Stuckey’s Highway Emergency Locating Paging Service: 1973

Today, if you want to contact someone who is traveling, it’s a simple matter of dialing their cell phone number. Wherever they are in the country, or even the world, their phone will ring, and you will be speaking with them. You can text that same number, or e-mail them, and you can be reasonably certain that you will contact them. And you don’t need to know where they are.

This is a new phenomenon, and it hasn’t always been this way. As recently as 30 years ago, if you wanted to contact someone, then you needed to know where they were.

Things began to change with the advent of cellular phones in the early 1990s, but only if the person had a cellular phone, which wasn’t always the case. And you had to know their phone number. For many users, the number was a closely guarded secret. They had to pay per minute for all calls–incoming and outgoing–so they didn’t give the number to just anyone. (Some countries solved this problem by having callers pay, but in the United States, almost without exception, the cellular subscriber had to pay for the airtime.)

But at first, even if you had the number, there was no way to call someone outside of their home area, without knowing where they were. In short, if you were on the road, you might be able to make outgoing calls, but you wouldn’t be able to receive incoming calls.

This 1990 news article made a prediction, which seemed almost unbelievable at the time:

Currently, callers seeking someone who has traveled away from his or her local calling area must know where that person is in order to complete a call. With automatic call delivery, a person “roaming” outside the home market will send out a locating signal to the closest cellular system whenever he or she turns on the cellular phone. Computers then will do the searching and service authorizations.

“If you’re up in Chicago and I’m back in Washington and all I’ve got is your local Washington number, I’m going to be able to dial that Washington number . . . and that phone call is going to find you . . . anywhere in the United States,” said Norman Black, a spokesman for the cellular phone association.

That was almost unbelievable, but according to the article, it was going to happen by 1992. It did eventually happen, but for most customers, it took a bit longer.

Prior to the 1990s, there was really no way to contact someone who was traveling, unless they called you. In emergency situations, broadcast stations might fill in. Occasionally, on stations such as WCCO Minneapolis, it wasn’t uncommon to hear a message such as the following:

The Minnesota Highway Patrol has asked our assistance in locating John Doe of Minneapolis for an emergency message. John Doe of Minneapolis, please call the Minnesota Highway Patrol for an emergency message.

When I heard those, I always wondered what kind of tragedy befell that particular family. But presumably, they heard their name on the radio, called the Highway Patrol, and were put in touch with whoever had the bad news for them.

In 1973, an idea came along that was ahead of its time–a method to contact travelers anywhere in the country. Messages could be sent to anyone anywhere in the country, as long as the traveler was willing to stop at a popular roadside retailer. It was really an early version of e-mail, and certainly one of the first methods of digital communication that most Americans had ever seen.

The retailer was Stuckey’s, and the system they pioneered was called “Highway Emergency Locating Paging Service“, or HELPS for short. The chain had 350 stores nationwide, all strategically located along major highways. They had clean restrooms, they sold snacks, and most had gas pumps. It was the kind of place where you had to stop anyway, and the idea was that if you could also use their stores to keep in touch with family or business associates back home, then it would be a competitive advantage for them.

The store was equipped with a computer console with a CRT screen and 10 digit numeric keyboard. Before you left on your trip, you would tell the folks back home that they could always reach you by calling the Stuckey’s HELPS line in Georgia. From early in the morning to late at night, a friendly operator would answer the phone. After hours, there was answering machine. The caller would tell the operator that they had a message for you, and give the operator your home phone number (or other agreed-upon number). The message would be a phone number that you were to call back.

When you stopped for gas at any of the 350 Stuckey’s locations, you would go inside and use the free terminal. It would prompt you to enter your phone number. The terminal would link back to Stuckey’s headquarters via Western Union lines, and would display any messages, or tell you that you had none. If you had a message, then you would go to the payphone and call them. You would have to pay for a long distance call, but you only had to pay for one long distance call.

The beauty of this system was that the caller didn’t need to know where you were. As long as you bought your gas at Stuckey’s, it didn’t matter if you were in Maine or California–you would get the message.

