Nostalgia Radios of our youth (non-powered)

[kv5e]

Rocket Radio while riding my bike was the bees' knees. My National NC-60 and SQR-20 were in the house, but I had mobile radio on the bike.

Clip the ground lead onto the bike and "trailing antenna" just like Looking Glass or a "boomer"!

 

[spongella]

Rocket Radio while riding my bike was the bees' knees. My National NC-60 and SQR-20 were in the house, but I had mobile radio on the bike.

Clip the ground lead onto the bike and "trailing antenna" just like Looking Glass or a "boomer"!

Wish I knew about your bike and trailing antenna 65 years ago hihi.

 

[wa8pyr]

I would frame that report and hang it on the wall.



I agree. That's one of the better ones I've heard.

Almost as good as picking up WLW on the water in the bathtub, or the fillings in your teeth; both those tales were told by my dad, who grew up in Cincinnati.

 

[a29zuk]

Almost as good as picking up WLW on the water in the bathtub, or the fillings in your teeth; both those tales were told by my dad, who grew up in Cincinnati.

That may be true. In the late 30's or early 40's WLW powered up at 500,000 watts!

Jim

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

These were a big disappointment:

 

[a29zuk]

That may be true. In the late 30's or early 40's WLW powered up at 500,000 watts!

Jim

I had read about this in a Monitoring Times article but haven't found it, yet.

I found this one though:

For a Brief Time in the 1930s, Radio Station WLW in Ohio Became America’s O

www.neh.gov

Hence the start of directional broadcast antennas.

Your crystal radio probably didn't need a ground for this if you lived in southern Ohio and northern Kentucky!


Jim

 

[Blueliner]

Hey, with half a million watts, that bath water never cooled down either!!

 

[wa8pyr]

That may be true. In the late 30's or early 40's WLW powered up at 500,000 watts!

Jim

Right at the time my dad was growing up there.

They ceased 500kW broadcasting in 1939, but most of that 500kW transmitter is still there inside the building, BTW; it’s only within the last year or two that the cooling pool on the front lawn of the TX building was removed, along with the chief engineer‘s house.

I grew up listening to WLW, often at night when I was supposed to be sleeping….

All kinds of useful info: WLW Radio, Cincinnati
More good stuff: The Radio Historian's WLW Photos

 

[Scan125]

Of course the Rusian & Chinese & others would abide by kW limits these days?

 

[tvengr]

Almost as good as picking up WLW on the water in the bathtub, or the fillings in your teeth; both those tales were told by my dad, who grew up in Cincinnati.

Or the heating ducts in your house. Anywhere there is corrosion between 2 metal objects, there can be a higher resistance one way than the other which makes an AM detector diode. A bad solder connection on a microphone cable can exhibit the same behavior. An AM signal can be detected and fed into an audio amp. The cable is the antenna. Traffic on CB radios came through the PA system in my church. I ended up putting RF chokes and bypass caps on the mic inputs.