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SWLING & DXING

"Radio RSA Monitoring Panel Handbook" - Over the years, many of the larger shortwave stations sponsored listener "clubs," usually to promote listener loyalty (and maybe keep the mail count up). Typically they required submission of a certain number of reception reports, which would gain you various trinkets, certificates, newsletters, contest participation or other benefits. An offshoot of this model was the Monitoring Panel of Radio RSA, South Africa. We have already posted two of the Monitoring Panel membership certificates here. Now we have posted a copy of the "Radio RSA Monitoring Panel Handbook," which was published in 1980. It contains much interesting material about shortwave transmitting and receiving, how to grade and report reception, antennas, etc., together with information about the Monitoring Panel program and Radio RSA itself, plus a 1987 memo to Monitoring Panel members.

August Balbi/Universal Radio DX Club - Here is an article authored by August Balbi that appeared in the 25th Anniversary edition of the Universalite, the bulletin of the Universal Radio DX Club, December 1958. Balbi was one of the greatest of the old timers, and this article relates some early DX history and much still-valid advice on various subjects.

SWL Cards I - You don't see SWL-cards much anymore, but for decades they were in wide use by SWLs, mainly for reports to hams but also for swapping and as report stuffers to broadcast stations. Here is a file containing eight distinctive SWL cards. The cards: (1) This is an Australian DX Radio Club card from 1940. The ADXRC was the first DX club in Australia, formed in 1933. Note the "G. Hutchins" in the design below the tree. Hutchins was the second DX editor for "Australian DXers Calling," the Radio Australia DX program. (2) The second card, which dates from 1931, shows the name and logo of the New Zealand Short-Wave Club. The club's full name was the New Zealand Short Wave Radio Club, and it operated from 1930 to 1937. (3) The 1938 card from "Dialer" John L. Ballin shows the logo of the Globe Circlers DX Club. (4) The 1940 card from Jack Towne of Redding, California shows the logos of the Short Wave League, sponsored by Short Wave Craft magazine, and "R9LL," which is believed to be the R9 Listeners League of America, origins unknown. (5) M. A. Adkins of Union, New York identified himself on his 1938 card as "T-CLP," the Tri-Cities Listening Post. (6) Anthony C. Tarr of Seattle, Washington was a well-known SWL of the 1930s and a shortwave editor for RADEX magazine. (7) Joe Becker of Hamilton, Ohio, who called himself "The Hamilton Night Owl," was a long-time BCB DXer of the 1930s and 1940s and a member of the NRC board of directors. (8) John T. Harris of Paris, Kentucky modestly called himself "K.F.R.S.," "Kentucky's Foremost Receiving Station."

SWL Cards II - Years ago practically every SWL had an SWL card. It was used mainly as a convenient way to send reports to amateur stations. But even if you didn't report to hams, you probably used your card to mail short messages to others (there was no e-mail then, of course), or you might have swapped your card with other SWLs (card swapping was very popular), or used it as a report stuffer. We don't usually think of the utilitarian SWL card as being especially eye appealing, but sometimes they were, and this was especially true in the 1930s. Here is a collection of a couple of dozen SWL cards from that era. Most were sent to DXer Peter Clarius, a few to Roger Legge.

SWL Cards III - Here is another group of old timey SWL cards that have caught our eye. These are from U.S. SWLs. SWL cards often displayed the insignia of a club of which the SWL was a member or officer, with some SWLs going to great lengths to catalog their memberships or their DX accomplishments. We have included the backs of the cards if they contain useful information. (1) Most cards were designed to report ham contacts, but Dave Thomas's card was used to report broadcast stations, hence a bit of room for song titles and other program details. Note the mention of WUMS, Dave's famed "pirate" station. More on that here. (2) Kenneth Miller's card shows the logo of the Globe Circlers DX Club (GCDXC), an energetic club in its day. (3) This generic card apparently was produced for use by SWLs (and maybe hams) in southern California. (4) The Short Wave League, whose logo is on Harold Walchli's card, was run by Short Wave Craft magazine. (5) & (6) The W8H14 and W4H247 "calls" on these cards were issued by the Radio Signal Survey League (RSSL), an All-Wave Radio magazine project. (7) Aime Groslouis was also a Short Wave League member. (8) Jim Howard was a well-known figure in the American Shortwave Listeners Club (and saved it from oblivion in 1962, when he became Executive Editor). (9) Fred Satterthwaite of Toledo, Ohio used the traditional "W8-SWL" designation, meaning an SWL located in the W8 call district. (10) It looks like "Red" Herz of Chicago was the Short Wave Editor for the GCDXC. (11) Lee Meade Williams's card leaves no doubt of his main hobby connection--the RSSL again. He was W5J28. (12) Eric Butcher of Cokeville, Wyoming was definitely a joiner. "O.L.P.S.W." (Official Listening Post-Short Wave) was a designator used by Radio News to recognize regular contributors to its shortwave column. Some other groups had similar designations. (13) Art Johnson also belonged to many clubs, and was an officer in the Universal DX Club, which was active in the 1930s (and not to be confused with the better-known Universal Radio DX Club). (14) As a member of the Quixote Radio Club, Mert Meade enjoyed an excellent bulletin, called the Short Wave Reporter. One of the QRC's missions was to facilitate QSL responses from recalcitrant stations. (15) The New England Radio Club offered these pre-posted, two-part cards for reporting to (mainly) broadcast band stations. You reported on one part of the card, and the station used the other as a prepared card QSL. (16) Nate Rosen's name was familiar to NNRCers. This card was sent to a ham in Portugal.

