Category Archives: World War 2

1945 Three Tube Regen

This handsome 3-tube shortwave receiver was put together during the war by Harry D. Hooton, W8KPX, as reported in the September 1945 issue of Radio News. He reported that at the outbreak of war, he sold his receiver and other equipment to the U.S. Army Signal Corps. But before long, he had the urge to build something, and this set was the result. He was able to find many of the parts in his own junk box, and acquired others by very carefully negotiated trades with other local hams.

The set covered 2-20 MHz with three plug-in coils. It used three tubes, plus one rectifier in the separate power supply. Hooton reported that he constructed the power supply separately to avoid hum in the high-gain audio stage, and also to make the set usable with batteries if desired at a later time.

The set used a 6SJ7 as RF amplifier, followed by a 6SN7, a dual tube used for regenerative detector and audio amplifier. This went to a 6C5, which was a second stage of audio amplification.

The USPS Delivers!

We take unwarranted criticism of the U.S. Postal Service very seriously around here. As we reported previously, the Post Office stood ready to serve the nation even after a nuclear war, and during COVID-19 the men and women of the USPS have acted heroically to ensure that the mail goes through. Even when rioters burnt down two post offices in Minneapolis, the Postal Service quickly regrouped to make sure that its customers would continue to receive mail with minimal interruption.

Recently, for political reasons, the USPS has come under intense criticism, the gist of which being that they can’t do anything right. They were allegedly in the process of ripping out all of their sorting machines, and even removing mailboxes. The particular conspiracy theory was that without these sorting machines, they would be unable to deliver millions of ballots. This didn’t make much sense to us, since most ballots in a given locality would all be addressed to the same city or county election office, and wouldn’t require much sorting, by machine or otherwise.

And allegedly, the removal of mailboxes was to prevent voters from sending their ballots. The theory was that a voter would go to a spot where there used to be a mailbox, would see that the mailbox was gone, and then give up in despair. For the theory to work, the voter would have to be too dumb to look for another mailbox, take it to the nearest post office (where they would find a mailbox in the parking lot), give it to their friendly letter carrier, or just take it to the election office themselves. In short, as conspiracy theories go, it wasn’t very plausible, but a lot of people seemed to subscribe to it.

So as an experiment, I decided to test the United States Postal Service. I asked for volunteers on Facebook and NextDoor. I had them send me their address, and I mailed them an honest-to-goodness piece of snail mail. I had ten volunteers, and I asked them to inform me when they received the letter. I mailed the letters from three different locations. Some I mailed from a blue mailbox in front of a local strip mall (one of the boxes that was allegedly being torn out). Some I mailed from the drive-up mailbox in front of my local post office. And some I placed in my own mailbox, and the friendly letter carrier picked them up with the mail.

A small sampling of my letters is shown above. All ten were delivered in a timely fashion. Most of the transit times included a Sunday, but I included it. All ten of the letters were delivered in four days or less. Crosstown letters were delivered in either one or two days (the two day period included a Sunday). I tracked the average speed of each letter (measured by road miles from the center of the two ZIP codes). The slowest traveled an average speed of 0.16 miles per hour (845 feet per hour). That sounds slow, but keep in mind that I dropped it in a box in the afternoon, and there’s no way it could have arrived any earlier than the next day.

The fastest letter got from Minnesota to Maine at an average speed of 19.6 miles per hour. Remember, this included a Sunday, when it presumably didn’t travel at all. It was undoubtedly in multiple trucks during its trip. In my humble opinion, travelling at that speed for a mere 55 cents is an amazing bargain. Letters to Texas and Washington got similar excellent service. The full results are shown in the table below.

All of my letters were addressed by hand, and as my elementary school teachers would attest, my penmanship isn’t the greatest. But the post office managed to sort them. And all of the letters I saw had bar codes printed on them. These would have been printed on the envelopes by an automatic sorting machine, and they are designed to be read by other automatic sorting machines. These, of course, are the automatic sorting machines that the USPS allegedly ripped out and put on the scrap heap. But somehow, my letters all made it through one or more of these allegedly non-existent machines.

In short, the criticism of the USPS is unfounded. As they have done throughout the pandemic, as they have done despite civil unrest, they continue to serve their country proudly.

If you’re wondering about the design on some of the envelopes, I copied the design from a 1944 patriotic cover. (You can see that cover and read more about it at this link.) Just like they do today, during the war, the Post Office Department made sure that they mail went through. I’m sure there were detractors back then, but someone decided to print up some special envelopes to thank their letter carrier for heroic service.

We ought to do the same today. If you haven’t done so recently, thank your letter carrier for his or her hard work. And for the workers behind the scenes, you can invest 55 cents and mail them a thank you card. Just address it to “Postmaster” and your city, state, and ZIP code. I’m sure it will get pinned up to the employee bulletin board. They’ve worked hard to serve you, and they deserve your thanks.

Postwar Radio Sales Begin

Seventy-five years ago this month, the September 1945 issue of Radio Retailing was a thick one–175 pages. It was packed with ads from radio suppliers announcing that new radio would be rolling off the assembly lines for the first time in over three years. There was a pent up demand, and it was going to be a great time to be a radio dealer.

