Eighty-five years ago this month, the February 1941 issue of Practical Wireless  showed how to build this two-tube receiver . It was specifically designed for use in an air raid shelter from which a reasonable external antenna had been mounted. It could be pre-set to either the Home Service or the Forces program, and once the tuning was set, it needed no further adjustment.

It boasted long battery life for both the filament and high tension batteries. The set could drive a loudspeaker, and the completed project was mounted in the case shown at right.

We’ve previously written about KGEI, GE’s shortwave station in San Francisco, and the role it played in World War 2. This item 85 years ago today in the February 17, 1941, issue of Broadcasting shows the transmitter building for the 50,000 watt transmitter that would soon be on the air.

The building is still standing, with the KGEI call letter restored, and is used by Silicon Valley Clean Water.

Eighty years ago, this picture appeared on the cover of Radio Retailing, December 1945. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on, so I asked ChatGPT for the back story:

In the winter of 1946, the little shop on Westbury Avenue still smelled faintly of machine oil and warm dust—the scent of radios waking up after a long night. Mr. Harland, the shop’s proprietor, prided himself on being able to fix anything with a dial, but that morning he wasn’t repairing a set. He was demonstrating one.

“This one,” he said, patting the glossy black radio as though it were a fine horse, “has FM. Not many folks know it yet, but FM is the future. Clear as a bell—no static at all on a good day.”

Across from him sat a young woman in a tailored dark suit, gloves folded neatly in her lap. Her name was Margaret Hale. She had just returned from Washington, where she’d been decoding signals for the Navy. The war was over, but she hadn’t quite learned how to live quietly. She felt strange having nothing urgent to listen for.

Her aunt had suggested she buy a new radio. “Something cheerful,” the aunt had said, “to bring a bit of the world back into the house.” So Margaret found herself in Harland’s shop, watching the man beam with pride over the technology he’d been waiting years to see flourish.

He turned a dial, and warm music floated out—strings, a gentle swing rhythm, the kind of melody that wrapped itself around a person’s shoulders. Margaret smiled for the first time in weeks.

“It’s lovely,” she said.

“It is,” Harland agreed. “And next year—television. Mark my words. Pictures through the air. Folks’ll gather around these things like they once did around the piano.”

Margaret imagined it. Scenes unfolding in real time, stories arriving right into one’s home. She wondered what sort of world would rise now that the explosions had quieted. Maybe one with more voices, more connections, more ways to understand one another.

“I’ll take it,” she said.

Harland brightened even further. “Excellent choice. I’ll have it delivered this afternoon.”

As she stood to leave, she paused beside the radio. The music was still playing, light and hopeful. For the first time since the war ended, Margaret felt the faint stirrings of a life with room for ordinary joys—songs in the morning, news in the evening, perhaps even laughter filling the quiet corners of her home.

Outside, the cold wind of January 1946 swept past, but she felt warm. The world was humming again, and she was ready to listen.

I’m pretty sure that’s a toaster, and not an FM radio just to the left. But I can’t quite see what Mr. Harland is fiddling with, so it’s quite possible it’s an FM radio.  But one way or another, the world was humming again.

This illustration appeared 80 years ago this month, in the ad from Hytron Radio and Electronics Corp., in the October 1945 issue of Radio Service Dealer.

The ad pointed out that the 2-1/2 meter band had just reopened to hams, and dealers were probably already seeing the impact of hams coming in to buy. They pointed out that demand was sure to grow. Before the war there were 60,000 hams, but QST estimated that would grow to 250,000 within five years.

That meant that dealers should stock Hytron tubes, which had been advertised in QST. And as new tubes were announced, especially for VHF and UHF, dealers should add them to their stock.

Eighty years ago, the war had been won, and a lot of people were happy about it. And that included these two on the cover of Radio Retailing, October 1945. The woman on the right was happy because she was able to buy a new radio, for the first time since 1942. And the gentleman on the left was even happier, because he was a radio dealer, and was able to once again make it a Radio Christmas.

Eighty years ago, production of civilian radios was still banned, but the public and radio manufacturers knew that the end was in sight, and manufacturers were gearing up to meet the pent-up demand. This ad appeared in the Detroit Evening Times, August 26, 1945, and shows what Emerson had planned.

Unlike some similar ads, which were a little bit unclear about what exactly they would be selling, this one hit it pretty close, and featured the 5-tube model shown here. It’s identified in the ad as the model 502.   To make sure you got one of the first, you could go to your local Emerson dealer and place an order.

The set was popular.  My family had an Emerson 503 in the kitchen. This was a more or less identical model, but with a wooden case rather than Catalin. When it stopped working, it was given to me to “fix,” although I wound up simply dismantling it. Many years later, I got another example on eBay, and got it working by replacing the capacitors. Mine is shown here.  (If you look carefully, you can see the dial light, as it was playing when I took this picture.  Like most AA5’s, it’s a pretty good receiver.