Happy Valentine’s Day from OneTubeRadio.com!
Eighty years ago, it was the last Valentine’s day of the war, and for many GI’s, this cartoon probably summed it up. Let’s hope that Valentine’s Day 1946 was happier.
The cartoon appeared on the front page of the February 14, 1945, issue of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Eighty years ago there was still a war going on. But people knew that it wouldn’t last forever, and there was a pent-up demand for consumer products like radios that had been unavailable for the duration.
The cover of the February 1945 issue of Radio Retailing reminded dealers of the importance of keeping their names in front of consumers. When the war ended, and products were available, you wanted them to come to you to buy them.
Eighty-five years ago, Britain was at war, and that meant shortages of many things, including flashlight batteries. Undaunted, many Britons took to making their own, and the February 1940 issue of Practical Mechanics showed them how to do it.
There was a learning curve involved, but the magazine assured readers that the task was well within the capabilities of amateurs. The costs of materials were low, and once you were set up, you could laugh at the Nazis trying to deprive you of batteries.
The article pointed out that filling the cells, at least initially, was a messy process. But once you got into a routine, it was relatively easy. The article suggested getting together a quantity of zinc containers and carbon rods, and then commencing the filling process. Surrounding the carbon rod was a “depolarizing paste” consisting of a mixture of approximately equal quantities of carbon or plumbago powder and manganese dioxide (pyrolusite) made into a paste with a 1 per cent. solution of gum tragacanth. The electrolyte consisted of about 85 per cent. of plaster of Paris and 15 per cent. of ordinary flour mixed to a just-wet paste with a strong solution of sal ammoniac,
For the student looking for a science fair project, making a battery is always a worthwhile option. In addition to this set of instructions, we have many other similar ideas on this site.
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Eighty-five years ago, the War was still over a year away for America, but it was raging in Europe. With a shortwave receiver, you could pull in the war news directly from Europe. And thanks to the Admiral model 12-B5, you could do so for the unheard of price of only $12.95. Of course, there’s been a lot of inflation since 1940, and according to this inflation calculator, that works out to $290 in 2025 dollars. But we think it would be worth the investment.
This ad appeared in the February 1940 issue of Radio Retailing.
Eighty years ago, there was still a war going on, and hams were off the air for the duration. But more than a few of them were itching to get back on the air as soon as possible, and one of them was apparently Sheldon W. Gates, W8VWK, who designed this portable station, described in the January 1945 issue of QST.
The three-band (80, 40, and 20 meters) station was housed in a small vanity case which measured 11.5 by 6.5 by 7 inches, and which set him back $2.49. He originally considered designing the set for battery operation, but since he described himself as a city boy who rarely went farther than the power lines, he settled on AC power. The transmitter used a single 117N7 tube, and the receiver was a three-tube Meissner Student Midget Kit that he cut down to fit the available space. Since the receiver used 1 volt tubes, he included a dry cell to run those filaments.
The cover of the case included plenty of room for logbook, key, crystals, and headphones. At the end of the article, he reminded readers that the transmitter could not be operated on the air at the present time.
One recurring theme during World War II was converting a car radio to operate indoors. This was because there was a shortage of receivers, due to production being stopped. And with gas and tire rationing, the car radio wasn’t getting much use. So it was only logical to bring it inside, and that’s what this gentleman was doing, following some pointers found in Popular Science for January 1945, eighty years ago this month.
The article discussed such things as replacing the speaker, since the car radio probably employed a 6-volt field coil, and it was easier to get a permanent magnet speaker. And, of course, a bit of rewiring would be necessary to get it to run off household current. The antenna was the easy part, since the car radio required only a short piece of wire.
Eighty years ago this month, the war was still raging, but the January 1945 issue of the British magazine Practical Mechanics takes an interesting look at one of the German’s instruments of war, namely the V-2, rocket that was terrorizing London. The article begins, “forgetting for a moment its sinister purpose, let us admit directly that “V-2″ is an engineering achievement of indisputable brilliance. It is an achievement, too, that will have great bearing on scientific progress in the years of peace to come, by penetration to great altitudes to return with data of conditions existent in the so far uncharted reaches of the atmosphere, and later, by excursions into space itself.”
The article notes that the rocket on a ballistic trajectory toward London achieved an altitude of about 60 miles. That number exceeded by far the prior altitude record of a mere 98,000 feet.
But if it was instead pointed straight up, it could achieve an altitude of 750 to 800 miles. Indeed, it could escape the gravity of the Earth entirely, never to return.
The article concludes, quite correctly, “V-2 is without doubt a first practical step toward the conquest of space.”
When it comes to one tube radios, they don’t get much simpler than this one, which appeared 80 years ago in the January 1945 issue of Radio Craft. It had been sent in to the magazine by one Philip Dennison of Salina, Kansas, who noted that it worked as well as much larger radios. It’s essentially a crystal set, with the crystal replaced by a tube with the grid and plate tied together to act as a diode. The only power is the filament voltage, and the author reports that it works even better with the battery slightly run down.
It’s likely that the author was this Philip Dennison, who was born in 1926 and died in 1964, Since his grave indicates that he was a World War II veteran, I’m guessing that he was drafted shortly before his circuit was published at the age of 18.
When I first saw this cover of Radio News, December 1939, I thought perhaps she was building the wireless mike, the field strength meter, or maybe the full-range amplifier. But one way or another, she looks like she knows how to handle a soldering iron.
But it turns out she’s a ham, and undoubtedly working on one of her rigs. Her identity was obscured by the mailing label, but fortunately, her call sign was barely visible. She was Lenore Kingston, W9CHD, later Lenore Jensen, with calls W2NAZ and W6NAZ. She was an actress with NBC in Chicago, and pestered the engineers so that they taught her enough code and theory to get her license. After she moved to New York, she kept in touch with one of those engineers, who proposed over CW and became her first husband. Upon his passing, she remarried another radio engineer. She continued her career in broadcast radio in California
She was born Lenore Bourgeotte, but a publicist changed her name to Lenore Kingston when she started her radio career. When World War II broke out, she taught Morse Code to Navy radiomen. She co-founded the YLRL, and handled thousands of phone patches and traffic for servicemen during the Vietnam war. She passed away in 1993. You can read a full obituary in the July 1993 issue of World Radio.
Eighty years ago, there was a war going on, and there were shortages of many things. And that included a new home telephone. You couldn’t get one right away–you had to wait weeks or months.
In this ad from Life Magazine, November 20, 1944, The Phone Company assures you that they feel your pain. But because of wartime shortages, there weren’t enough telephones or switchboards to go around, and everyone would just have to wait patiently.