes that one ground works well, but five are better, and ten isn’t too many.

Finally, he stressed the importance of using the best possible headphones, with a high impedance, and from a good manufacturer. In short, he stressed that you should use the best you can afford.

It appears that the author copyrighted a booklet entitled “How to build the Amorose loud speaking crystal radio,” and in June 1946, he ran this classified ad in Popular Science to sell some of his writings.