Shown here in the October 25, 1941, issue of Radio Guide is the Shortwave Listening Station which the NBC network had recently installed at Bellmore, Long Island. The station was in operation 24 hours a day, and the staff of 24 foreign language experts and radio engineers kept tab on the war of words coming from Europe.

The issue also reported on a publicity stunt recently conducted by Berlin Radio. For a number of days, the station had announced that Lord Haw Haw had been banned from the air. Then, an announcement followed that Lord Haw Haw would be allowed to come on the air and give his side of the story.

Many American editors fell for it, and the broadcast received plenty of advance publicity. However, Lord Haw Haw hadn’t been banned from the German airwaves. It was a publicity stunt in which he announced merely that the American networks refused to carry his propaganda.

On this date seventy five years ago today, October 18, 1941, less than two months before Pearl Harbor, Radio Guide magazine told all the ways that radio would defend America.  The author, an army officer who had previously served as an editor of the magazine, started by saying that the bombers would come first, make no mistake about it. They would do it, unless radio prevented them, as one of the nation’s first line defenses. He noted that the shores were ringed with listening stations on our territory, on distant islands and ships at sea, and aboard blimps above the ocean. One of those stations would see them coming, and radio would carry the message to commanders whose duty it was to defend our shores.

If enemies did get through, then “radio must do for America what it failed to do for France; it must tell Americans where to go and by what routes. When areas need to be evacuated, radio must instruct automobilists and truck-drivers to use certain roads and highways. The Army has first claim on the others. Indeed, it may be a part of one’s preparedness to keep his radio continuously tuned in. No other means can tell the public so quickly of threatened danger.”

Another aspect of national preparedness was monitoring foreign shortwave broadcasts. “Would you think, for example, that by listening to what Germans are telling Americans, both in North and South America, you could learn what Germany may do next? Well, you can. Even now German short-wave stations are talking to us at all hours. Each twenty-four hours they are sending us thirty thousand words of trickery and deceit. By following it for month after month we have learned that it assumes a pattern that is visible to experts. Our own Federal Communications Commission hires such experts and many others besides to listen to all foreign language broadcasts. Stations in Oregon, Texas, Maryland and Puerto Rico hear all broadcasts directed to this country and to South America. They make recordings of these broadcasts, turn them over to translators, then to analysts, then to psychologists. Result: The American government was warned ahead of time that Japan was going to occupy Indo-China. Germany’s attack on Russia was predicted within a few days.”

Air Corps radio operators.  “A few months ago many of them were ‘hams’ you heard on short waves. Today they’re learning everything from signal codes to radio night-fighting technique.”

The article also noted how broadcasting had served the public by providing information and quieting rumors.  It concluded by noting that in peace, Americans had used radio better than any other nation.  “We have more stations, more receivers, more artists, more technicians, more listeners.  In war, if it comes, we shall also use radio best–there can be no doubt of that–and employ its multitude of services in order that a complete and glorious victory may quickly be ours.”

Despite wartime parts shortages, the young man shown here was able to furnish his room with a radio, courtesy of plans found in the October 1944 issue of Popular Mechanics.

The lamp is not merely ornamental; it is part of the circuit. The 40-watt bulb serves to drop the line voltage to light the tube filaments. Two tubes are used, either type 37 or 76. The article noted that these tubes could be found in an old set, or in the radio student’s junk box. One served as a rectifier, with the other one serving as regenerative detector. The cabinet is a wooden file box. The lamp socket comes from the dime store and is mounted on a curtain rod secured to a wooden block on the cabinet with glue. The switch on the lamp socket turned on both the lamp and radio.

The coil was wound on a cardboard tube, and wire from an old transformer or filter choke could be used.

The set was billed as a “Desk Lamp DX’er for Boy’s Room.” For best selectivity on local stations, the article recommended an indoor antenna of 15 feet. For pulling in DX, it recommended a long and high outdoor antenna.

The article notes that no external ground is used, but doesn’t explain why not. Since the set is connected directly to the AC wiring, adding an external ground would run a 50/50 chance of blowing a house fuse (or in a modern home, popping a GFI). And anyone planning to make a modern recreation should be aware that the set isn’t exactly safe. One side of the headphones is connected directly to the AC line, and the antenna connection has only one capacitor between it and a hot wire. So the modern parent, before giving one of these interesting sets to Junior to put in his room, would probably be well advised to include an isolation transformer.

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Shown here are Radio Technician First Class Kenneth D. McCoy of Salem, Oregon; Radioman First Class Stanley T. Dixon of San Francisco; and Radioman Third Class Charles H. Wilson of Steubenville, Ohio, the operators of 2-1/2 watt “Rock Radio,” located in 1944 in American Samoa. The picture and accompanying article appeared in the June 1944 issue of Radio News.

The station was cobbled together with scavenged parts including “tired tubes, broken bed springs, and stripped Jeep gears.” The station’s microphone consisted of the receiver of a Marine field telephone. The record player was an antiquated Victrola purchased for $3 from one of the natives.