The system got the approval of the New York Times:

Stuckey’s deserves a large bouquet of pralines and a rousing round of applause from the motoring public for having invented a free, public service with no strings attached that is probably the greatest contribution to the motorist’s peace of mind since the free gas company roadmap and the hopefully clean gas station rest room.

The console had a second function. The store manager had a key that converted it into a terminal for ordering stock from the company’s warehouse. The annual cost of the system was estimated at $660,000.

As a youngster, I remember seeing one of these machines and thinking to myself what a good idea it was. Of course, I entered our home phone number, and there were no messages for us. As far as I know, it didn’t last long, and I never saw another one of the terminals. It was a very good idea, but perhaps a bit ahead of its time.

1961 “Simple Talkie” 15 Meter Transceiver

Sixty years ago this month, the September 1961 issue of Electronics World showed how to put together this simple handheld transceiver for 15 meters, dubbed the “Simple-Talkie.” The designer was none other than Hartland Smith, then W8VVD, currently W8QX, whom we’ve featured previously.

With a short piece of wire serving as antenna, the range was said to be about a hundred feet, or several hundred feet with a half-wave wire. The power input was a modest 10 mW. While the range is short, it was useful for various antenna projects around the shack. To communicate from the shack to the tower, the ham inside would use the main station, and the ham climbing the tower could communicate with the tiny rig.

Merchant Marine Radio Officer: 1951

The September 1951 issue of Radio-Electronics carried this image of a Radio Officer in the Merchant Marine, aboard the Esso Tanker Bermuda. The magazine carried a good summary of the profession. At the time, Radio Officers were in demand, and for a young man seeking adventure, it was an ideal time to land such a job. Minimum pay was $300 a month, and it could be as high as $500. Work could be on a freighter or tanker, where the attitude was more casual, and there was little concern about whether the officers were shaven or well dressed. On passenger ships, things were more formal, but the pay generally was better. The magazine noted that officers in the merchant marine were exempt from the draft, but also that the service had more casualties than the armed forces in the previous war.

The radio officer usually had a lot of free time after his watch, and it was an ideal opportunity for him to take correspondence courses.

Most of the time, the work consisted of keeping watch on 500 kHz and also on HF. This was usually done by having two loudspeakers playing. The operator could tend to other affairs while keeping an ear open for his ship’s call sign should it come over the radio.

The article noted that most radio officers were members of a union, but with a shortage of qualified men, joining the union was easy. And job security was guaranteed by international treaties which required a radiotelegraph station and qualified operator. In addition to the FCC license, the radio officer was certified by the Coast Guard which required, among other things, that all officers be certified in first aid.

Filling a Vacant Pulpit by Radio: 1921

From the picture on Google Street View, it appears that the Herron Avenue Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a vacant building today. And a hundred years ago, the pulpit was apparently vacant.

Undaunted, the members figured out a way to fill the pulpit, in the form of the radio receiver shown here. In the absence of a regular pastor, the pulpit was fitted with a radio receiver, and the service was received by radio from the Calvary Episcopal Church some ten miles away. According to the account in the September 1921 issue of Wireless Age, the service was received with unmistakable distinctness. “Interest was so well sustained throughout the religious services, that the proverbial sleeping brother in the amen corner was conspicuously absent.”

Radiola Model 526: 1941

Eighty years ago this month, the September 1941 issue of Service magazine carried this ad reminding dealers that the Radiola model 526 would sell itself. The set covered standard broadcast and shortwave, and was billed as having a “Station Spreader” dial on the 25 and 31 meter bands. This appears to mean that the tuning range was 9.5 to 12 MHz, meaning that those two bands would naturally take up most of the dial, resulting in easy tuning on those crowded bands.

The same set was available in a wooden cabinet as model 527. It could also be purchased without shortwave, in plastic as model 516, or wood as model 517.

Politically Incorrect Promotional Items

The radio dealer is always looking for ways to promote the business, and one good way of doing that is with some sort of advertising novelty. The September 1951 issue of Radio News details many of them, such as spoon trays, calendars, key chains, and, of course, match books. But the dealer who really wanted to be remembered by his customers couldn’t go wrong by handing out personalized packs of cigarettes! Not only did the package carry the advertisement, but the dealer could have his name printed right on the cigarette itself. The minimum order was 100 packs, and the price varied by quantity. For 250 packs, the cost was 29 cents a pack, which was only a small premium over the going price of about a quarter a pack.

