FIRST BROADCASTERS USED PHONE

Who were the earliest broadcasters? Ten years before the first radio programs were put on the air, a group in Chicago., 111., regularly delivered musical programs and news bulletins over the telephone lines of many subscribers. The rare old photograph reproduced below shows these pioneers broadcasting from their studio. Each singer is holding a microphone, while other individual microphones are attached to the instruments. To listen to the music, a subscriber had merely to sit beside the telephone and hold the receiver to his ear. If he received a ‘phone call while listening, the musical program was automatically disconnected.

Boys Build “Pumpmobile”
TWO young inventors in Dobbs Ferry, N. Y., combined their resources, consisting of half of a bicycle and a four-wheeled coaster wagon, to produce a novel vehicle which they call a “pumpmobile.” The fork of the bicycle was mounted on the rear of the coaster wagon, locomotion for the combination vehicle being secured by pedaling the bike’s one wheel.

New Phonograph Record Plays Half Hour Music Program

THE phonograph, long overshadowed by the radio, now promises to come back into popularity, thanks to the development of an improved type of phonograph record recently introduced. Capable of running for a full half hour, the new long-playing record reproduces entire symphonies and vaudeville and musical comedy acts with-out the necessity of changing the discs.

The long-playing feature is obtained by slowing down the turn-table speed 78 to 33 -1/ rpm., and by introducing almost double the number of grooves in the playing surface. The new discs are made from a composition called Vitrolac, which permits placing finer grooves in the record.

The slower turn-table speed for playing the new records is obtained by the use of a special gear shift arrangement, which can be installed in any electric phonograph. The needles are chromium plated.

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New Electrical Wonders Work Living Room Magic

How do they work? Take a look inside the wireless TV control, switchless lamp, cordless clock.

By Martin Mann

AMAZE your friends! Just look at the TV and make it change channels or silence the commercial—while your hands are in your pockets. Make a lamp light when you wave your hand and mutter abracadabra. Lift the electric clock, its second hand sweeping merrily —but look, no wires!

Magic? Yes, sir. But not the kind you laboriously rig up yourself. These are new commercial marvels, available in stores around the country.
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This is a great ad. Kids who really want a BB gun for christmas write in and Red Ryder will send them little “this is what you should get me for christmas” reminder cards. Then they just hide them all over the house where their parents are sure to find them.

I also really like the line “If you HAVE money now (or can get it) buy your Daisy NOW”. You know how you can get it. Mr Jones down the street said he’d give you a shiny nickel everytime you sat on his lap. A small price to pay for a brand new Red Ryder Golden Banded 1000-Shot Saddle Carbine isnt it?

I’ll help you get a Daisy for Christmas – Red Ryder

The new Golden Banded 1000-Shot Red Ryder Saddle Carbine

BOYS! Send coupon to Red Ryder for your FREE Christmas Reminder Kit, enclosing 3c stamp, please, to help cover our handling-postage cost. Kit contains printed “messages” to be signed by you, pictures of all Daisy Air Rifles, complete directions. It’s FUN to use! Put “Reminders” under milk bottles, in mail-box, on Dad’s easy chair. They’ll HELP you get a Daisy for Christmas.

If you HAVE money now (or can get it) buy your Daisy NOW. IF your Dealer hasn’t it, or no Dealer is near you, send us the price of your favorite Daisy in cash or Money Order and we’ll mail it POSTPAID. (Duty added in Canada.) Or—rush coupon, 3c stamp, for Christmas Reminder Kit.

Builds Giant Television Tube

DESCRIBED as the “Big Bertha” of cathode ray tubes, a new television tube developed by Allen B. DuMont, of Montclair, N. J., has a diameter of 13-1/2 inches. The largest tubes heretofore available for oscillograph work have been of a 9-inch diameter. The new television tube is distinguished by its rounded sides, which provide the necessary added strength to withstand the atmospheric pressure on the highly evacuated glass bulb of the tube.

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Prehistoric Monsters Roar and Hiss for Sound Film

THIS remarkable article tells you how the ingenuity and skill of motion picture directors solve the hard emblem of putting on the screen the forms and noises of animals that have been extinct thousands of centuries

by Andrew R. Boone

FROM the slime of tropical mud flats, the ghost voices of prehistoric monsters have reached the screen. Hisses and grunts of the pterodactyl and brontosaurus; roars from a tyrranosaurus, largest of the dinosaur family; groans and roars of an imaginary giant ape are reproduced by mechanical contrivances.

Kong, the ape, crashed through the heavy growth of an unknown forest, uttering fierce growls and beating his breast in rage. As the scene unfolded in silence before a small group of us in a tiny projection room, the studio sound experts discussed ways and means of re-creating his awful voice and the solid thumps of clenched hands against the massive chest.
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Neighborhood Streamliner
Father – and – son combination, Leon H. Shay and Leon R. Shay of Freeport, 111., the elder a Popular Mechanics reader “for more than 25 years,” built this streamliner with a six-horsepower engine to carry the neighborhood youngsters, as many as 32 at a time, around a 300-foot loop track. It can travel from one to 45 miles an hour and is usually piloted by Shay’s two granddaughters, aged 4 and 7. “We are hoping to take care of all the kids around here this summer,” writes Mr. Shay.

PHONOGRAPH AND LOUDSPEAKER REPLACE ARMY’S BAND

Will canned music inspire future warriors? Veteran army bandmasters in Denmark were taken aback when a lumbering sound truck recently took the place of a regular band and led a detachment of Danish soldiers on a cross-country march. Martial airs played upon a phonograph were amplified and projected to front and rear by horns atop the truck. Lively discussion was stirred up two years ago in this country when the United States Army became interested in mechanical bands to replace musicians. A sound truck for this purpose was designed, built, and offered for test by the Radio Corporation of America (P.S.M., Aug., ’30, p. 48). Its volume equalled that of two Army bands and the quality of music was called as good as the average in the service. To date, however, no definite move to adopt the mechanical substitute for bandsmen has been made public.

Kaleidoscope Paints Television Screen

Kaleidoscope pictures have gone on the air. Just as musical selections fill interludes in sound broadcasting, the eye-pleasing patterns of light entertain “lookers-in” between television features from the National Broadcasting Company’s station W2XBS. To transform a kaleidoscope from a child’s plaything into a scientific novelty of 1940, engineers first photograph a simple design upon movie film. The film then passes through a studio projector tube lined with mirrors, which multiply the design eight times to produce a symmetrical image. Two auxiliary projectors make a frame for the pictures, and superimpose any desired words or symbols upon the designs.

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Marionettes Go Hollywood

By PHILIP BAILEY

MARIONETTES in the guise of chorus girls and movie stars dance and strut before a starlit background in one of the most novel scenes ever devised and filmed in Hollywood. Cleverly carved and costumed by skilled craftsmen working under the direction of Russell Patterson, famous artist, the puppet entertainers were accompanied in their marionette musical comedy by a curious symphony orchestra made up of weird animated instruments that played themselves.

Most of the dummy performers, which are featured in the recently completed film “Artists and Models,” are about three feet high, with bodies shaped from sponge rubber and hinged moving parts carefully carved from wood. Each marionette was operated by a maze of invisible strings manipulated by groups of operators working out of the camera’s range on platforms built above the stage.
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If you can hum or whistle a tune… You can play any of these novelty instruments

The Musical Saw—The Glass-O-Phone The Jazz-O-Nette- The Musical Pitchfork

Why envy others who play? If you can sing, hum, or whistle a tune you can play any of our novelty instruments. They are PLAYED BY EAR. No notes to study. No scales to learn. You don’t have to know anything about music. Just follow our simple instructions and soon you’ll be playing popular tunes. You, too, can start a novelty band for your Church, Club, School, Lodge, etc.
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