Wiretap-proof telephone
This scrambler keeps private phone conversations safe from wiretappers and eavesdroppers. Fitted to an ordinary handset, it needs no electrical connection, has its own power source. To hear, a person needs an unscrambler coded identically. Delcon Division, Hewlett-Packard Co., Palo Alto, Calif., sells it for $275, keeps your name and code locked in its vault.

Here is the new push-button office telephone…

the CALL director

for the person who makes a lot of calls, or takes a lot of calls This is the most advanced and flexible telephone ever offered to business! More than a new product, the Call Director is a new concept in telephone design and service.

It provides fast, easy handling of outside and interoffice calls plus special features to fit your communications needs. By pushing a button you can— Read the rest of this entry »

Bill-Saving Lock for Dial Phones

LONG distance and other expensive calls made over your telephone without your consent can be prevented by a dial lock now being marketed. The lock consists of a metal cover which fits snugly over the dial, and is equipped with a lock which holds it firmly in place, as illustrated in the accompanying photo. Key may be carried on ring.

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Radio News

Broadcasts from Ocean’s Bottom

HOW a diver feels and what he sees as, clad in his heavy armor, he “plods his weary way” along the ocean floor and explores the weird submarine world of

gloomy lights and flickering, sinister shadows, was vividly described to thousands of radio fans not long ago when C. O. Jackson, a diver from Philadelphia, successfully broadcast a talk from the bottom of the Atlantic. To those who were listening in to station WIP he told all that he saw in his trip to Davy Jones’ locker. This is the first time that such a feat has been at- tempted, and it afforded a real thrill to the listeners. The diver was equipped with a helmet in which was installed a microphone, protected by sponges and connected to the boat from which he descended.
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Radio Spies Are Trapped by Direction Finders in Prowling Motor Cars

Spy-operated radio transmitters don’t stand much chance of remaining undetected under the new set-up of the Federal Communications Commission. Direction-finding units in automobiles, fixed listening posts at 200-mile intervals, and ten long-range direction-finding stations now keep a 24-hour watch over ether activities in the United States and its territories. Read the rest of this entry »

Pushbuttons replace dials on telephone

Tests in regular service last winter at Carnegie and Greensburg, Pa., suburbs of Pittsburgh, have shown it’s easier and more than twice as fast to press buttons for a phone call than it is to twirl a dial. As each “touch-tone” button is pushed, it sounds a pleasing musical tone.

Bell is introducing the phone area by area, will nave it in general use within the next 10 years.

It’s telemedicine! Well, sort of.

DOCTOR BY RADIO

DR. GUIDO GUIDA, 60, founder and unpaid head of Rome’s International Radio Medical Center has treated patients via radio from his own home for 17 years. Career began when childhood friend died at sea. Italian government recently assigned six Naval operators to aid him.

Stunt Artist Broadcasts Feelings During Parachute Jump

ALL the thrills of parachute jumping with none of its perils were recently experienced by spectators and radio listeners when Maximilian Skupin, stunt artist, broadcast his sensations while falling through space over the airport at Staaken, Germany.

In one hand Skupin held a short wave antenna composed of three metal blades criss-crossed to form a hexagon. Around his waist were strapped two carrying cases containing the transmitter and batteries. A small microphone similar to the mouthpiece used by switchboard operators was suspended just below his mouth. Skupin’s body served as a counterpoise, or ground, for the unique experiment.

Latest for Housewives—Radio in the Kitchen Cabinet

THE last word in modern equipment for the kitchen would make Old Mother Hubbard turn over in her grave. This modernity is nothing less than an all electric broadcast receiver built into a kitchen cabinet, as shown in the accompanying photo.

Concealed neatly just behind the table, and finished in harmony with the rest of the cabinet, the set is easily accessible, always ready to tell the housewife the latest cooking recipes and the latest song hits to keep her cheerful. The apparatus is of the latest design, reproducing the programs with the utmost fidelity.

Fifty-Cent Phonograph May Pierce Iron Curtain

A new weapon for sending messages behind the Iron Curtain without danger of radio jamming has been offered to the U. S. by RCA. It’s a refinement of the basic hand phonograph and could be mass-produced for 50 cents each.

The little machine is in three unbreakable plastic parts—base, turntable and tone arm —and can be packed to drop by parachute.
Heart of the design is a clear-plastic semi-circular vibrator screwed inside the top end of a guard. Read the rest of this entry »

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Pacific Radiophone Turns Time Topsy-Turvy

Yesterday becomes today and today is tomorrow when you use the transpacific radio-telephone service opened recently between San Francisco and Java and Sumatra, in the East Indies. The first spoke in this wheel of Pacific radiophone service was set up in 1931, with San Francisco as the hub and Hawaii as the other end. A year ago the 7,000-mile Philippine island spoke was added. Now you can talk to Java, 8,700 miles distant and to Sumatra, 9,450 miles away. The Manila and East Indies circuits cross the international date line, so this telephone service has two Sundays each week and two New Year’s days in each year Read the rest of this entry »

Linemen Train on Grove of Junior Phone Poles
This is how you learn to climb poles in the Air Force. The grove of stub poles makes an open-air classroom for future linemen at Warren Air Base in Wyoming. The poles last about a month—by then the students’ spikes gouge them so badly they must be replaced.