This editorial from that issue of the magazine tells all about the great day that was finally there. It was going to be a prosperous time, as Americans hit the showrooms for radios, appliances, and even television.

From most browsers, you can click on the image above to view it, and then click again for an enlarged version.

Laying Telephone Wire by Airplane

It looks like Bell Labs was working on this idea toward the end of the war, and it probably wasn’t implemented, at least on a very large scale. But this ad from the September 1945 issue of Popular Mechanics sounds like a good idea for quickly laying lines for military field telephones. Instead of having men do the work on the ground, possibly through enemy territory, an airplane does the job, at a rate of 16 miles in 6 – 2/3 minutes. One end, with a weight and parachute, is dropped to the ground. Then, wire is spooled out continuously.

1940 Portable

Europe may have been at war 80 years ago, but it was still peacetime in America, and this happy couple was enjoying a radio program while on the go, thanks to this new portable receiver, said to resemble a camera. The manufacturer is not named, but it’s shown in the August 1940 issue of Popular Science.

The set resembled a camera in its outward appearance, and was available with either a carrying strap or handle. It weighed in at 4.5 pounds, and measured 4 by 5 by 8 inches. It employed miniature tubes, and used normal flashlight batteries for the “A” battery. The superheterodyne receiver featured a built-in aerial and dynamic speaker. It also had a connection for headphones for private listening or pulling in distant stations.

1945 FM Phono Oscillator

The woman shown above, in the August 1945 issue of Popular Mechanics, appears to be tuning in a program on her broadcast radio. But looks are deceiving, and the set actually tunes the prewar FM band, which covered 42-49 MHz. And she’s not listening to a radio station. Instead, she’s listening to a record being played by the gentleman at left, who is a few feet away.

Phono oscillators which played records over a standard AM broadcast radio were fairly common, but this one played the records over an FM radio. According to the article, no claim was made that the simple circuit would give absolutely perfect reproduction, but results from the Popular Mechanics laboratory were satisfactory. The set was more a challenge to the experimenter to open up the new field of FM radio.

The whole circuit was remarkably compact, and consisted of a 6C5 triode tube along with a few other components. Even with wartime parts shortages, most of the parts could probably be scrounged up fairly easily. The whole circuit mounted right on the tone arm, which was constructed of hardwood.

Order to Liquidate Allied Prisoners

Louis Zamperini in 1943. Wikipedia photo.

Thankfully, nothing happened 75 years ago today, August 22, 1945. The war ended before the scheduled event could take place.

In 1944, the Japanese War Ministry issued orders to prison camp commandants for the “final disposition” of Allied prisoners of war. Under those orders, all POW’s were to be killed at such time as Allied forces landed in the territory in which they were being held. The rationale behind the order was to prevent the POW’s from being repatriated and becoming a part of the liberating force.

For example, on December 14, 1944, about 150 prisoners of war at Palawan in the Philippine Islands, were ordered to the air raid shelters, at first in apparent response to an actual air raid. But after the raid, because of a mistaken belief that an invasion of the island was underway, they were ordered to remain, at which time the wooden structure was doused with gasoline and set afire.

According to the book Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, the date set for at least one camp on the home islands was 75 years ago today, August 22, 1945.

That book is the story of Louis Zamperini, a record-breaking track star of the 1930’s. Among his claims to fame was a personal meeting with Hitler at the 1936 Olympics. In 1943, his plane crashed in the Pacific and he drifted in a small raft for 47 days until his “rescue” by the Japanese. He remained a prisoner until the end of the war, enduring much torture. After the war, haunted by nightmares of his experience, he drifted into alcoholism until attending a Billy Graham crusade in California.

Because of the Japanese decision to surrender, motivated at least in part by the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the orders to execute Zamperini and other prisoners in Japan were never carried out.

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V-J Day

Today is the 75th anniversary of the end or World War II.

After the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, surrender quickly followed. The Japanese communicated their intention to surrender on August 15 Japan time, which was the evening of August 14 in the United States. While the official U.S. date for V-J day was the date of the surrender in Tokyo Harbor, September 2, V-J Day was celebrated in the United States the night of August 14 and August 15. The newspaper shown here is the Milwaukee Journal, August 15, 1940.

US Navy photo, via Wikipedia.

A Preview of Postwar Television

When this issue of National Radio News, August-September 1945, went to press, the war was still raging in the Pacific. But the end was in sight, and despite the cynicism of skeptics, the editors of the magazine knew that television’s role in the postwar electronic era was a foregone conclusion, “witness the rapt attention of these comely lasses as they view the screen of the General Electric receiver.”

Nagasaki

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. The attack is reported here in that day’s issue of the Chicago Tribune. If the Japanese needed further convincing to surrender, that day also brought news that the Soviets had declared war on Japan and were attacking Japanese forces in Manchuria.

The video below is a radio broadcast that day by President Truman promising that the bombings would continue until the Japanese surrendered. The war would be over in a few days.

OneTubeRadio.com

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