SWL Cards IV - Another group of SWL cards, this time from foreign countries: (1) This very nice design is from the South Dunedin Branch of the New Zealand DX Radio Association, which was formed in 1933 and managed to continue in one form or another until 2006. (2) Swedish listener Mariana Elmquist had a very colorful card. (3) The card from Cuban listener Jose A. Garcia dates from the 1940s and reflects several affiliations: the RSSL, the Short Wave League, Radio Club de Cuba, and Britain's International Broadcasting Co. (IBC), which transmitted commercially sponsored programs over several European broadcast band and shortwave stations. (4) Frank Lamsley's 1942 "London" card is interesting, and reflects the wartime situation. (5) Harold LaPierre of Halifax, Nova Scotia, used this card featuring the IDXA logo. (6) There are a number of seeming club "identifiers," and nice graphics, on A. McJennett's New Zealand DX Club "ZLQSL" card. (7) There can't be much that a club with the name "All-Wave All-World DX Club" didn't cover. Aussie O. G. Washfold was AW257DX. (8) The card with the Radiola receiver on the front was most likely a promotional item distributed by the company. This Swedish listener used it to report reception of VOA-Munich in 1947, and it looks like the card had been on quite a journey. (9) The members' card from the Scandinavian DX-Club is very nicely designed, and covers all the bases. (10) That's a great graphic on the 1947 card from German listener Albrecht Heinrichs. The identifier DE6777 was probably assigned by the amateur radio authority in the British zone. (11) The card of Argentine listener Gabriel Di Nicola was intended to report amateur signals. (12) It looks like this elaborate SWL-card was sent by a listener in Portugal to a fellow SWL in Australia in 1946, maybe as a swap. The melody of the Portuguese national anthem, "A Portuguesa," shown on the front, was well known to DXers of African signals in the days of the Portuguese colonies.

Boys' Life Radio Club - We have already posted some Boys' Life Radio Club DX certificates and an article reprint. Here is a file with two other Boys' Life items: a 1950s magazine advertisement for the Boys' Life Radio Club, and the SWL card that was made available to members.

1954-55 Boy Scouts of America reprint - Here is a 1954-55 Boy Scouts of America reprint of some SWL articles that appeared in Boy's Life magazine at that time. This 16-page pamphlet will bring back memories for American SWLs who may have been starting out in shortwave around then. The pamphlet includes a long article by Ken Boord about SWLing and the stations you could hear, including such long ago targets as Radio Brazzaville, 4VEH, Radio Noumea, Radio Jamaica, the Portuguese Azores, Radio Trinidad and the British Far East Broadcasting Station. Also shown is a two-tube kit receiver that could be obtained through the Boy Scouts, and information about ham radio. Also, here is an original Boys' Life Radio Club award ("Logged All Continents").

"RMA Better Radio Reception Manual--Home Made Static and How to Avoid It" - If you were suffering from man-made noise in 1929, you would want to read this pamphlet.

Reception Report Forms - Over the years, clubs and other groups offered reception report forms of various kinds. Here is a file with some examples. (1) The first item looks like standard Newark News Radio Club member stationery that was made into a report form, seemingly by the club itself rather than by the member. (2) Second, a Pennsylvania monitor turned this Short Wave League letterhead into a report of amateur reception in 1937 (noting that he was also going to enclose his SWL card). The Short Wave League was a project of Short Wave Craft magazine. (3) Canadian DX Relay was a Canadian club. Third in the file is their report form, which was used by an English listener to report to a Florida ham (the form is 5-1/2 x 8-1/2" in the original). The envelope is postmarked May 31, 1935. (4) The British Long Distance Listener's Club was begun in December 1935 as a project of Wireless Magazine & Modern Television, and was taken over by Practical Amateur and Wireless magazine the following year. The fourth item in the file is a form that was used by a British reader to report to a Nova Scotia ham. The forms could be purchased in pads of 50. (5) Last: The venerable New Zealand DX Radio Association was in operation from 1933 to 2006. See their form (7-1/2 x 13-1/2") as it looked in 1938.

"Factors that Control Radio Reception from Distant Stations" - Here is a 16-page document published in 1930 by the Radio and Television Institute of Chicago. Oriented mainly toward broadcast band DXing, it covers such topics as receiver range, effect of distance, signal strength, receiver sensitivity, etc.

"BBC Monitoring Service--A Layman Looks at Caversham Park" - What DXer of the 1960s and 1970s didn't dream of tuning around on the receivers of the BBC Monitoring Service at Caversham Park, or just clipping on to one of their antennas? Although "BBC MS" became less secretive as the hush-hush years of World War II receded, it wasn't until 1972 that Caversham opened itself up to a visit from DXers. Alan Thompson and Martin Hall were the lucky ones, and here is Alan's 12-page monograph on what they found.

Samuel J. Murphy Station List - The records that DXers kept in the 1920s were often just notations in a published list, like White's Radio Log or RADEX, but sometimes they were more elaborate. Samuel J. Murphy of Philadelphia kept a separate daily listing of the stations he heard on his one-tube Atwater Kent setup. These were broadcast band stations. Here is a copy of Sam's typed list for a year starting on April 7, 1923.

1935 Reception Report - It is easy to forget that, before wordprocessing and e-mail, QSLing was an entirely manual process of laboriously typing individual letters to stations, and awaiting their reply via the postman. Reports could become formulaic, and so it is nice to see the chatty and personalized style adopted by one listener, Miss Geraldine B. Chandler, in her 1935 report to PRF5, Comp. Radio Internacional do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, which is shown in her correspondence with the station that is posted here. Geraldine's report covered her reception of July 20 and July 22, 1935. The station acknowledged her report over the air on August 12 (she didn't hear it), and replied to her by mail on September 4, sending her a book of Brazilian songs, autographed by the the manager of the radio division of the Dept. of Propaganda, which produced the program. It looks like they also sent her a Christmas card. After a long hiatus, Geraldine wrote to the station again--on February 13, 1937--where we learn that she lived in Brookline, Mass., near Boston, and that the location where she had been listening in July 1935 and from which she had sent her report--Rockport, Mass.--was her summer address. That her reception was, as she said, better there than in Brookline is no surprise, since Rockport--still a popular summer vacation destination--is right on the water. Except for the absence of information about her receiver and antenna, the report would be a credit to any DXer. Her transcription of the PRF5 station announcement appears to be virtually verbatim.