The cigarettes were supplied by Your Name Cigarettes, 125 West Hubbard, Chicago, a business owned by one Lester B. Patterson. Patterson was a serial entrepreneur. In addition to the cigarette company, he operated the Maxilume Company, Transveneer Company, and Clinical Dental Laboratories. The promotional cigarettes were manufactured by a cigarette company in the East and sold by Patterson. That activity was apparently uneventful, but it was the dental lab that led to Patterson’s downfall.

The dental lab probably served an important niche market for discount dentures. He would send customers a paste, used to make an impression of their old dentures. They would send those impressions, along with the old dentures, to Patterson, who would forward them to a lab which would manufacture a new pair. Patterson would then send the new dentures to the customer. This apparently drew the ire of the dental associations in the states where the customers lived, since the price was probably a lot cheaper.

Eventually, Patterson was charged with violating a federal statute prohibiting the mailing of a denture constructed from an impression made by other than a licensed dentist. He was convicted and sentenced to six months in prison. He appealed to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, and argued that the patient had a constitutional right to make an impression of his own teeth, even if it was against the law to make an impression of someone else’s teeth.

The court apparently agreed with the proposition that someone has the constitutional right to take an impression of their own teeth. But that wasn’t what the defendant was charged with. The statute prohibited the making of dentures from that impression and mailing it. So the appeals court affirmed Patterson’s conviction. (The trial transcript is available at this link.)

1961 British One Tube Regen

Sixty years ago this month, the September 1961 issue of the British magazine Radio Constructor carried the plans for this one-tube regenerative receiver covering 150 kHz through 28 MHz dubbed the “Finger-tip Five,” owing to the fact that it covered the range in five bands with five plug-in coils. While it did cover the longwave and mediumwave bands, it was especially designed for the shortwaves, “where much of interest is transmitted.”

The set used an ECF80 dual pentode-triode tube. The triode was used as the regenerative detector. The other half was used as an untuned RF amplifier, whose main purpose was to isolate the detector from the antenna, thus eliminating any dead spots caused by the antenna loading down the detector. On this side of the Pond, the equivalent tube would be a 6BL8 or 6LN8.

1946 Five Tube Radio Demostrator

Seventy-five years ago, the new serviceman learning how to fix radios could very well have done so in a classroom with this demonstrator at the front of the room. From the 1946 catalog of Concord Radio Company showed this working “All American Five” radio, layed out for instructional purposes. The circuits were easily accessible from the rear, so faults could be demonstrated by shorting out critical parts. The trimmers were all accessible from the front, so that alignment could be demonstrated.

Gibson Co. Phonographs, Washington, 1921

A hundred years ago, the Gibson Co., Inc., 917-919 G St. NW, Washington, was getting ready to open its enlarged phonograph shop, as announced in the Washington Evening Star, September 19, 1921. In celebration of the occasion, the store was to have on display the original phonograph invented by Thomas Edison in 1878, presumably the one shown here, now on display at the Thomas Edison National Historical Park in New Jersey.

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Okay, Boomer

The Baby Boomer generation is generally defined as starting in 1946, so this young gentleman shown on the cover of the September 1946 issue of Radio Service Dealer is probably one of the first.

The magazine identifies the parents as orchestra leader Ray Herbeck, and wife Lorraine “Pokey” Benson, vocalist with the orchestra. The young Boomer is almost certainly Ray Herbeck, Jr., who went on to become a screenwriter and producer, with a specialty of historical re-enactment. He served as re-enactor coordinator in movies such as Back to the Future Part III and Rambo III, and the 1984-85 TV miniseries North and South.

He’s described on this site as “probably the only movie executive in Hollywood who knew anything about reenacting and living history.”

In the photo, the three are listening to Benson’s solo on the band’s rendition of Vitamin Pills. It’s being played back on this Zenith console, and the magazine points out that the set has a Cobra radionic tone arm. Here’s another recording of the song, although I bet it sounded even better on the Zenith: