Second Great Fire of London, 1940

Daily Mail showing St. Paul’s Cathedral. Wikipedia image.

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the Second Great Fire of London, as the air raid of the night of December 29/30, 1940, came to be known.

Starting at 6 PM, over 24,000 high explosive bombs and 100,000 incendiary bombs were dropped on the city. The area of destruction was the largest of the war, and greater than that of the Great Fire of 1666.

Churchill urged that St. Paul’s Cathedral be saved at all costs, and both firefighters and volunteer fire watchers worked through the night to fight fires nearby and put out incendiaries landing on the roof.

Over 160 civilians died during that night, with many more dying of injuries in the following days. Fourteen firemen died and 250 were injured. In a successful effort to make firefighting more difficult, the raid was timed to coincide with particularly low tides in the Thames.

The film below, from the British Ministry of Information, shows the fire as seen from the roof of the Cathedral:

The raid came the same night as FDR gave his “Arsenal of Democracy” Fireside Chat:

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Potter Rug Aerial, 1930

Frankly, I’m a little surprised that this idea from 1930 didn’t get more traction. It probably worked about as well as any other indoor antenna, and it was conveniently out of the way and swept under the rug. The sole reference I’ve ever seen to the “Potter Rug Aerial” was this ad from the December 1930 issue of Radio Retailing.

The antenna was manufactured by the Potter Co. of 1946 Sheridan Road, North Chicago, Illinois. In addition to the antenna, they manufactured replacement condensers. They had common ones in stock, and promised to duplicate special units within 48 hours.

One reason that the rug aerial might not have caught on was the utter simplicity of the idea. Any piece of wire about the same length slipped under the rug would probably pull in the stations just about as well.

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1936 Silvertone Model 1954

80 years ago today, you could get this 6 tube all wave set for $24.95 at Sears, as advertised in the December 27, 1935, edition of the Milwaukee Journal. The model number isn’t given, but it appears similar to a Silvertone model 1954. You can see a restored one in action at this video:

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Train Engineer Ejection Seat, 1915

A hundred years ago, Popular Mechanics, December 1915, carried a description of this invention to save the lives of the engineer and fireman of a locomotive that finds itself about to be involved in a head-on collision. Heretofore, the only options had been to either stay with the train or attempt to jump clear, and hope for the best. Even though the magazine admitted that there might be some practical problems, it was enough to give the men a fighting chance.

With a few seconds warning, the men could pull a lever on their seat. This would drop them, seat and all, into this thick cylinder, which would close itself and throw it free of the train. It was strong enough that it would hold even if the locomotive landed on top. And if it landed in the water, it would float.

Simultaneously, the lever would pull back the throttle, dump the fire, apply the brakes, and put sand on the tracks, so the departing engineer would be doing all he could for his passengers as well.

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Merry Christmas!

Lighting the Los Angeles Christmas tree, 1940.

Merry Christmas from OneTubeRadio.com!

We look back to 1940, as America celebrated its last prewar Christmas. The December 23 issue of Life Magazine proclaimed that “forgetting war and stringing holly, U.S. spends to make Christmas jolly.” The magazine reported that despite the clouds of war, American preparations for Christmas “reflected no hint of anything but peace, prosperity and goodwill.”

1940 electrified Santa on the world’s second largest sign.

But the magazine also noticed a mood that contrasted significantly with Christmases of other years. Gone were the Yules filled with the fragrance of evergreens, candles, carols, still snows, and silent skies. Instead, it was filled with streamlined, mass-produced mechanical Santas of identical image grinning and nodding in department store windows. Decorators did tricks with electricity and plastics. Comic strip characters and bathing beauties intruded on a show previously dominated by the Magi and the Virgin Mary.

It said that the new mood wasn’t hard to explain, as the nation had lived with the threat of war for fifteen months. “Only in excitement, in spending, could America forget Coventry, Birmingham, and Alolf Hitler.” And there was a lot of money to spend. With war industries gearing up, Americans were flush with cash.

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Enrico Caruso, Cantique de Noel, 1916

This recording of O Holy Night (Cantique de Noel) from February 23, 1916, was Enrico Caruso’s only Christmas recording.

1955 Photocell Alarm

Sixty years ago, this kid’s electronic expertise was no match for Santa. The cover of the December 1955 issue of Radio Electronics. The youngster had constructed the transistorized photocell alarm (using a CK722 transistor) from the plans contained in the issue. But he failed to outwit Santa, as shown in this photo.

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NORAD Santa Tracking Begins, 1955

As you are probably aware, each Christmas, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) tracks Santa Claus as he travels around the world. Obviously, there’s a practical reason for this. If his supersonic travels were mistaken for something else, then the results of the error could be quite dramatic, to say the least.

NORAD first began sharing this information with children 60 years ago, in 1955. Initially, this was the result of another mixup, albeit a less dramatic one. A Sears store in Colorado published the ad shown at the top of the page, purportedly showing Santa’s previously unlisted telephone number. Unfortunately, the ad carried the wrong number. Instead of Santa’s number, the store had listed the number of the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD’s predecessor. Initially baffled, the officer answering the phone ultimately figured out what was going on, and had his men check the radar. He then gave reports of Santa’s current location.

NORAD now uses the Internet to disseminate this information, which is available at NoradSanta.org.

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Santa Claus Goes to War!

This World War 2 poster serves as a stern reminder of why you want to keep your name off the naughty list. Hitler and Tojo hadn’t been very nice, and the Jolly Old Elf was going to see to it that they got more than a lump of coal.

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Buying a Transistor Radio, 1960

Fifty-five years ago, Santa was getting ready to place a lot of transistor radios under trees, and radio engineer Richard Stollmack is shown above giving advice to one of Santa’s helpers on how to avoid getting taken by an unscrupulous retailer. Here, he took the back off a few high quality sets to show the consumer what one should look like: They were part packed, and obviously complex designs.

Stollmack first advised shopping at a store with a good reputation, where the dealer won’t misrepresent merchandise and will honor the warranty. He warned not to buy a radio with fewer than six transistors if you wanted worthwhile performance. Also, he stressed that you should look for a superheterodyne circuit, which would require a bare minimum of five transistors. Any doubt could be resolved by looking at the tuning condenser to see if it was a dual-gang unit. Any set with less than five transistors should be considered a toy or novelty, Stollmack warned. He advised that you should insist on having the salesman open up the back of the set and let you see the inner construction and compare it to a higher priced set. Shoddy construction or a paucity of parts would be a major warning.

He also stressed the need to handle the radio and take it outside or close to a window. In this photo, he is showing a trick sometimes used by unscrupulous dealers to pass off cheap novelty sets as having better reception than they really offered. The set performs well when located near an induction coil, cleverly concealed under the counter, hooked to a longwire antenna. But when brought home, the set would be unlikely to get more than a couple of stations with loudspeaker volume.

Stollmack shared these tips in the December 1960 issue of Electronics Illustrated.

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