Marjorie Lee Dodd - Here is an article describing the 1927 broadcast band DX activities of Marjorie Lee Dodd of Hollywood, California. Marjorie died in 1979, and her radio notebook was discovered by her aunt by marriage, who was the executor of Marjorie's estate. The article appears in the March 2011 edition of Antique Radio Classified and appears with their permission (www.antiqueradio.com). Can anyone solve the 6XT mystery?

DX Reports - It hardly needs saying that SWLing was a lot different nearly half a century ago than it is now. To give you an idea how different, here are some 1965-66 DX reports from two well-known DXers, Bob Hill, who was living in Boston in 1965 and Washington, DC in 1966, and Bob LaRose, who was listening from Binghamton, NY in 1966. These detailed reports reflect a common practice of active DXers in those days--preparing periodic (weekly or monthly) reports of their catches and sending copies to relevant clubs, newsletters, magazines and individuals. It was all paper, of course; e-mail had not even be imagined. Thanks to "the Bobs" LaRose (now living in San Diego, CA) and Hill (Littleton, MA) for permission to post these. (Sadly, Bob Hill passed away in 2017.)

Radio Golf- Here is an article by Harold Sellers on the origins of "Radio Golf." It appeared in the March 2010 Ontario DX Association bulletin, Listening In.

The Day You Had To Pay - Radio Receiving Licenses in Canada by Dan Greenall, from the April 2007 Ontario DX Association bulletin, Listening In.

The "WPE" Monitor Registration Program - From 1959 through 1970, Popular Electronics magazine sponsored a "Monitor Registration" program for radio listeners. This article is a look back at the program through the years and the familiar "WPE" callsigns many of us had.

Horacio Nigro, Uruguay, sends along two scans of a Philco Spanish language log card designed for medium wave.


CLUBS & PUBLICATIONS

CLUBS

ANARC. A Retrospective on ANARC's Early Years by Richard A. D'Angelo.

ASWLC. The American Shortwave Listeners Club is most often associated with Stew MacKenzie who became its Publisher in 1966 and Executive Editor in 1967. However, the club was founded in 1959 by Ken MacNeilage and Maxey Irwin. Here are two early copies of the club bulletin, "SWL," one from January 1960 (the second issue of the bulletin [p. 4 is missing]) and the other from March 1960. Thanks to Bob LaRose for these.

CDXR. Canadian DX Relay was a Canadian club about which not very much is known. According to information in some old copies of RADEX (Radio Index) magazine, CDXR was formed circa December 1932. A year later the club had 40 members and annual dues of $1.75. The club president was Fred H. Bisset of Goderich, Ontario. The bulletin was "all wave"--shortwave, BCB and ham, and It appears that it was issued weekly during the BCB DX season, twice a month otherwise. Sponsoring DX contests and arranging for special BCB DX broadcasts were major club activities, and the club supplied members with thank you cards to be sent to stations making DX broadcasts, even if the member sent no reception report. Here are two copies of the CDXR bulletin, January 29 and February 26, 1936.

CDXR. First Canadian DX Relay Convention - Here is an interesting album created by Arthur L. Robb of Topeka, Kansas, the most distant attendee at the First Canadian DX Relay Convention in St. Catharines, Ontario on August 31, 1935. (The Canadian DX Relay was about three years old at the time and billed itself as Canada's only DX club.) Most of the album contains sightseeing photos, neatly mounted and labeled with white ink. However, there are some interesting radio-related items as well: a "Most Distant Visitor" card; an envelope from The Welland House, where the meeting took place; a newspaper article about the meeting; and a photo of CKTB, which provided a tour. The album also contains some post-convention items: 1936 and 1942 newspaper articles about BCB DX specials which Robb reported (KRNR and KRJF), a sheet of Canadian DX Relay stationery, and a "Radio DX Fan" card. The most interesting thing to me is that the authors of the newspaper articles never felt it necessary to explain what "DX" was!

CHICAGO. Chicago Short Wave Radio Club - This club was one of many regionally-based SWBC clubs in the 1930s. Here is a September 1935 issue of its four-page bulletin, Short Wave Radio Reception News, published every two weeks. In addition to brief narrative notes about specific stations heard, it includes a station list, arranged by frequency, showing reception quality over the previous two weeks. If you would still like to join, mail in the membership form with the $1 annual dues.

CHICAGO. Chicago Short Wave Radio Club - Here is another copy of "Short Wave Radio Reception News," DX newsletter of the Chicago Short Wave Radio Club. This one is from August 8, 1935.

DX JOURNAL. "DX Journal" - Here is an issue of DX Journal, a small newsletter that appeared briefly in 1950. It was edited by Raymond S. Moore, then of Rowley, Massachusetts, who many years later authored the several editions of Communications Receivers: The Vacuum Tube Era.

IDA. Club bulletins really convey the DX environment of their day. Here are two copies of the Globe Circler, bulletin of the International DXers Alliance, which was headquartered in Bloomington, Illinois. They are from March 1934 and February 1936. As with many DX clubs, the early emphasis was on medium wave, with the focus on shortwave increasing over time. This can be seen in the shortwave content of these two bulletins, which was much more extensive in 1936 than in 1934.

IDA. "Globe Circler" - Earlier we posted a couple of 1930s copies of this bulletin of the International DXers Alliance. This time we are posting another copy, the club's last. This is the July-August 1943 issue. See page 7 for the notice that the club was suspending publication. Although hope was expressed that operations would resume after the war, that never happened. This issue gives a good idea of the breadth of stations that could be heard at the time. Charles A. Morrison was bulletin editor (and club president), and as the masthead on page 3 indicates, well-known shortwavers A. Balbi and G. Ferguson (no doubt August and Grady) were associate editors.

IDA. International DXers Alliance DX Festival - The IDA DX Festival was held in San Francisco, July 8-11, 1939. The festival coincided with the Golden Gate International Exposition, i.e. the 1939 World's Fair (one of them--there was also a New York World's Fair that year). Here is a file containing various articles in The Globe Circler (the IDA journal), and several promotional pieces put out by the IDA, about the festival. As you can see, there was a special IDA broadcast over General Electric Treasure Island shortwave station W6XBE (later KGEI), and a train trip from Chicago for those wishing to make the trek west by rail. If we read the third to the last item in the file ("Editorial") correctly, it look like IDA president Charles A. Morrison made the trip by car but missed the convention! Per the next item, attendance was an inspecific "goodly number," if "somewhat smaller than expected." An August convention in Downers Grove, Illinois drew more than 40 people.

IDA. IDA Photo Albums I & II - In the 1930s, DX bulletins were often commercially printed and had a pretty professional look to them. But usually there weren't many pictures. Although the Globe Circler, the bulletin of the International DXers Alliance. wasn't as good looking as some of the others, one thing it had was pictures. There was one on the cover of every issue, and others inside. They were small and grainy, and always black-and-white, but the photos--especially those of IDA members--gave the IDA more of a "club" feel than did some of the other DX groups. We have gone through many issues of the IDA bulletin, from 1932 to 1943, pulled out some of the more interesting photos, and assembled them into three PDFs, which we will be posting here. The first one covers two areas, IDA members and "professional monitoring."

IDA. IDA Photo Album III - "American Shortwave," the second posting of photos from the Globe Circler, the bulletin of the International DXers Alliance.

IDA. IDA Photo Album IV - "International Broadcasts" concludes our series of photos from the Globe Circler, bulletin of the International DXers Alliance. In addition, we have posted a copy of the IDA By-Laws from the 1930s.

IDA. "Doctor of Short Waves" - The International DX'ers Alliance, which was founded in 1932, was one of the major shortwave listener clubs of its day. As would be true throughout shortwave's development, clubs and radio magazines issued certificates and awards to recognize various levels of DX achievement. The IDA called its awards "degrees," and in 1935 established the requirements for the Doctor of Short Waves (D.S.W.) degree. Here is a file containing some D.S.W. items from the IDA bulletin, The Globe Circler, starting with the original proposal, in May 1935; the rules (August); and the first conferrals of the D.S.W. (October). Finally, we have posted the announcement (in May 1937) of the conferral of the "degree" on one L. D. Brewer of Phoenix, Arizona, plus the actual diploma issued to him on December 10, 1936. This was Diploma No. 15. It is signed by club president Charles A. Morrison, and the IDA director for the club's second district (Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico), August Balbi, who would for decades be among the country's top shortwave DXers.

IDA. "Ama-Touring" - Roger Legge is usually remembered as a shortwave broadcast DXer. However, while not an amateur operator himself, he was also an active ham band listener and editor of ham band DX news. Starting in early 1937, Roger edited "Ama-Touring," a then-new standalone supplement to the monthly Globe Circler bulletin of the International DXers Alliance. The assistant editor was LeRoy Waite (who would serve as NNRC amateur editor from 1952 to 1969). "Ama-Touring" was moved into the bulletin proper in the summer of 1940, replacing the club's mediumwave coverage. The IDA closed in July 1943. "Ama-Touring," with Roger as editor, reappeared in May 1955 as a column in Popular Electronics magazine. But its life there was short, lasting only until January 1956. Here are three copies of the IDA "Ama-Touring" (with a few graphics added). They are from May 1939 (incorrectly marked May 1937 in the original masthead), March 1940, and May 1940. We have also posted Roger's introductory "Ama-Touring" column in PE.

ISWC. Station List - Before there was a World Radio Handbook (1947), shortwave fans got their information from magazines and club bulletins, and some standalone publications. The heart of the International Short Wave Club bulletin was usually member loggings, general news, and an hourly guide to what was on the air, but on at least one occasion the format switched to a by-country presentation of station slogans, transmitter power, interval signals, and station addresses, giving members a good idea of the overall shape of the shortwave broadcasting scene in the geographic areas covered. Here is the August 1937 issue of the bulletin.

ISWC. The Founding of the International Short Wave Club in Klondyke, Ohio by George Zeller.

ISWC. "Hearing All Continents" is a well-established mark of achievement among shortwave listeners. Where did the concept come from? The answer may be the International Short Wave Club, which was established in 1929. In the December 1931 issue of the club bulletin, International Short Wave Radio, a member suggested the idea. The club picked it up and set up a program for an HAC award for verified reception of stations on all continents. Two years later, in December 1933, the editor observed that while the award had thus far received little support from the membership, new interest was then being displayed. The rules evolved over time, and were layed out in detail in the October 1936 issue of the club bulletin. Thanks to ontheshortwaves supporter Bob Ballantine of Warren, Ohio, we have also posted the HAC certificate of ISWC member Harry V. Miner. Miner's name is listed in the 1936 bulletin among the HAC recipients at the "6 stations per continent" level. The certificate is from a later stage in Miner's DX career, as it contains nine seals (9 stations per continent).

ISWC. International Short Wave Club - If you were in the know about shortwave in 1931, you were a member of the International Short Wave Club, Klondyke, Ohio. It was early days for shortwave broadcasting, and hard news about stations and frequencies was hard to come by. The ISWC, founded in 1929, was the best source. Here is the January 1931 issue of the club's bulletin. It contained some information about hams and commercial stations too, but SWBC soon became its focus.

ISWC. "Short Wave Hints and Helps" - Here is a pamphlet from the International Short Wave Club when it was headquarterd in East Liverpool, Ohio. This primer describes the club and gives information on how to identify stations, how and where to send reports, etc. The ISWC operated from the U.S. from 1929 to 1942 and from the U.K. from 1946 to approximately 1970. This pamphlet is undated, but from the station lists I would place it in the mid 1930s. For a fuller history of the club, see George Zeller's article,< "The Founding of the International Short Wave Club in Klondyke, Ohio."

