1943 British One Tube Reflex Set

This one-tube circuit appeared in the British Practical Wireless 80 years ago this month, August 1943. It made the best of wartime parts shortages, since the single tube, a P220, did double duty as both RF and AF amplifier. A fixed crystal was used as detector.

It had been sent to the magazine by R.J. Amblin of Bath, England, who reported that with 18 volts of anode (plate) voltage, it gave good volume through the headphones, and he was able to pull in the BBC Home Service with as little as 1.5 volts. For normal listening, he left it at 4.5 volts, which proved quite satisfactory.

World’s Largest Ball of Paint

As John F. Kennedy famously said, we do some things not because they are easy, but because they are hard. We previously documented the hard way to start a library. And we recently discovered the hard way to decorate a baseball.

My family recently visited the world’s largest ball of paint, near Anderson, Indiana. (No, I didn’t coordinate the color of my shirt–that was just a happy coincidence.) At the core of this massive ball of paint is a baseball, that Mike Carmichael and his family began painting in 1977. Over the years, over 25,000 layers of paint cover the ball, which now weighs in at over 4,000 pounds, as attested to by the scale from which it now hangs. As the ball grew, Carmichael constructed a building to house it, and showed us the steel beam frame from which it hangs.

The ball is open to the public, and Carmichael is eager to show it off. In fact, visitors are often invited to add a coat of paint. We arrived at a time when the ball was wet from an earlier coat of paint that morning, so we weren’t able to contribute this time. He suggests that visitors contact him in advance, to ensure an opportunity to paint. He can be contacted through the ball’s official website.

Carmichael is a veteran and, not surprisingly, a house painter by trade.

Admission is free, although free-will donations are welcome. It’s open to the public 7 days a week from 9:00 to 5:00. We became aware of the existence of the ball of paint due to seeing hundreds of smiling sun lawn ornaments on lawns throughout the region. All of them were created by Carmichael, who explained that he began making them in 2020 during COVID as a way to bring a bit of joy to the community. They are also for sale. Of course, we purchased one, which will soon be on display at OneTubeRadio.com world headquarters.

1963 Sony Micro-TV

Sixty years ago, if you wanted a small television that you could watch anywhere, it was available, but it wasn’t cheap. Shown here, in the August 1963 issue of Electronics World, is Sony’s ad for its Micro-TV. Weighing in at only 8 pounds, the 25-transistor set could be powered with AC, DC, or an optional rechargeable battery pack.

The retail price was only $189.95. According to this inflation calculator, that works out to about $1897 in 2023 dollars. If you lived in an area with one of those elusive UHF channels, you weren’t out of luck, because an optional UHF adaptor (and yes, that’s an alternate spelling) was available for only $49.95 extra. The prices weren’t given, but other accessories (such as the rechargeable battery) were available, including a “luggage carrying case.”

I guess I would pay extra for the carrying case. If I was taking my $1897 TV with me on vacation, I’d want it to be well protected in transit.

These days, you probably don’t need the luggage carrying case. You already have a TV screen in your pocket, and you just need the tuner for it. The the one shown here plugs into your android phone and allows you to watch local TV stations. And it costs a lot less than $1897.00.

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2000 Mile Crystal Set? 1923

A hundred years ago this month, this illustration appeared on the cover of the August 1923 issue of Radio News. Most radio listeners had graduated beyond the crystal set, but this gentleman purports to have a super crystal set that can not only pull in a station 2000 miles away, but provide loudspeaker volume.

His friend is apparently convinced, but he doesn’t see the man’s confederate under the table, actually pulling in the program with a modern vacuum tube set.

Radio Prices & Grocery Prices, 1923

A hundred years ago, radio was rapidly becoming a national phenomenon, and if you didn’t already own a radio, you would have one soon. If you lived in Omaha, this ad from the Omaha Morning Bee, August 25, 1923, showed you that you could get everything you needed at the newly expanded radio department of the Brandeis Store.

The easiest way to get started on a budget would be the Little Gem crystal set. For only $10.45, you would get not only the radio, but also headphones and aerial wire.

