These workers at Hytron‘s plant in Newburyport, Mass., are aging tubes to ensure long life. An incandescent lamp is wired in series with each tube element to limit current. This process of seasoning and degasifying the tubes ensures more uniform tubes.
The photo appeared on the cover of Radio News, December 1947.
As promised, here are the answers to yesterday’s quiz, from the December 1962 issue of Popular Electronics.
Today’s quiz comes from the December 1962 issue of Popular Electronics. You have to match up the number associated with each diagram. Answers will appear here tomorrow.
The December 1942 issue of the British Practical Wireless carries this self-explanatory hint sent in to the magazine by one J.M. Firth of Beckenham. He noted that there was a great shortage of aluminum and sheet iron for making chasses for radios. Quite possibly to Mrs. Firth’s chagrin, he found a suitable replacement in the kitchen in the form of a tinplate baking tin. He noted that the pan would take solder easily.
There’s a reason why this young woman seems particularly cheerful about pulling in a station on her broadcast radio. It’s because she put the radio together herself from a kit.
The kit is described in the December 1947 issue of Popular Mechanics, and from the description, it sounds like an “All American Five” of the type manufactured by the millions. Curiously, though, the magazine doesn’t mention the source. If any of our readers can identify the brand of this kid, please let us know.
A hundred years ago, this young British woman was pulling in some signals from her garden at 1276 Leeds Road, Bradford. She is undoubtedly the daughter of one Mr. C.R. Land, who constructed the set and sent the picture to Practical Wireless, where it appeared in the November 1922 issue.
The issue also showed an interesting method of constructing a variable capacitor, as shown below. The magazine noted that they could be expensive and difficult to make, but this version was relatively easy to construct at home. It consisted of two sheets of zinc carefully rolled into tubes and soldered together. The dielectric consisted of waxed paper.
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If Junior wants to impress the judges at the science fair with attention to detail, skill with hand tools, and a generally spectacular project, then this 1985 project is sure to fit the bill. It’s a small electric motor, capable of providing some motive power to other projects.
The diagram shows old-fashioned dry cells, but modern alkaline D cells will work just as well, especially if you get battery holders to keep them in place.
The November 1937 issue of Popular Science shows the complete blueprints for the motor, but without too many verbose instructions. So as long as Junior can read a set a blueprints, the blue ribbon is pretty much assured.
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about his experiences living in Kyiv, Ukraine, in the middle of a war. Wlad, like me, is an attorney, and lived a middle-class existence similar to mine, until Russia invaded eastern Ukraine in 2014. He and his family then relocated to Kyiv, but with Russia’s 2022 invasion, he was once again in the middle of the war. His wife and teen son and daughter evacuated to Poland, where they were able to find an apartment, thanks in part to the generosity of friends in America and elsewhere.
He remained behind, partly because he was prohibited by law from leaving, but mostly because he felt the need to stay behind and defend his native land.
The most compelling part of his book is his account of the mundane details of life in the middle of a war. Wlad lives in a fifth-floor apartment building in the middle of a city of 2.8 million (prewar population). Some days, the supermarkets are open, and some days they are not. The mail continues to go through, but some days, it’s too dangerous to go to the post office to pick it up. Power, water, and heat are sometimes turned on, but they’re often unavailable. When he needed dental work, he was surprised to find the dental office near his home open, staffed by dental students. There are even a few accounts of his visits to court on behalf of some pro bono client. To me, the descriptions of how he navigates this dystopia are fascinating, especially since his life prior to the war wasn’t too different from mine. Many who follow this blog have an interest in emergency preparedness, and I’m sure they will also find this book compelling.
Of course, since Wlad is a ham, radio is a main character in the story. He gets much of his information from the broadcast radio, and one of his main roles has become that of radio repairman so that others can remain in touch when their radio has problems. He also recounts listening in directly to Russian pilots and both Russian and Ukrainian troops.
As the title suggests, it’s written in chronological format, and you’ll have a hard time putting it down, wondering what’s going to happen the next day.
The book is available at Amazon, as a paperback, hard cover, or Kindle.
If you feel moved to provide additional assistance to Wlad’s family, please see our crowdfunding campaign to help with their needs at GoFundMe or GiveSendGo.
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Sixty years ago, the editors of Popular Mechanics did some testing of the latest toy offerings to see how they would hold up to rough use. The results appeared in the November 1962 issue.
One of the most intriguing toys they tested was the $40 Saranade doll from Westinghouse, shown above. But Saranade was much more than a doll. She was what one site called a “creepy Part 15 doll.” She came complete with her own record player (which played all speeds, 78 through 16 RPM). But it wasn’t just any record player. The player had a “DOLL – PHONO” switch. In the phono position, it played just like any other record player. But in the doll position, the speaker cut out, and the sound came out of a speaker strategically placed in the doll’s stomach.
The player had a one-tube amplifier inside, and when the switch was flipped, it became a transmitter on 180 kHz, in the Part 15 Lowfer band. In fact, it’s the only commercial product that I can think of that took advantage of this band. The doll contained a receiver, apparently transistorized, tuned to this signal. The doll contained neither tuning nor volume control. Fine tuning was accomplished with a control on the record player.
As with other toys reviewed, both the doll and record player survived drop tests, and were pronounced by the editors to be suitable for rough service at the hands of kids. Other items reviewed were the megaphone and perfume kit shown below, as well as the General Electric model EF 150 5 transistor shortwave receiver kit, which retailed for $29.95.
Happy Thanksgiving from OneTubeRadio.com!
A hundred years ago, Thanksgiving 1922 was to be a radio Thanksgiving, as shown in this ad in the Washington Times, Nov. 26, 1922. There were 35,000 radio receivers in Washington, and to celebrate the holiday, the Continental Electric Supply Co., 808 9th St., was sponsoring a concert on station WIL at 3:00 PM.
