Issue #38: The Boys of Radio

Here's the forum discussion link for issue #38, The Boys of Radio, which discusses the influence that young men had during the early years of radio (both positive and negative influences!). Please note that I've already written about girls and ladies in early radio . . . this one is about the guys. Use this forum to post your own photo of you as a youngster in front of a radio. We'd all love to see it!

 

This article reminded me of a series of books from the early 1900s. At the time, "boy's books" were popular - adventure books written for late pre-teen and early teenaged boys. The Tom Swift series is one that many might be familiar with. There was a collection written by Allen Chapman, Gerald Breckenridge, and J. W. Duffield called The Radio Boys. Four young radio enthusiasts having high adventures around the world, with amateur radio getting them out of trouble and saving the day each time. No telling how many youngsters in the early twentieth century developed an interest in radio from reading these books.

The Project Gutenberg website has several editions available. Additionally, I've downloaded them and made the corrections that seem to pop up during the scanning process, and have them available in .mobi format for anyone interested. Contact me through me email address on my QRZ page.

 

Tom Swift and His Wireless Message - Wikipedia (Vol 6 of the original Tom Swift books.)
(Books: tom swift (sorted alphabetically) - Project Gutenberg)

I found this online for a free download - the link above is to many of original TS books for free reading. Having grown up reading the Tom Swift Jr books, these are much the same, just older (new at the time) technology. Decent way to spend a rainy afternoon.
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Radio Boys - Wikipedia

free at Books: radio boys (sorted by popularity) - Project Gutenberg also a fun read and describes how to build a real radio set!

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Today, with the internet, there are a great many sites that show how to build a basic to very advanced crystal sets
Build a High Quality Multiband Crystal Radio - Alvenh Channe

I took my old sons Cub Scout Den out to the desert on the edge of Las Vegas to scrounged parts from abandoned junk TV's etc - from this, we built radio sets.

Don't know about the rest of the kids, but my son got his license at age 9 - and is still a ham.

Lots of fun to see a kids face light up when they hear music etc from a set they built themselves from junk!
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Can't say if these is an equivalent to these old magazines to inspire today's young'ns - I've not run across any to date.

 

Great article Dave. Yes I built "stuff" from old radio an TV sets. Novice at 14 in 1968. Always kept me employed in the electronic business all my life.
Our Radio club always attends the Scouts JOTA at the local reservation an guess what the highlight of the demo is? CW! Once they start playing with the key an oscillator its hard to get them away from it. Pix of me at 14 on my QRZ page, cant find the original just now.
Ike WB4LAL 73

 

I got into "radio" in early primary school age, at around age 7 in 1962-63.

A neighbour showed me a table radio with shortwave bands, and
demonstrated foreign broadcasting.

At about the same time, a small paperback published in 1935 was found in my Granddad's bookshelf,



(Loose title translation,"Marconi, conqueror of the airwaves")
This book was read forward and backwards, and I can still cite passages from it.

At Christmas 1964 I got a German "radio experimenters kit" as a gift

and quite rapidly went through all 80 "educational experiments" in the kit, ending up with an one-tube Audion receiver which was able to
"pull in" the local long-wave station.

Unfortunately, all photos of my earliest radio experiments and gear in the late-60s were lost when the family photo album went AWOL when my Mum passed away in 1987.
These included photos of my first transmitter and an home-brew two-tube receiver.

Only one known photo exists, which comes from the photo collection of my local club, and shows "Yours Truly" in the basement shack at age 16 in February 1973.

 

Hey Marshall -- Thanks, good input. One of the old Radio Boys books is available free on Amazon as well. What we need is "today's version" of the Radio Boys so that young fellows (and girls) can get hooked on the excitement found in these kinds of short novels, Dave W7DGJ

 

Thanks Ike, made my day! I agree with you . . . "Secret code language" will ALWAYS be a hot button to youngsters. When I was a kid, that was the attraction. My buddy and I would sit at the kitchen table at dinner or lunch, with my sister and a parent or two present and we'd "dit-dah" together and drive them all nuts. Dave, W7DGJ

 

Thanks Karl-Arne. That's a great photo of the Radiomann set -- I don't have that one, appreciate it! I wonder what year that is? So much more high-tech than the original Telimco Complete Outfit. Thanks for posting! Dave, W7DGJ

 

I'm trying to find some old photos of me as a "radio boy." This is the only one I've found so far, and I have already posted it on my QRZ page. It would be great to see some fresh photos in this forum. I'll keep looking. In this photo, I have only my SWL set visible, but I was in the process of setting up a ham station. Also, my other love is on display, off to the left (the turntable -- I was and still am an avid music lover and was at one time a record collector with 10,000+ LPs).

I'm sorry to say that I sold off my analog collection of music thinking that CDs would save the day; it was at a time that my wife and I were moving across the country and the shipping costs of thousands of records was enormous. UGH. (For those of you with similar interests, one LP visible above the turntable is "Hermans Hermits on Tour." Dave W7DGJ

 

I believe that the Radiomann set is early/mid-50s, and it was found by my Dad in a hardware store that his business used.

Another book that partly formed by interest in radio was this 1930s "youngster book" found in a grade-2 classmate's bookshelf, "Radiokuppen" (loose translation "The Radio Heist"), a book set in late-20s Weimar Germany, where illegal broadcasting formed a substantial part of the plot, at the end of which two school-kids managed to catch bank-robbers.



I spent considerable efforts trying to figure out what transmitter circuit the villains may have used .

 

I don't have any pictures but a lot of what I'm reading reminds me of my early days. Early on my dad purchased a crystal radio kit, on of those with the "cat whisker" detectors. The next thing after that was an old Zenith radio with "shortwave", you know...one of those big old guys with a big round dial and a tall wooden cabinet. Listened to that for years then one year for Christmas I got a Silvertone solid state portable. Spent a lot of time in those years listening to HCJB (The Voice of the Andes), Voice of America, Radio Moscow, etc. Those were the days, shortwave broadcasts from all over the world! Eventually I graduated to "HAM RADIO" becoming WN4JPI, WA4JPI and finally WB4YFK. My first rig in those jr high days was a Knight R-55 and Eico 723 built from kits. This whole voyage finally resulted in my getting a degree in electrical engineering from Va Tech and a 40 year career in RF design engineering. The magic I felt in those early days still continues today every time a make contact with another ham who is probably feeling the same "Magic"

 

Thanks Walt. Great comments. You had 40 years in a field you love . . . I am envious. Tell me what you think Ham Radio will look like in 10 years? (The title of my next column).

 

Wonderfully written, enjoyed reading.

 

Thanks Ken, much appreciated! Dave, W7DGJ