ISWC. The ISWC Anti-Jamming Campaign - After the International Short Wave Club ceased operations in the U.S. in May 1942 and reappeared in the U.K. four years later, its two best known hobby-wide projects would be its periodic shortwave station popularity polls and the ISWC anti-jamming campaign. The anti-jamming campaign was basically a personal project of the club's leader, Arthur Bear. It began in 1956. It was not universally embraced within the hobby, in part due to the stridency of ISWC statements on the subject. Bear named not only the jammers and the western stations that were said to incite the jamming, but also those hobby organizations that did not fully embrace the anti-jamming campaign. Here are four front pages of ISWC bulletins from 1958 which illustrate the tone of the campaign.

ISWL. International Short Wave League - Pt. I - This time we start a three-part series of postings about the early days of the International Short Wave League of the U.K. (not to be confused with the International Short Wave Club, which was also based in the U.K. after World War II). The ISWL was formed in 1946, not as a separate club but as a project of Short Wave News magazine, which was founded in January of the same year and published by Amalgamated Short Wave Press of London. Although increasingly the focus of both the League and the magazine became amateur and technical topics, they offered good coverage of shortwave broadcast listening as well. Each month one or more pages of the magazine was devoted to League activities, which were many and varied. Here is a file containing the magazine's introduction of the League (in October 1946), and the "League" pages from a dozen Short Wave News issues from 1946 to 1951. (Short Wave News became The Radio Amateur in 1952.)

ISWL. International Short Wave League - Pt. II - Continuing our coverage of the International Short Wave League, here is a file containing samples of the monthly report on shortwave broadcast DXing that was published in ISWL's parent magazine, Short Wave News. At first the column was called "Around the Broadcast Bands," edited by the unnamed "Monitor." Later the name was changed to "Broadcast Bands Commentary," and still later "Broadcast Bands Review." These columns are from the years 1946 to 1953. (Short Wave News magazine became The Radio Amateur in 1952.) Also we have posted a photo of the very nice ISWL pin that club members could purchase.

ISWL. International Short Wave League - Pt. III - In December 1951, Short Wave News announced that henceforth the International Short Wave League would be an independent organization rather than a project of the magazine. To wrap up our coverage of the ISWL, we have posted that announcement, together with two later copies of the ISWL bulletin (September 1965 and June 1967.) The bulletin was called "Monitor." It is worth noting that even after the club separated from the magazine, Short Wave News continued its own coverage of SWBC DX listening. (The magazine became The Radio Amateur in 1952.). The ISWL lives on http://www.iswl.org.uk/.

ISWRL. International Short Wave Radio News - Here is an early shortwave bulletin (1930), International Short Wave Radio News, from the International Short Wave Radio League, headquartered in Boston. This is Vol. 1, No. 1, and features some interesting items, including an article about shortwave on Java (now part of Indonesia, then called the Dutch East Indies); a list of time zones (including such interesting ones as Holland at GMT+20 minutes, Bolivia at GMT-4 hrs., 33 min., and Colombia at GMT-4 hrs. 57 mins.); a list of international broadcasters (shown with wavelength only, no frequencies); and some station addresses. And if you are interested in joining, you can send your dollar for one year's dues, along with the application shown, and see what happens.

JR. RADIO GUILD. The Junior Radio Guild - Here is an article about the Junior Radio Guild, which functioned during the years 1928-31.

MWDXC. Midwest DX Club - The Midwest DX Club was born circa 1968. Its key man, and Executive Editor of the club bulletin, was David R. Alpert of Morton Grove, Illinois. MWDXC was an all wave club, and a member of ANARC. Here are two copies of the club's monthly bulletin, MWDXC Journal, one from 1971and another from 1972. The club closed in July 1973, by which time it had over 100 members.

NASWA. 40 Years of the North American Shortwave Association by Don Jensen.

NNRC. "Stations Out of the Past" - When Sam Barto was editing the "Statistics and QSLs" column for the NNRC in September 1974, he posted a page of "Stations Out of the Past." See if you remember these stations.

NNRC. NNRC 1938 Constitution & By-Laws - Most shortwave clubs tried to operate in a democratic fashion, but they usually became "key man" operations. The Newark News Radio Club was probably the best-structured of all the clubs. Here is a copy of their 1938 Constitution & By-Laws.

NNRC. Jack Poppele - If you are interested in deep radio history, you should be a member of the Antique Wireless Association. The AWA Journal is published approximately four times a year and covers all aspects of radio's early days. In addition, there is the annual AWA Review for longer pieces. Two papers in the most recent AWA Review should be of special interest to DXers. "Jack R. Poppele, Radio Engineer," and "Highlights of the Jack Poppele Collection Recently Donated to the AWA Museum," both by Mike Molnar, chronicle the history of this important figure in radio and TV engineering. Jack Poppele was chief engineer at WOR, which carried programs for the Newark News Radio Club. He was appointed Director of the Voice of America in 1953, and the VOA Delano station was named after him in 1992. Jack was from New Jersey, and in addition to his many contributions to the electronics industry he was an important patron of the NNRC, serving as honorary president. These papers are reproduced from the 2019 issue of the AWA Review, Vol. 32, by permission of the Antique Wireless Association. For another AWA paper, about the history of Heathkits, look under "Equipment and Advertising," below. And check out the AWA at www.antiquewireless.org

NNRC. "Newark News Radio Club--The Very Early Days" - It recently came to light that the Newark Evening News, parent to the venerable Newark News Radio Club (originally the Newark News DX Club), is available on microfilm. A review was made of some copies of the paper from the years 1927-28, when the NNRC was born, and some from 1931. Here is a 15-page summary, with graphics, covering what was found.

NNRC. Another NNRC History - The NNRC was long an important part of American DX history and here is yet another history of the venerable club. This one is from the January 1937 issue of All-Wave Radio magazine. It is written by Bernard Ahman and gives the flavor of the club's early years.