Each night, the station came on the air, manned by whichever of the three was not on duty that night. It signed on with an almost worn out recording of the Star Spangled Banner, followed by a variety program of recordings chosen at random by the announcer. After a fifteen minute newscast, requests were taken. On Christmas Eve, the station recorded and rebroadcast the President’s message to the armed forces.

The station’s signal covered the entire island, and proved popular with the sailors and marines stationed on the island.

Seventy years ago, the cover of the September 1946 issue of Radio Craft shows the well equipped station at W2OEC, the military recreation club station at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Since the base was the home of the Signal Corps, it understandably had a large population of hams. Indeed, since there were hams from throughout the country, there was talk of adding an award for working all ten call areas within Momnouth County, New Jersey.

There were plans to equip the station with a kilowatt on all bands below 30 MHz. Transmitters consisted of military models BC-610 and BC-339.

The accompanying article described the station’s antennas, which included a rotatable beam for 10 meters. The 80 meter antenna’s main lobe was aimed for Missouri, allowing good coverage of the entire country.

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Wikipedia photo.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the start of the Siege of Leningrad. On September 8, 1941, German and Finnish troops cut off the last land access to Leningrad, in a move deliberately designed to starve the residents. The city was cut off almost completely until January 18, 1943. For most of that time, the only lifeline was a route over Lake Ladoga known as both the “Road of Life” and the “Road of Death.”

Nevetsky Prospekt, Leningrad, 1942. Wikipedia photo.

During the siege, approximately 1.5 million Soviets died, mostly of starvation. Most residents subsisted on 125 grams (about a quarter pound) of bread per day, and the bread consisted of half sawdust.

One propaganda coup scored by the Soviets was the premiere of Symphony No. 7 by Dmitri Shostakovich. It was composed by Shostakovich partially while in the sieged city, and partly after being evacuated. But it had its premiere on the Leningrad radio on August 9, 1942. The date was highly symbolic, since it had been scheduled by Hitler as the date for a celebration within the city of the completion of the invasion. Supposedly, Hitler even had invitations printed up for the event to be held at the Leningrad Astoria Hotel.

The first rehearsal lasted but 15 minutes, since the musicians (especially the brass players) were physical unable to perform due to malnutrition. But with heroic efforts, the concert took place as scheduled, and was broadcast.

For full propaganda effect, loudspeakers outside the city were directed toward the German lines, and the German soldiers were treated to the concert. One German soldier later recalled, “who are we bombing? We will never be able to take Leningrad because the people here are selfless.”

Civilians constructing anti-tank fortifications. Library of Congress photo.

While the concert was broadcast over “radio,” the actual broadcast almost certainly took place not over the airwaves, but through the extensive Soviet wired broadcasting network. The vast majority of “radio” receivers in the Soviet Union were not actual radio sets, but a speaker, transformer, switch, and volume control, which may or may not have been mounted in a radio cabinet. The receiver was commonly called a “rekord.” These simple receivers were connected to a wired network, similar to a telephone network, which would carry the program continuously.  Indeed, according to this source, private radio receivers were confiscated at the very beginning of hostilities with Germany.

Immediately prior to the war, the Soviet Union boasted over 5.5 million wired speakers. In contrast, as of 1936, the country had only 650,000 radio receivers, 270,000 of which were crystal sets.  A nice collection of such speakers (mostly postwar) can be found at this link.

The use of wired radio during the siege of Leningrad is stated here:

The wire net of the radio diffusion exchange may carry programs which originate at the exchange, and this makes possible utilization of the radio for mass communication of a purely local nature. This ability to broadcast without actually going “on the air” proved itself invaluable during the war, since the local radio could continue to function and maintain contact between the authorities and the population without the risk of having enemy aviators make use of the signals to guide them to their objective.

An outstanding example of such use of the wired net is to be found in the siege of Leningrad. During the siege the Leningrad wired net operated around the clock. During hours when no programs were on and throughout the night the Leningraders kept their speakers tuned in.  The slow beat of a metronome kept the wire alive. Whenever it was necessary to make an important announcement the beat of the met – ronome was rapidly increased. Thus, at all times the authorities were able to maintain constant contact with the population, to transmit orders, warn of danger, or make special announcements .

Communications Research 1948-1949, page 245.

The Seventh Symphony was first broadcast in the United States on July 9, 1942, over the NBC network. As explained in an article in the April 1945 issue of Radio Age, the musical score was sent from Moscow to the United States via facsimile, or what the article called radiophoto.

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This 1941 photo shows servicemen stationed in Canada from Australia and New Zealand gathered around the radio at 9:00 on a Sunday morning to listen to “The Anzac News Letter,” a weekly program provided by the CBC and the Australian Broadcasting Commission.

The Australian and New Zealand airmen shown here were attending wireless chool in Canada. The program originated in Australia and was sent by cable to Ottawa where it was recorded. The program was well received by the Anzacs. One wrote, “personally, I consider it the most interesting session on the radio, and I feel sure that the majority of Australians in this camp hold similar views. In the normal course of events it takes four to five weeks for the home newspapers to reach camp, so you can imagine how much we appreciate receiving news within twenty-four hours of the events taking place.”

The photo appeared in the August 1941 issue of Manitoba Calling, the magazine and program guide of CKY in Winnipeg, which carried the program.

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