Emergency Communications for the Railroads, 1926

A hundred years ago, this railroad station agent was reviewing a message sent from another station via amateur radio. You need communications to run a radio–before sending a train down a westbound track, you better make sure that there’s not an eastbound train coming toward you. Normally, those orders go out via telegraph, but if the wires were down for any reason, that was a problem.

As late as the 1940s, you see occasional reports of amateur radio operators helping out the railroads with this vital traffic, such as during the 1949 Midwestern blizzard.  It is illustrated here on the cover of QST, May 1926. The accompanying article explains how the ARRL was approached by the Pennsylvania Railroad to set up a reliable backup system. Over the course of 10 weeks, tests were conducted to make sure there would be a smooth transition in case of emergency. All of the cities shown on the map below were represented, in most cases by multiple stations.



1956 Emergency Radio Receivers

Seventy years ago this month, the May 1956 issue of Popular Electronics showed these ideas for an emergency radio receiver. If the power was out, or the radio otherwise out of commission, the emergency adapter was simply placed near the loop antenna. Inductively coupled, it would use the set’s tuning circuit, and you could hear it through headphones. Three versions were shown. The cigar box version had the advantage of furnishing a place to store the headphones. Another one used a loop antenna from a broken radio, and the third variation had the coil taped permanently in place on the outside of the radio.



Family Preparedness, 1951

Seventy-five years ago, this scout, shown in the May 1951 issue of Boys Life, took the scout motto seriously. As a result, his family was prepared for just about anything.  The accompanying article asks “is your family ready,” and offers some pointers for family preparedness.  Here, it notes that a basement shelter can be mighty useful in an emergency.  The type of emergency isn’t specified, but they’re probably thinking of the A-bomb.

They are shown stocking it with food, battery radio, flashlight, alcohol stove, water, candles, blankets, simple furniture, and a few books.



Winding Your Own Transformers.

If you are in need of an unobtainium transformer, you can always just make your own! As the elementary student of electricity has learned, a transformer consists of nothing more than two coils of wire wound on a suitable core. In practice, it’s a bit more complicated than that, but not much more. The hardest part is probably coming up with a suitable core, but that is explained in the diagram at left.  The finished product is shown above.  If you need complete instructions, they were published 85 years ago in the April and May 1941 issues of the British magazine Practical Mechanics.

For a student looking for a unique science fair project, this series of articles will give many ideas.



1941 Phono Oscillator

Eighty-five years ago this month, the May 1941 issue of Radio Craft carried this circuit for a simple phono oscillator. It had been sent in to the magazine by one Eugene Simpson of Naperville, IL, who pointed out that there had been a lot of interest recently in phono oscillators, and many enthusiasts were looking for a simple circuit. He recommended tuning the coil to the high end of the broadcast band, and cautioned not to use an antenna, as “The F.C.C. doesn’t like people who do otherwise!”



Michigan QSO Party

A couple of weekends ago, I operated the Michigan QSO party. I had originally planned to operate as a Rover in the Wisconsin QSO Party, but a late-season blizzard cancelled those plans. The original plan had been to start on Lake Michigan at the Wisconsin-Michigan border and work my way through the state’s northern tier of counties. Since that didn’t work out, I started at about the same spot, but instead activated the southern tier of counties of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

I started in Marinette County’s J.W. Wells State Park, where I did a POTA activation. The original plan was to set up a station on a picnic table. But the mid-April weather was still quite cold. After getting the dipole set up (using, of course, my trusty golf ball retriever , I didn’t fancy operating for an hour in the cold. So I operated instead from the mobile position in the back seat of the car, shown here.

Since most QSO’s were in motion and CW, I operated from this spot in the back seat, while my wife and daughter took turns driving.

I did activate another park, Bewabic State Park in Iron County. But instead of setting up the 40-meter dipole, I stayed on 20 meters an just used the Hamstick. Since I didn’t make it back to 40 meters after the first park, I had very few Michigan contacts, but I did manage to hand out some “rare” counties to other stations. My best DX was avid county hunter OM2VL in Slovakia.  I was QRP mobile, limited for most of the time to a single band, and didn’t plan on being a high scorer.  But I did manage just under 50 contacts in about 8 hours of operating, and had an enjoyable trip!!



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1941 Portables

Eighty-five years ago, this young woman is enjoying a favorite song from her portable phonograph. Hers was an electrical model, but there were many options for portable music, as detailed in the April 1941 issue of Radio Retailing.

The magazine noted that it was the perfect time of year to start marketing portables. Since April marked the beginning of the warm weather season, portables would get their greatest natural play. It also pointed out that since portables were still owned by relatively few people, they had a novelty factor that would help build store traffic.

Options included both radios and phonographs. While the unit shown above is electric, there were still many purely mechanical record players available, and the magazine provided an extensive directory of spring machines with no tubes. The least expensive was the Model 11 from Favorite Manufacturing Co., 105 E. 12th Street, New York, with a list price of $8.39.



1956 Custom Hi-Fi

Seventy years ago this month, this high fidelity enthusiast was making adjustments to the H. H. Scott control panel of a custom installation, put together by Custom Sound Systems of Orange, New Jersey.  The two lower drawers contained a De Jur tape recorder and Audiosphere stereophonic tape player.  The upper drawers contained a Rek-O-Kut record player and an Altec amplifier.

This deluxe setup is in the home of one Robert Ossorio of New York City.  But while this young woman appears at ease with the equipment, she’s actually a model, Mona McHenry, hired for the photo shoot.  The photographer is by Dan Rubin, and the photo appeared on the cover of the April 1956 issue of Radio-Electronics.

 



Getting the Antenna Higher: 1941

If you need to get the end of your antenna up a few more feet, you might try this idea sent into QST 85 years ago this month, April 1941. The idea is self-explanatory–you just hoist a new section of mast up your existing mast. The bottom of the new section contains a ring of heavy wire. The idea was submitted to Hints and Kinks by Bernard S. Shields, W5AJJ, who noted that if the guy wires are added to the top section, an appreciable height could be achieved.



Happy Arbor Day!

The official date for Arbor Day can vary from country to country, and even state to state. So for a website of international scope, we must decide on a date, and we’ve decided to go with Nebraska, which proudly proclaims that it is the home of Arbor Day, and where Arbor Day is a civic holiday. So today, the last Friday of April, we wish you a Happy Arbor Day!

The illustration above is from Boys’ Life, April 1926, and is in the column of Dan Beard. Beard first discusses the possibility of every patrol in the country planting a walnut tree with a walnut from the grave of Theodore Roosevelt, and Beard had distributed thousands of such walnuts, ready for planting. The BSA was also working with the proper authorities to procure walnuts from the grave of George Washington, so that those could be planted as well. There are trees around the United States from walnuts from Mount Vernon, so with some inquiries, this project would probably be quite possible today. For those desiring faster satisfaction, you can purchase a number of heirloom flower seeds directly from the estate.

The other idea shown in Beard’s article is shown above. It’s rather self-explanatory, and involves weaving the trunks of small trees together. Beard recommends species with smooth bark, such as beech, willow, or soft maple. He had some success with chestnuts, but he noted that was the boundary, as species with a rougher bark would not cooperate. For students with a long timeframe, it might make a good science fair project, but “it only takes a few years to get results.” (Emphasis added.) The process is known scientifically as insoculation.