NNRC. NNRC "Historical Musing" - We have already posted a number of histories of the NNRC (below). Here is an "historical musing" by NNRC member Arthur E. Forester. It appeared in the December 1935 issue of RADEX. It contains some interesting memories of the club's early days (the club was eight years old in 1935), with a focus on the Courtesy Programs Committee, which was a major NNRC activity. Up until December 1935 the club had been devoted entirely to broadcast band DXing. It was that same month and year that the first shortwave column appeared in the NNRC bulletin.

NNRC. NNRC "Statistics"- From Jim Cumbie of Texas, here is the "Statistics" column from the December 1956 issue of the Newark News Radio Club Bulletin

NNRC. Newark News Radio Club - We have posted two copies of the NNRC Bulletin from 1937. The March 22 issue was one of the weekly issues, while the June 15 issue was a monthly. Even in those early years you can see some of the same look and feel that would be familiar to NNRC members decades later.

NNRC. Newark News Radio Club - If there is a shortwave club that was entitled to call itself "venerable," it was the Newark News Radio Club. It traced its roots back to 1928. Alas the end for the NNRC came in April 1982. Here is that month's bulletin, the club's last. The introductory message from President Eugene Vonderembse explains the situation as it was. Of particular interest is Hank Bennett's column, where he reprises his years with the club. The announcement from Charles Wackerman (page "BCB Supplement") led to the formation of the Association of DX Reporters, which remained in operation until 1995.

NNRC. Newark News Radio Club - Several histories of the Newark News Radio Club that were published in the NNRC bulletin to commemorate the club's 25th, 40th and 50th anniversaries. Also shown is a 1962 newspaper obituary of Irving Potts, President and guiding light of the NNRC, and a photo from 1956 taken at the summer NNRC Convention.

NNRC. More NNRC History - Specifically from the July 1965 issue. One page of that issue contains an interesting summary of some of the newspaper coverage of DX back in 1928, drawn from the Newark Sunday Call and the Newark Sunday News of that year. In addition, the front page of the bulletin contains a reference to a 1932 broadcast from 15-watt Brantford, Ontario medium wave station 10-BQ. It so happens that a recent QSL collection received by the Committee to Preserve Radio Verifications from Sidney R. Steele of Toledo, Ohio contains a QSL from 10-BQ (1933), and also QSLs from Stratford, Ont. station 10-AK (1935) and Wingham, Ont. station 10-BP (1933, 25 watts).

NNRC. 1951 NNRC Convention - For many years, through 1951, the NNRC held a summer convention at a place called Mapine Farm (Lansdale, PA), which was the home of NNRCers Harold and Mary Robinson. The accompanying report on the 1951 convention describes what these events were like. And from an early NNRC bulletin we have a map of how to get there!

NNRC. More 1951 NNRC Convention - Here is a look at Mapine Farm today, site of the 1951 NNRC convention, in Lansdale, PA.

NNRC. "Two Decades of Service to DX-ers" - We have already posted histories of the NNRC written in 1952, 1967 and 1977. Here is another, earlier version written by Carleton Lord and appearing in the December 1947 edition of the NNRC Bulletin.

NNRC. NNRC "High Frequencies" Column, 1942-1945 - Ever wonder what was on the shortwave bands in the 1940s? Here are copies of four NNRC "High Frequencies" shortwave sections from 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1945. Gustav Siegfried Eins-9545, Radio Saigon-11780, Radio Congo Belge-11720, Radio Centre Moscow-15750, VE9AI-9540, XGOY-11900 . . . sigh!

NRC. National Radio Club Shortwave Columns - We tend to forget that the National Radio Club, which today is a mediumwave-only club, once covered shortwave as well. It was founded as mediumwave-only in 1933, but the NRC bulletin had a shortwave column as well from 1935 to 1944 (and a ham band listening column from 1937 to 1940). Here is a file of eight NRC shortwave columns from 1943, specifically the January 9, February 27, March 6, April 24, May 15, June 19, July 17 and August 14 columns. Back then the bulletin was published weekly during the DX season (October through March), monthly otherwise.

NZDXC. The New Zealand DX-Tra - The first major DX listeners club in New Zealand was the New Zealand DX Club. It traced its roots to Radio Record magazine in 1929 and became independent ten years later. For many years, Arthur Cushen was the shortwave editor of the club's monthly bulletin, The New Zealand DX-Tra. Here is a copy of the bulletin from January 1946. As you can see, much of it focused on mediumwave reception. The NZDXC closed in 1948.

NZRDXL. New Zealand Radio DX League - In honor of the club's 60th anniversary, a special supplement to the October 2008 New Zealand DX Times has been published. It contains several interesting items about DXing in New Zealand: the very first issue (October 1948) of the New Zealand DX Times; "The Origins of DXing in New Zealand" by Barry C. Williams; a two-part article, "The Great Mob," by Frank Glen; "My Great DX Hobby" by the late Jack Fox; "Radio New Zealand International: The Voice of New Zealand, Broadcasting to the Pacific" by Andrew M. Clark; and "This Radio Age--The Biggest Little Programme in International Broadcasting," which summarizes the show's content for 1953. Thanks to the NZRDXL for permission to post this interesting material on ontheshortwaves.

QUIXOTE. The Quixote Radio Club was founded in 1933. Originally located in Hendersonville, North Carolina, it soon decamped for Santa Barbara, California, and stayed in operation until around 1941. It professed a greater interest in program content than other clubs, but its bulletin, The Short Wave Reporter, was no less DX oriented. The first item in most issues was a writeup about a particular station, e.g. "Hear Mozambique," "Hear Hong Kong," etc. These often included brief comments about the program, the dial location in relation to other known stations, interference the listener might encounter, etc. We have extracted some these features from the QRC bulletins for the years 1936-39, added QSLs of the stations, and present the results here. The first two groups are from Africa and the Americas.

