Memorial Day 75 years ago, 1943, was the second since America had entered the war. This photo was taken at Arlington National Cemetery by Office of War Information photographer Esther Bubley. The scout, who was serving as one of the color bearers, listens to the ceremony.
Seventy five years ago this month, the May 1943 issue of Radio Retailing Today detailed the experiences of Ben De Young, the owner of the De Young Radio & Television Shop, 126 S. Aurora St., Ithaca, NY. The magazine had earlier discussed the possibility of hiring “girls” to do radio repair work, and De Young had commented that the concept was hardly new, since he had been using girls since 1935. Wartime labor shortages were just then showing the wisdom of the veteran repairman’s foresight.
De Young noted that hiring experienced employees was always difficult, and that he often had to take his chances on an inexperienced man by training him. His experience, however, was that if the new man turned out good, then a manufacturer or jobber hired him away and he had to start the process all over again. And if the man turned out to be no good, the he wasn’t of any use to De Young either. Since girls were presumably less likely to be hired away in this manner, De Young found that hiring them was ideal. He noted that a girl had more agile fingers and in general did a neater job.
The secret to De Young’s success was having his shop equipped with the best test equipment. He was able to quickly diagnose the problem, and then letting the girl actually replace the components. He had a large bench so that she could get to work while he started diagnosing the next set. In the picture above, his assistant, identified only as a Miss Gould, is soldering in an IF coil that he had previously identified as the culprit.
She was also able to read schematics, and often saved him time by taking
care of details such as looking up values of components. When she wasn’t wielding the soldering iron back in the shop, she worked in the front of the store, as shown here taking in a set for service.
Seventy-five years ago, the radio serviceman had to deal with wartime parts shortages, and this often called for creativity. As with many such magazines of the era, the May 1943 issue of Service magazine gave some pointers.
In most areas, the common tubes for “All American Five” receivers had become unobtainium. If a tube went bad, something had to be substituted. The diagram here shows how the serviceman could deal with a shortage of 12SA7 tubes. A 6SA7 might be available, and was identical in all respects other than filament voltage. In these AC-DC sets, the filaments were wired in series, and the filament voltages had to add up to 120 volts. If the 6-volt tube was simply plugged in, the filament would quickly burn out.
The solution is shown above. A resistor (such as a “curtain burner” cord) is placed in series with the filaments, dropping the total voltage in half. The problem, of course, is that the other tubes still required their original voltage. This was solved by pairing up the other tubes, wiring two tubes in parallel, and then putting all of the pairs in series.
Other pointers addressed in the article included making delicate repair of speaker windings and IF coils. In most cases, the break was close to one end, so the patient serviceman could locate it and solder in a new lead. Volume controls were also hard to come by, and the article discussed how to clean and repair them.
The article noted that these kinds of procedures were necessary not just to keep revenue flowing in, but as a public service to keep America’s radios in service to bring in war news and entertainment.
75 years ago today, the May 17, 1943, issue of Broadcasting carried this ad by Westinghouse regarding its shortwave outlet, WBOS Boston.
The illustration shows some listeners, presumably clandestine ones, tuned into the station, with the lofty caption that the truth will set them free.
The ad explains that untold millions in occupied Europe might be listening to the short waves bringing them truth, works of hope and promise. Westinghouse had 22 years of shortwave experience, and brought the same crystal-clear and trustworthy programs to domestic audiences on it broadcast stations, WOWO, WGL, WBZ, WBZA, KYW, and KDKA.
More information about WBOS can be found at our earlier post.
Shown here on the cover of the April 1943 issue of Radio Service Dealer is a SPARS Radioman, a member of the female branch of the Coast Guard. The magazine noted that women were relieving trained radiomen for combat duty, and in the process earning ratings and regular Coast Guard pay and training.
A recruiting ad in the same issue encourages women ages 20-36 to “get into a trim uniform” and put the country one step closer to victory. Those with two years college work and experience were eligible to apply at once for an officer’s commission.
Radio batteries had become almost impossible to find 75 years ago.
This posed a particular problem for farm listeners, many of whom relied on battery sets for weather and farm news, in addition to entertainment. The March 29, 1943, issue of Broadcasting magazine carries an article by the news director of WMT Radio in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, who wrote that many of his station’s listeners no longer had this vital link to the outside world, since their batteries had gone dead. According to the War Production Board, before the war, 4.5 million batteries were produced annually for the nation’s 2.2 million battery sets. But production had dropped to just 2.4 million batteries, for an estimated 3.2 million sets in rural homes. WPB was working on adjusting quotas, but for the time being, many battery radios were silent.
For those with electric current, the battery radio was a luxury that had to be put on the shelf for the war years. The April 1943 issue of Radio Craft carried two projects which were relevant. First of all, for those who wanted a portable radio, albeit one that could be used only where household power was available, it carried the plans for the small portable radio shown above. With batteries unavailable, and many tube types also unavailable, this set was designed with parts availability in mind.
The simple circuit used a 12SL7GT as a regenerative detector, with a 70L7GT as audio amplifier and rectifier. With a 15 foot antenna, the set would pull in local stations as well as strong stations 50-100 miles away.
The other project, shown here, was for those who had a battery portable sitting on the shelf. This power supply would allow it to be put back in service. It used two two 50Y6GT rectifiers to rectify directly from the AC line. Dropping resistors were used on the output to provide either 67.5 or 45 volts to replace the B batery, as well as filament voltage to replace the A battery. The completed power supply is shown above next to the author’s Crosley model 45-BV “Commuter” portable.
Here are the top ten songs of the week 75 years ago, according to the March 29, 1943, issue of Broadcasting magazine. For your listening pleasure, here are links to the songs:
One item that was in short supply 75 years ago were meter movements. There was a backlog in their manufacture to the point where hams were being encouraged to sell their old ones, as shown from the form at left from the April 1942 issue of QST.
But the absence of a meter didn’t have to mean that it was impossible to measure things. The device shown above was a simple bridge circuit for measuring the values of resistors, capacitors, and inductors. The circuit was contained in an article in the March 1943 issue of QST, submitted by W.J. Mertz, VE4UN, using whatever was available. An audio signal is fed into the input, and the potentiometer adusted until the circuit is in balance, at which point the audio output disappears. By calibrating the dial with a few known values, the unknown value can be quickly determined.
The author didn’t have an audio oscillator, so he instead used the device by feeding in the squeal from a regenerative receiver. And in the absence of anything else to make the dial pointer, he used the handle of a broken toothbrush.
Fuller and the Dymaxion map.
Seventy-five years ago today, the pages of Life Magazine, March 1, 1943, included a craft project, in the form of a Dymaxion map of the world. A flat map of the round earth is always distorted, in either scale, direction, or shape. For example, the familiar Mercator projection accurately shows direction, but scale is greatly distorted close to the poles, which explains why Greenland looks much larger than it really is.
The Dymaxion map, designed by R. Buckmisnter Fuller, seeks to compromise to make all of these distortions as minimal as possible. It is a cube with the corners cut off, and is formed from six squares and eight triangles. The transformation from a round globe to a flat map is shown in the animation at right.
The magazine contained all of these sections, some of which are shown above, with instructions for pasting them to cardboard and assembling them. When assembled, they could be laid out flat in various configurations, or put together completely as a squared-off globe. For those wishing to duplicate the 1943 globe, it would be an easy process to print the pages on cardstock and assemble them following the directions. (You can download the magazine at this link,)
An interesting science fair project could be made comparing a globe, a Mercator projection, and the Dymaxion projection.
Here’s a snapshot of what was on the air 75 years ago today, from the radio listings of the Pittsburgh Press, February 25, 1943.
