This is an interesting harbinger of the huge wave changes that occurred in the electronics industry in the 50 years after this article was published. What they’ve done here is essentially modularized an entire radio into plug and play components. Their reason for doing this was to make repair simpler, but now everything is designed that way so you can use standardized components and simplify assembly. If hundreds of different devices uses the same oscillator (or Ethernet controller for that matter) you can make them a lot cheaper.
Mother Could Fix This Radio
PSM photos by Robert F. Smith
YOU don’t need to know a coil from a condenser to fix this radio. Throw-away units, as easy to change as radio tubes, contain practically everything that might go wrong in the set. Six “canned” circuits with pronged bases, designed to retail in department stores at $1.85 apiece, replace the maze of wiring located in back of the dial of a conventional radio.
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Is there a radio on that bike? I could hardly tell. It’s so small!
A Radio on Your Bicycle Makes Riding a Pleasure Trip
PUT a radio on your bicycle and enjoy your favorite programs while riding. The job is easily done. The full equipment is shown in the picture on the right. Attach a small radio set to a board fastened to the handle bars of the bicycle. To construct the antenna supports use bus bar or heavy wire fixed to the top of the radio set. The antenna and lead-in wire are plainly visible in the photograph. The battery supply is attached to the frame of the bicycle.
The radio equipped bicycle made its appearance in Hollywood where movie stars have made a fad of bicycle riding.
Of course you probably have to plug this thing in to actually use it. I doubt they managed to cram batteries in there.
TINY RADIO BUILT IN CIGARETTE CASE
A radio built into a cigarette case was a novelty exhibited at a recent British radio exposition. The miniature receiver employs a single tube —one of the smallest in the world— and has a pair of midget tuning dials. Only half the thickness of the case is occupied by the set, ample room remaining for about a dozen cigarettes. The radio is turned on or off by means of a knob at the outer edge of the case, which is shown open in the accompanying photograph to reveal the compact units of the midget receiver.
Wow, that sure is a tiny hearing aid. You almost need giant TV magnifier to see it!
Radio – Television – Electronics – HELPFUL HINTS FOR 1950
A—Producing large-size images from TV screens of nominal dimensions, this glare-less, flat and extremely thin lightweight screen utilizes the Fresnel principle of magnification. Advantages are claimed to include good optical quality and freedom from edge distortion. The magnifying element of the screen is a thin sheet of Plexi-glas into which hundreds of tiny circular grooves are pressed. It includes a glare filter and enlarges the image from a 10-in. TV tube up to the size received on a 16-in. tube.
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I think that “$147 (less Radiotrons)” means they don’t even include the vacuum tubes, you have to pay extra for those. That’s sort of like selling an mp3 player with no memory in it. Doesn’t do you a lot of good.
RCA RADIOLA 60 Super-Heterodyne
Radio receiver and speaker as separate units permit a flexibility in arrangement not possible with the larger cabinet combinations.
The “60″ Super-Heterodyne may be put on a library shelf or a small side table, and be connected with the speaker placed anywhere in the room or in another room.
The best reproducer to use with the “60″ is the new “106″ Electro-Dynam-ic. This is the same type as that used in the de luxe cabinet models of the new Super-Heterodynes.
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“Perhaps its greatest contribution has been the elimination of empty phrases. A speaker with a vivid personality can say nothing, and say it attractively, but the man who tries to deliver the same speech to the radio, where only words count, is doomed to failure.”
I’m not sure that was ever really true, just look at Rush Limbaugh. Then TV came along and well…. you know the rest.
Political Spellbinding by Radio
ONE hundred and ten million Americans will have the opportunity next March of listening to the inauguration of the first ruler of any nation to be chosen after a radio campaign. While thousands heard the three presidential candidates in person, millions more at some time or other during the campaign heard their voices over the radio, and that same opportunity will be extended when the inaugural address is delivered. The old – fashioned spellbinder climbed down off the stump in this campaign of 1924 and settled himself in front of a microphone, and incidentally some of the political speakers had to fit themselves to an entirely new form of public speaking. Picturesque and vivid personalities are lost on the radio audience. The speaker’s individuality counts for nothing, and what he says for everything when the listener is sitting a hundred or a thousand miles away. Words have displaced gestures as vote getters. Read the rest of this entry »
The radio that you tune by opening and closing the fan looks awesome and the lobster claw radio is genius. I can’t believe that no one has had the brilliant idea to cram an MP3 player into one yet. It seems like in the mid twenties the fun thing to do was to stuff a radio into anything and everything you could. This reminds me of the current fascination for making crazy things that plug into a USB port.
Latest Fads, Fancies and Novelties to Be Found in the World of Radio
The Dentist’s Chair Has Lost Its Terrors for This Little Chap, Who Forgets the Ache of His Tooth When He Clamps on the Head Phones
A Real Radio Fan; the Set Is Tuned by Opening and Closing the Leaf Coils
Parisiennes May Now Enjoy Radio Programs While Strolling along the Boulevards, by Using the Umbrella Set Devised by a Paris Inventor
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