A hundred years ago, the public works department of Baltimore had equipped this truck with a wireless receiver, capable of receiving messages while the car was being driven at high speed through streets flanked with high buildings. The set was capable of receiving messages within a 10 mile radius, allowing crews to be dispatched quickly to any emergency situation. Among other equipment, the truck contained a pump capable of pumping 12,000 gallons per hour. It is shown here in the March, 1915, issue of Popular Mechanics.
Morse Code was used in 2010 to get a secret message to hostages being held in the Colombian jungle by FARC guerrillas. Some of the hostages had been held for years, and the Colombian army wanted to deliver a message that they hadn’t been forgotten, that some hostages had already been rescued, and that they were next.
Since it was known that some of the prisoners knew Morse Code, and the captors probably didn’t, the Army decided to insert a Morse message into a popular song and get it broadcast on the air. The result was the song heard on this YouTube video, Mejores Dias (Better Days), recorded by Colombian studio musicians Natalia Gutierrez Y Angelo.
I knew there was Morse Code coming, and I heard it the first time. If I hadn’t been expecting it, I suspect it might have taken a couple of plays for me to notice. And once I knew it was there, it took me several times to get the entire message, since it is well hidden in the music. But if I had a lot of time on my hands, I would eventually decode the entire message. It’s in the chorus, starting at about 1:30, 2:30, and 3:40 in the video, following the words, “escuchas esta mensaje, hermano” (listen to this message, brother).
To make sure that the song was heard, the Colombian army arranged to have it inserted into the play lists of the government-owned stations serving the jungle areas where the hostages were being held. The guerrillas listened to the radio, and the hostages later reported that they even liked the song. The message was heard, as rescued hostages later reported.
The message reads: “19 LIBERADOS. SIGUEN USTEDES. ANIMO.” (19 PEOPLE RESCUED. YOU’RE NEXT. DON’T LOSE HOPE.) Even if you have only a passing knowledge of Morse Code, you will hear it, and you’ll eventually be able to decode it.
More information is available at TheVerge.com, at the article linked below.
The Canadian flag is fifty years old today. As proclaimed by the Queen on January 28, at the stroke of noon on February 15, 1965, at a ceremony on Parliament Hill, the Red Ensign was lowered and the current Maple Leaf flag was hoisted. The crowd sang “O Canada” followed by “God Save the Queen”
A hundred years ago, the McCreery Manufacturing Company of Toledo, Ohio, had just the thing for the entrepreneur who wanted to earn $20 to $30 a day. While the price of the equipment was not disclosed in this ad from the February 1915 issue of Popular Mechanics, the company could set you up with one of its B.B. Power Vacuum Cleaners, which would allow you to go into business for yourself. In fact, the enterprising man could acquire two or three such machines “and profit from others labor. No doubt that is what someone is doing with you.” The ad noted that thousands of homes will never own a vacuum cleaner of their own, and they “will never think of owning them when they can depend on you.”
The machine gave the owner the ability to start small. “Start with one home on a street–soon half the homes in the neighborhood want regular service.” In addition, there was the promise of trade from churches, lodge rooms, dance halls, hotels, and hundreds of other places.
You could send a letter or postcard for full details, or just show up on their doorstep at 1010 Front Street in Toledo. The ad offered to reimburse your travel expenses (up to 300 miles) if you bought.
Presumably, you left the machine on the street outside, and ran the hose into the house, much as carpet cleaning businesses do a century later.
This hypothetical view of a construction project is from near the equator of an alternate Earth whose period of rotation is 1.41 hours, rather than the customary 24. A lot of work can get done during that shorter day, since the effects of gravity are cancelled out by the increased centrifugal force. Here, a worker is shown tossing a steel beam to his colleague.
The caption notes one disadvantage, namely, that the guy on top needs to be a good catch, since if he misses, the beam will simply keep flying, never to return.
Even those of us curmudgeons who aren’t easily swayed by the winds of political correctness might have to concede that this is a bad idea. This illustration is from the August 1920 edition of Science and Invention.
It shows a new toy, the invention of one Miss Florence Garrigue of Danvers, Mass. The idea is either to cure children of their “natural aversion for darkness,” or perhaps simply scare the crap out of them; the accompanying article is somewhat unclear. But in any event, the idea is to place these animals with glow-in-the-dark eyes next to the sleeping child, who awakens to see several pair of luminous green eyes staring at them in the darkness. “But their fears are quickly turned to joy when Nursie, in response to the cries of alarm, winks on the electric lights” to reveal that the eyes belong to the seemingly harmless toys. Miss Garrigue was awarded US Patent 1337354 for the toy.
The article reveals that the eyes are luminescent due to the use of radium. The patent stresses that the eyes should be made of “preferably a radium composition which will retain its luminescent property for a long time.”
For the politically incorrect, it should be noted that radium is not particularly dangerous, unless ingested, such as by the Radium Girls, who were instructed to routinely lick their brushes while applying radium paint. But still, this particular toy probably isn’t the best of ideas.
It appears that the toy’s inventor went on to be the founder of Meditation Mount in Ojai, California, a center, according to its website, devoted to the building of an enlightened and compassionate world through meditation and universal spiritual principles. It stresses “loving understanding that treats all beings with respect and dignity.”
One hundred years ago today, prohibition began in Arizona. As the new year began, booze left the recently admitted State of Arizona. The voters had overwhelmingly adopted prohibition in the previous election, and the courts had upheld it only days before. The saloons were busy until midnight, when their trade came to an abrupt halt. Here, we see the headline of this Arizona paper bidding farewell to “John Barleycorn.”
The first arrest took place minutes after midnight, as L.A. Brown, proprietor of the Hermitage, was arrested on the charge of selling “two percent.” He planned to use this arrest as a test case, and he was released on his own recognizance.
Sixty years ago, the young gentleman shown here, apparently the son of author James S. Michael, was driving around under the Christmas tree listening to his car radio. His father had constructed a four-tube radio for the vehicle, powered by a 67.5 volt battery along with two flashlight batteries for the filaments. The author had noted that one of a child’s most prized possessions was his or her own automobile, but unlike the big one that Dad drove, the manufacturer didn’t provide a line of accessories.
It was probably cold in December 75 years ago, but that didn’t stop Radio Craft magazine from running this photo in its December 1939 issue.
The radio is the Stewart-Warner 1940 model, the model 05-5L1 portable. The super-heterodyne radio tuned the standard broadcast band and contained five tubes. It would operate on AC power, or with 1.5 and 90 volt batteries. For battery use, it used the following tubes: 1A7GT, 1N5GT, 1H5GT, and 1Q5GT. It also included a 70L7GT, which is a combination rectifier and power amplifier. Apparently, the 70L7 was in the circuit only when running AC power, meaning that the radio would put out a lot more volume when plugged in. The listeners shown here apparently didn’t mind the lower volume level when listening at the beach. The caption notes that to show that the radio would play anywhere, Stewart-Warner’s sales manager “put this one on the beach and surrounded it with nice scenery.”
A schematic diagram of the radio is available at RadioMuseum.org, and an eBay photo of a surviving example can be found at this link.
Taking the radio to the beach or out on the water was apparently a popular pastime in the early days of radio, as shown by the following examples. Curiously, the most inclined to bring the radio with them on their trips to the beach were pretty girls. Click on any of the photos for more information.