QUIXOTE. Quixote Radio Club II - We conclude our presentation of the station features from the Quixote Radio Club bulletin, with QSLs added. The two new files are "Hear Europe" and "Hear Asia."

QUIXOTE. Quixote Radio Club - Here is what appears to be the first issue of Short Wave Reporter, the monthly publication of the Quixote Radio Club of Santa Barbara, California, which issued a weekly bulletin between its founding in 1933 and October 1936, the date of this issue. As you can see from the introductory pages, the club offered some interesting services. The data in the text list starting on p. 6 looks like the kind of thing that any DXer of the day would be happy to have (note that it is arranged by station call letters rather than alphabetically by country). The "F.B." log shows the stations that were operating every 10 kc.; each issue covered one or more different bands.

RADEX. "RADEX Radio Map of the World" - In addition to the magazine, which was published from 1924 to 1942, RADEX (Radio Index) occasionally issued other DX-related items. Here is the "RADEX Radio Map of the World." It is dated 1932, which was early in the history of shortwave (it was the year the BBC Empire Service was inaugurated.) The "RADEX Radio Map of the World" measured 11" square, and was of four-sided, fold-out design. On the front was a time converter wheel. You set it at your time, and you could then read the time in other countries (or vice versa). On the back was a list of countries, their radio prefixes and time zones. (Time zones were considerably less standardized then.) Inside was a map of the world.

RADEX. "Leaves From a DXer's Scrapbook" - For many decades, at least before the internet, national clubs were the major way for SWLs to stay in touch with one another. However, club membership was often supplemented by gatherings of local DX groups. Such groups have existed for many years, as evidenced by this article from the May 1939 issue of RADEX (Radio Index) magazine. It reviews the activities of some of the local groups of the day. The author, "Count de Veries," was the well-known BCB DXer Carleton Lord.

RADIO CANADA. Radio Canada Short Wave Club - Here are a few issues of the bulletin of the Radio Canada Short Wave Club, including the last issue (January-February 1971): No. 25 - Sep 1969, No. 30 - Feb 1970, No. 38 - Jan-Feb 1971. The corresponding bi-weekly Saturday program of the same name started in 1962. The club president was S. Basil (Pip) Duke, a Londoner (U.K.) who had an extensive military, engineering, and broadcasting background before joining the CBC in 1954 and becoming Supervisor of Engineering Services for the CBC's shortwave broadcasts. From 1967 to 1971 the club had a regular bulletin with news about the CBC International Service, member profiles and lists of members seeking pen pals, member loggings, shortwave-related features and the like. The club left the air in 1975. RCI introduced a weekly "DX Digest" in 1977 (it became "SWL Digest" in 1981).

RNM. Radio Nuevo Mundo Pennants - The Radio Nuevo Mundo DX listeners group, headquartered in Japan, issued its own pennants from time to time. Here are some examples (please let us know if you have any others). And look under "Specialized Resources/DX Newsletters" for some samples of the RNM monthly bulletin.

SCDX. Sweden Calling DXers - Here are some early "scripts" of "Sweden Calling DXers." The program, which was broadcast over Radio Sweden on Tuesday nights, mailed these two-sided DX sheets to contributors, and they were a valuable source of DX news. SCDX began in 1948. It morphed into MediaScan in the 1980s, but by then was focused on satellite broadcasting rather than shortwave. The editor who was most associated with SCDX is Arne Skoog, who died in 1999. These scripts are from 1960, 1961, 1962 and 1963, and come to us from Bob LaRose of San Diego, California, who was active during the 1960s.

TFAE. Teknik för Alla Eterklubb - Here are several items from a Swedish club, Teknik för Alla Eterklubb. These are: a reception report card, a club pin, and a QSL for a special broadcast via Poland that was sponsored by the club in 1957. According to the list of Swedish clubs here, the club operated from 1952 to 1970, and Swedish DXer Jan Tunér remembers it. "The first editor was Hugo Gustafsson, followed by Lars Rydén and then Bengt Dalhammar. I took over in 1966. TFAE was a part of the technical magazine Teknik för Alla [Technology for Everyone], and during the 1950s there were thousands of members. You could have a free membership card, buy reception report cards, a pin, diplomas, etc.  It sponsored many shortwave competitions. The great competitor was the other technical magazine, Teknikens Värld [World of Technology], which also had a DX club. Neither one was what we would usually call a 'club,' but they contributed considerably to the popularity of DX."

TOLEDO. Toledo Radio Club - We posted an article, "Leaves From A DXer's Scrapbook," from the May 1939 RADEX (below). It contained a discussion of local clubs, including the Toledo Radio Club. Here is a copy of their club bulletin, some related SWL cards, and a holiday card from club President Ray Lewis. The bulletin is dated August 11, 1936.

UNITED 49ers. United 49ers Radio Society - One of the popular if lesser known shortwave clubs of the 1950s was the United 49ers Radio Society. It operated from 1949 to 1954 and covered SWBC and ham listening. Here are three of the club's bulletins from those days: August-September 1952, March 1953, and September 1953.

UDXC. Universal DX Club - The Universal Radio DX Club (URDXC) is well-remembered in DX history, but do you remember the Universal DX Club (no "Radio")? It was active in the 1930s. Here is a copy of the UDXC's bulletin for March 1, 1938. Like most of the clubs of that era, it covered both shortwave and the broadcast band. Note on the first page the innovative plan for boosting membership, which apparently was not successful--the club was absorbed by the NNRC later in the year. On page 3 there is reference to the BBC's Arabic program, and the expectation that it would soon start broadcasts in Spanish and Portuguese. These were the first foreign-language broadcasts from the BBC, which transmitted only in English until Arabic started up on January 3, 1938 (Spanish and Portuguese followed on March 14).

URDXC. Universalite - Here is a copy of the July 1956 issue of the Universalite, bulletin of the Universal Radio DX Club. Founded in 1933, and in operation until 1961, it was usually published monthly, twice monthly from October to April. The club was run by Charles C. Norton of Hayward (later Vallejo) California. By the post-war years, broadcast band coverage had been dropped and, as this issue illustrates, the bulletin was split between SWBC (including utility stations) and amateur listening. Over time, ham band coverage declined and SWBC coverage increased, and by the late 1950s the URDXC was principally a SWBC club. Among its shortwave editors were such well-known DXers as Marvin E. Robbins, Al Niblack, Robert J. Hill, David Morgan, John A. Callarman, William F. Flynn, Ernest R. Behr, and C. M. Stanbury II.

URDXC. "World DX Convention" July 11-14, 1939 - Some time ago we posted information about the "IDA DX Festival" in San Francisco, which was sponsored by the International DXers Alliance on July 8-11, 1939. It must have been a big week for DXers in that city, for the Universal Radio DX Club sponsored its own "World DX Convention" on July 11-14, right after the IDA gathering. Here is a URDXC brochure about the convention. The URDXC, the "Pioneer Radio Club of the Golden West," had a long life. It operated from 1933 to 1961. The convention brochure contains some interesting history of the club, which, as can be seen, had some colorful members, not the least of whom was "Count Alexis (Ollie) Ross" of Vallejo, California, who surely must have written his own bio. For more on Count Ollie, read this article by Bob Ballantine, W8SU.

URDXC. Universal Radio DX Club - Previously we had posted a 1956 copyof the Universalite, bulletin of the Universal Radio DX Club. Now we have gone back another decade and posted two earlier issues, one from June 1, 1945 and another from November 1, 1946. Many of the top DXers of the day belonged to the URDXC.

VRC. Victory Radio Club - DXing dropped off sharply during World War II. Some major clubs closed up shop, and the rest were just getting by. One club that started during the war was the Victory Radio Club. It was formed in 1942 by the editors and reporters of Radio Index (RADEX), a popular DX magazine which had ceased publishing that year. The club was headquartered at first in Worcester, Massachusetts (Ray LaRocque), later in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (Art Hankins). It covered mainly the standard broadcast and the shortwave broadcast bands, and it published a bulletin--at first called Victory News, later just --and, in the earlier days, a VRC Flash Sheet. Members participation fell off, however, and the club was absorbed into the Universal Radio DX Club in 1946. Here are several issues of the club's bulletin: December 5, 1942; November 5, 1945; February 4, 1946; and July 1, 1946.

WORLD COMM. CLUB. World Communications Club CONTACT - The World DX Club (UK) closed at the end of 2012. In 1968 it had replaced the World Communications Club, which had itself, in 1965, been a new incarnation of the two year-old Sudbury World Communications Club. Through it all the name of the bulletin remained CONTACT. Here is a copy of the July 1967 issue of the World Communications Club CONTACT (at which time the bulletin was edited by Alan Thompson).

OTHER MATERIAL

Trinkets-III - Here is another group of radio-related trinkets, mostly from traditional member-based clubs: (1) A pin from the Newark News DX Club, which was how the Newark News Radio Club (NNRC) was known from its founding in 1927 until around 1933; (2) A pin from the International Short Wave Club (ISWC), which was in existence from 1929 to around 1980;(3) A pin from the ham-oriented International Short Wave League (ISWL), founded in 1946 by a U.K. magazine, independent from 1951, and still operating; (4) A patch from the North American Shortwave Association (NASWA), born in 1961 and still going strong; (5) An ANARC button (Association of North American Radio Clubs, 1962-2005); (6) A Mexican coin, which the National Radio Club gave to attendees at its 1969 NRC convention in McAllen, Texas, for spending in nearby Reynosa, Mexico; (7) A pin from the Radio Club of America, originally the Junior Wireless Club, which traces its roots to 1907 and is still in existence. Not a listener club, the RCA over the years has included many leaders in the invention and development of the radio industry.

Trinkets-IV - Last time, we posted a small group of trinkets that were mostly from traditional-style radio clubs. This time, under "DX History/Clubs & Publications," we have a group of pins from "clubs" that were usually sponsored by equipment manufacturers or radio magazines. The magazine "clubs" were formed to promote the magazines or encourage contributions to various columns. The pins shown are from: (1) The American Bosch Radio Explorers Club, with its "commander and master mariner" James P. Barker, operated in the mid-1930s. It was often mentioned in American Bosch advertisements, alongside letters from customers attesting to their DX feats while using an American Bosch receiver. What do the letters "AMNH," to the left of the ship, stand for? For a time there was also an American Bosch Radio Explorers Club program on NBC; (2) Sparton Radio Explorers Club. The origins of this club are unknown; perhaps it paralleled the American Bosch club, but for the Sparton receiver line; (3) Junior Radio Guild. The history of this one can be found here.; (4) Radio International Guild. Two pins; the Guild was sponsored by Pilot Radio & Tube Corp.; (5) Radio League of America. This League was a Gernsback-sponsored group of wireless experimenters founded in 1915, and this was their official button (cost: 20 cents, including postage); (6) Short Wave League. The League was sponsored by Short Wave Craft magazine; (7) World-Wide Radio Club. This is another unknown club. Anyone recognize the geography shown on the pin?; (8) Radio Association of America. An advertiser in radio magazines in the 1920s, this group was devoted to promoting radio servicing as a career.

"Treasure Island All-Wave Radio Log" - We have already posted material about the two 1939 DX conventions in San Francisco: the "IDA DX Festival," July 8-11, which was sponsored by the International DXers Alliance; and the "World DX Convention," July 11-14, which was sponsored (or at least promoted) by the Universal Radio DX Club. Now we have another piece of DX memorabilia, issued in connection with the July 11-14 meeting: the "Treasure Island All-Wave Radio Log." The inside spread is a "Western World-Wave Station Log," listing many shortwave stations, with times and frequencies, along with a list of English-language news broadcasts. The outside pages contain broadcast band information. The exact origins of this item are unclear. The cover says it was compiled by "the western representatives of the country's leading DX Radio Clubs." