Christmas of 1922 was going to be a big one for radio, as evidenced by this ad in the Washington Herald a hundred years ago today, November 15, 1922. As shown here, Santa’s workshop was busy turning out radio sets, many of which would show up under the tree.
We previously profiled this dealer, White & Boyer, 812 13th St. NW, Washington. In addition to running the retail dealership, they were the licensee of station WJH, thus ensuring their customers had something to tune in.
They didn’t have Zoom classes 60 years ago, but when a polio outbreak struck Nunda, NY, in 1962, the high school tapped the ingenuity of local hams and CB’ers to come up with a method of distance learning.
Several students came down with the disease and were confined to their homes. Initially, they had to discontinue their studies, but the school bought a number of CB radios. Hy-Gain antennas were placed on the school roof, with coaxial cables running to classrooms. The school purchased Johnson transceivers, and volunteer students carried the radios from class to class and plugged the radio into the coax outlet in each room. The teacher was then able to transmit lectures to students at home.
Individual homes had smaller mobile-style whip antennas installed hooked up to transceivers there. When homebound students were called upon, it was a simple matter of pressing the push-to-talk button.
The pictures here appeared in the November 1962 issue of Electronics Illustrated, which pointed out that so far, seven students had received their schooling at home via CB. The teacher shown above was discussing the lesson with a student after class. The magazine confirmed that call letters were always given as required.
If Junior is looking for a spectacular science fair project, they can’t go wrong with this project from 80 years ago, from the November 1942 issue of Popular Science.
Octopus furnace. Wikipedia image.
It demonstrates how an old-fashioned “gravity” furnace works. These are often affectionately known as an octopus furnace, since they had tentacles going from the furnace to each room. As shown clearly by this experiment, the air in the furnace heats up and rises. Then, when it gets to the room, it cools and returns through the lower set of pipes.
Such furnaces are out of favor, and I doubt if they are still manufactured. But there’s really nothing that can go wrong, so they still exist in some older houses. They are not as efficient as modern furnaces, but they have some advantages. Unless some electronic controls have been retrofitted, they don’t require any electricity to operate. In the event of a winter power outage (see our earlier post for more thoughts), modern furnaces would be useless, even if they burn gas or oil, since they need electric power to run the blower. But the old gravity furnace will keep the house toasty warm, even with no electricity. Back in the day, the homeowner would shovel coal to keep it going, although most were converted to gas or oil.
To put the experiment together, in addition to the items found around the house, Junior might need to purchase the following items. You can find them locally, but as with everything, you can also find them on Amazon, at the links below:
As with many of our science fair projects, don’t forget to give Junior a box of matches!
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Shown here is Judy Rohrer, sales clerk at Green Record Shop, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. The November 1947 issue of Radio Retailing profiled the store. Despite the town having a population of 15,000, the store grossed sales of $75,000 per year, thanks to the marketing efforts of owner Raymond L. Green. The store had a marketing plan which included utilizing every inch of available wall space, taking advantage of the album covers, which were designed as attention getters. The store also got the name and address of each new customer and recorded their musical likes. When new records came in that might interest them, the store followed up with a handwritten postcard.
Radio ads were also important, and the store advertised over WCHA, a 1000 watt station with listeners as far away as Harrisburg. The shop assistants, Judy Rohrer shown here and Wilma Barnes, were billed as “Punch and Judy,” and new customers often asked for them by name. In other words, the store personnel were turned into well-known personalities.
Green had custom built the store’s fixtures for displaying albums, making the most of the store’s long, narrow layout. Record salesmen took note, and he had a sideline of building fixtures for other stores.
A neighboring town was the site of a “wealthy preparatory school,” and Green set up a table and album rack at a store in that town twice a week. This practice made him an institution among the record-hungry students.
In addition to records, the store also sold radios and radio-phono combos.
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If you need to liven up Junior’s next party, you can put together this circuit for a fun game of “hunt the bleeper,” as described in the November 1972 issue of Practical Wireless.
The magazine noted that British children love noise, and this is equally true on this side of the Atlantic. The beeper, which draws only 600 microamps, puts out a high pitched tone at a low level. The device was to be hidden, and the children would be split into two teams to find it. There were two strategies available: They could concentrate on finding the device, or they could make so much noise to keep the other side from hearing it.
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On this date 80 years ago, the November 7, 1942, issue of Radio Guide carried this ad for Motorola car radios. Production of civilian radios had ceased on April 22, 1942, but Motorola dealers still had prewar sets in stock.
We previously featured ideas for bringing the car radio inside. With gas being strictly rationed, the radio would do more good inside. But Motorola took another view: Since you had to drive slowly to conserve gas and rubber, the radio would make the slow drive more enjoyable.
But those prewar stocks wouldn’t last forever, so you were reminded to get yours before they were gone, because there would be no more for the duration.
Seventy-five years ago, this microwave relay station was under construction atop Jackie Jones Mountain near Haverstraw, NY. It was one of seven microwave relay stations linking Boston and New York, delivering television programs with a 1 watt signal on 4000 MHz.
It is pictured here on the cover of the November 1947 issue or Radio News.
We’ve previously shown (here and here) this air raid alarm that could be attached to a radio, the Model AR-101 Air Raid Alarm from National Union Radio Corp., 57 State Street, Newark, NJ. The simple device would activate a siren-like sound if the station to which it was tuned left the air, which would presumably be because an air raid was in progress.
Here, in this illustration from the November 1942 issue of Popular Mechanics, we see it in action. While Junior looks on, Mom gathers the flashlight and shovel that Dad will use in his duties as air raid warden.
We don’t believe that this gentleman was permanently stationed up on the roof. Instead, he’s doing some experiments to figure out the best spot for the TV antennna. Presumably, someone is watching the TV down below, and shouting reports as to how the picture looks.
The November 1952 issue of Popular Science carried a number of pointers on how to ensure the best TV reception, and this was one of them. It suggested putting the antenna on a broom handle, raising the antenna as high as possible, and then lowering it. Somewhere within that range you would find the sweet spot for best reception. The magazine cautioned that you should check all channels before settling on the final position.
Happy Halloween from OneTubeRadio.com!
If you were getting ready for Halloween a hundred years ago, the place to go was Loft, whose trademark was “penny a pound profit.” Both chocolates and hard candies (with the characteristic orange tint) went for about 54-59 cents per pound (which works out to $9.54 to $10.42 after in 2022 dollars, after inflation.)
The store was said to have an immense assortment and the lowest prices in the city, which formed a combination that defied all forms of competition. The “high grade” 59 cent chocolates came in an attractively decorated container in keeping with that great night of mysterious doings. For tholse on a budget, you could get six pumpkin head scarecrow lollipos or six marshmallow jelly funny faces for 19 cents.
For exact store locations, readers were directed to the telephone directory. The ad appeared in the New York Evening World, October 27, 1922.
