Eighty years ago today, the July 27, 1941, issue of the Pittsburgh Press showed the Philco radio offerings for the upcoming model year.

On the internet, according to the meme, nobody knows you are a dog.  But the concept is nothing new, as shown by the cover of Radio News for July 1921.  On the radio, nobody knows you’re a monkey.

Eighty years ago this month, the July 1941 issue of Radio Craft carried this ad for the radio operator’s course offered by Port Arthur College, Port Arthur, TX, known today  as Lamar State College-Port Arthur.  The college was the licensee of KPAC, which the ad notes was the only commercial station licensed by a college.  As such, the modern facility had advertising representative in major cities, and was a full-fledged member of NAB and BMI.  As such, it promised many contacts with industry, and it reported that it received more requests for graduates than it could possibly satisfy.

KPAC was a successful commercial operation, with a top 40 format in the 1950s, moving to a middle of the road format in the 60s.  It was sold to Clear Channel in 1981, and the company attempted to use it to enter the Houston market by upgrading the FM signal.  The station was sold, and it currently operates as KDEI, a Spanish-language Catholic station.

60 years ago this month, the July 1961 issue of Popular Electronics showed this self-explanatory idea for an FM antenna.  The set’s two-wire power cord is replaced with one with three conductors.  The third conductor is inductively coupled to the power line, and feeds the set’s RF stage through a capacitor.

Seventy-five years ago today, the July 22, 1946, issue of Life magazine carried this ad showing the postwar radio lineup from Bendix, manufactured by the radio division of Bendix Aviation Corporation.

One of the sets, the model 646A, was dubbed an “invisible radio,” whose “phantom dial” would disappear when turned off, turning it into a beautiful end table. You can see a nicely restored specimen at this link.

The dial is covered by wood grain, and without the dial illuminated, it does indeed blend in to the rest of the furniture. The speaker grill is at the rear, helping with the illusion. The set originally sold for $84.95.

These cartoons appeared 50 years ago this month in the July 1971 issue of Electronics Illustrated.

Seventy-five years ago today, here is what you would have heard on the radio in the nation’s capital. These listing are from the Washington Evening Star, Saturday, July 20, 1946.

Click on the image to view it full size.

One hundred years ago today, the July 19, 1921, issue of the Bismarck (ND) Tribune
carried this article about the organ concerts being broadcast by KDKA Pittsburgh, featuring “Famous Concert Organist” Charles Heinroth.

Heinroth was the director of music and concert organist at the Carnegie Institute. His Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon recitals were carried by telephone line to KDKA across town, and then over the airwaves by the recently licensed station. The newspaper noted that the concerts were listened to by a large list of amateurs in nearly all sections of the country.

The article predicted, correctly it turns out:

In the future, if the present developments keep on at their present pace, good music can be easily obtained by every citizen. It is fairly possible that small receiving sets will be installed in homes, in such a manner that by merely inserting a plug, recitals of the same standard as Mr Heinroth’s can be heard. That this is not a far-fetched idea is attested to by the fact that radio engineers are working on the problem at this very moment. Perfections and new adaptations have come very swiftly in the past two years so it is very probable that the individual radio set for the home is an article of the very near future.

Heinroth went on to become a professor at the City College of New York in 1932, and died in 1963 at the age of 89.

Eighty-five years ago, this gentleman was showing off the two-tube broadcast receiver that he constructed according to the plans shown in the July 1936 issue of Popular Science. The set’s main claim to fame was that it didn’t require expensive and heavy B batteries. The two-tube regenerative set ran off of just nine volts on the plates, plus an additional 1.5 volt battery to light the filaments of the type 30 and type 40 tube.

The simple circuit required only nine commercial parts–a transformer, an RF choke, two variable condensers, the tubes and sockets, and a switch. The “pancake” coils were easily wound at home.

The article noted that the layout of the circuit was quite critical, but over the course of a few months, the author pulled in more than 50 stations as far as 1500 miles away, with just a 12 foot indoor antenna and no ground.