At OneTubeRadio.com, we rarely discuss matters of practical importance. Yes, we do have one emphasis on emergency preparedness, but even there, we hope it’s never of practical value.

Most of the other information we share is of no practical value. We’ll show you how to build a crystal set or a one-tube radio, but we both know that a modern commercially built radio will probably work better at a lower cost. Setting up an amateur radio station at a remote location rarely has much practical value, especially since cellular service is usually (but not always) available. Our science fair ideas are sometimes spectacular, but they probably have no useful value. And even having our URL transmitted from the moon and received in Argentina was hardly a useful undertaking. We even occasionally offer advice for coping with inadvertent time travel, although we have to admit that there’s probably no real need for such preparations.

So this afternoon, it’s not surprising that the kids and I brought the OneTubeRadio.com official corporate vehicle, a 1998 Old Town canoe, to Lake Phalen to visit The Floating Library.

Kennedy’s “We Chose To Go To The Moon” speech. Wikipedia photo.

On September 12, 1962, President Kennedy said:

We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too.

No, there’s no good reason to set up a floating library, and there’s no good reason to go visit one. There are plenty of books in libraries located on terra firma. (And unlike most land-based libraries, The Floating Library didn’t even have WiFi.)  No, there’s no good reason to build a crystal set. No, there’s no good reason to build a flame speaker. But we don’t do these things because they are easy. We do them because they are hard.

Weather permitting, The Floating Library will be back at Lake Phalen next weekend, August 4-5, 2018. If you own a small boat, canoe, or kayak, you can launch it from the shore. If you don’t own one, you can rent one there. I can’t tell you any good reason to go, other than that it’s hard. But that’s a good enough reason to go.

Yesterday, we showed an ad for WCCO radio that was published in Broadcasting magazine in 1943, and we asked readers to spot the typo, and here it is. The New York network copy writers included the wrong frequency. WCCO was at that time (and still is) on 830 kHz. But the ad shows the frequency as 780 kHz, which was (and is) the frequency of the CBS Chicago clear channel station, WBBM.

The Minneapolis station had been on 810 kHz until 1941, when the dial was shuffled by NARBA.  It’s been on 830 since March 20, 1941.

A hundred years ago this month, the June 1918 issue of Electrical Experimenter carried these hints on how to avoid electric shocks. They’re all still good advice these days, but they were even more important then, since there was no effort made to polarize electric receptacles.  At the time, they were intended for light bulbs, but people were plugging all kinds of useful devices into them.  Thus, there was a 50/50 chance that any exposed conductors were “hot.”

The specific advice given in these illustrations was:

• Don’t touch water spigot and electric socket at same time.
• Never touch electric wires or fittings when in bath tub.
• Don’t touch radiator and electric fan.
• Don’t stand on heating register when extinguishing electric fires.
• Leave fallen wires alone–they may be “alive”.
• Don’t use telephone during thunderstorms.
• Keep away from radiators when using electric curling irons.
• Boys: don’t throw wires over trolley lines.
• 3rd Rail!
• Don’t stand on ground and touch “live” electrical switches.
• Don’t stand on ground and touch “live” circuits or apparatus.
• Don’t touch brass nozzle in fighting fires.

To these tips we will add that girls shouldn’t throw wires over trolley lines, either.

Seventy-five years ago this month, the June 1943 issue of Radio Craft carried this schematic for a simple one-tube all-wave receiver.  The set used a single  6F7 dual tube, half of which was used as the regenerative detector, with the other half serving as an audio amp. The circuit had been sent to the magazine by one Allan Hurd of Kelworthy, Ontario, who reported that the set pulled in the local stations with loudspeaker volume, and would even provide loudspeaker volume on shortwave from the London and Berlin stations. Presumably, weaker DX required headphones.

He also reported that no bandspread condenser was needed, as long as a good vernier dial was used on the main tuning condenser.

Was it a morning like this?

Sixty years ago this month, at the height of the Cold War, the February 1958 issue of Popular Science had as its cover feature an account of a motor trip by two Americans, with their dutiful Intourist guide in the back seat, across the Soviet Union from Brest to Moscow and then south to Yalta.

The author, Harry Walton, along with Dennis Michael O’Connor, made the trip in a Belgian-made 1957 Rambler station wagon. After reciting the preconceptions he had of the trip, Walton writes:

The preconceptions were wrong. The Russians I met were not hostile, and the roads and mechanics were first-rate. In several cities I met friendly, curious, wide-awake students (including some who regularly read Popular Science in the technical library). Often I talked with earnest, unsmiling but not unfriendly adults who took to hear their government’s much-repeated slogan: “Beat America.” Everywhere I saw evidences of a dedicated national effort to cram into two decades the industrial revolution that has taken the West two centuries.”

Today, we offer some fun math facts to amaze your friends.

You don’t need to be able to read the text to see these interesting mathematical relationships. This table appeared in the January 1958 issue of Юный техник (Young Technician).