The General Electric crystal set was $5.95, but by the time you bought headphones and antenna wire, the price was probably about the same.

If you were well heeled, you could get a complete three-tube Radiola, complete with batteries, tubes, antenna, and tubes, for $142.50.

If you need something to compare those prices to, this grocery ad appeared on the same page. A yard of spaghetti tubing would set you back a dime, but three packages of real macaroni would be a quarter.

1963 Transatlantic Tropo Scatter Network

Shown here, in the August 1963 issue of Radio-Electronics, is the path of a telephone call made from Washington to London, as part of that year’s Armed Forces Communications & Electronics Association (AFCEA) convention. The call was carried by conventional telephone lines at the beginning and end, but between Goose Bay, Newfoundland, and Flyingdales, England, it was a series of 13 hops over Canada, Greenland, Iceland, and Britain, via tropospheric scatter.

While not identified in the article, the system appears to be the North Atlantic Radio System.

1949 Grocery Prices

For a snapshot of grocery prices in 1949, this ad for A&P stores appeared in the August 12, 1949 edition of the Chapel Hill (NC) Weekly.

The basics of a good dinner could be put together for about $2.29. Two pounds of roast beef would be $1.30, which could be served with two pounds of green beans for a quarter. A loaf of bread would be 18 cents. A pound of grapes was 15 cents, and a pound of coffee was 41 cents.

That sounds like a bargain, but there’s been a lot of inflation since 1949. According to this inflation calculator, that $2.29 works out to $29.36 in 2023 dollars. Maybe we’ll put back that roast beef and instead get some fish for 33 cents a pound.

1923 Vacation Time Radio Ideas

A hundred years ago this month, the August 1923 issue of Science and Invention included a number of pointers for making the most of vacation time radio. The magazine advised against just storing the radio away and waiting for your return.

For example, a self-contained set with a loop antenna was perfect for the job, as shown in figure 1. If you need an antenna, figure 2 showed one way of putting it up, using a kite. If you didn’t feel like flying a kite, you could possible use the body of your car as the antenna, with a stake driven into the earth to serve as ground, as shown in figure 3. If you’re lucky, there will be a fence, which you can use as in figure 4. The car battery can probably be used, as shown in figure 5.

We’ve talked previously about using trees as antennas, and this idea is shown in figure 6. Figure 7 shows how you can put a wire, insulated by a rubber tube, underwater. And finally, figure 8 shows an idea before its time, namely, the slinky antenna, not unlike the one we showed previously, but prior to the invention of the slinky.

American Steelworker, 1943

Shown here on the cover of Life Magazine 80 years ago today, August 9, 1943, is steelworker Ann Zarik. She had been employed by the Carnegie-Illinois Steel Works at Gary, Indiana, for five months as a flame burner. Her job was to cut out pieces of armor plate for ballistics tests. Her father worked there as a millwright, and her sweetheart was in North Africa in the Air Corps.

Women had quickly filled the ranks of lighter industry. For example, in 1941, only 1% of the aviation workforce were women, but that had jumped to 65% by 1943. But the magazine noted that, unlike in Britain and the Soviet Union, women were slower to fill jobs in heavy industry.

The women were paid the same rate as men, the minimum being 78 cents per hour. With overtime resulting from a 48 hour work week, that worked out to $40.56 per week.

The magazine noted that “the women steel workers at Gary are not freaks or novelties. They have been accepted by management, by the union, by the rough, iron-muscled men they work with day after day. In time of peace they may return once more to home and family, but they have proved that in time of crisis no job is too tough for American women.”

1948 Three-Tube “Pocket Size” Portable

Seventy-five years ago, this young man with large pockets was pulling in a program with this three-tube “pocket size” receiver. He built it according to plans in the August 1948 issue of Popular Mechanics, and the set was ideal for taking to a ball game or on hikes.

The regenerative set had a built-in loop antenna, and ran on a 45 volt B battery, with flashlight batteries in parallel to light the filaments.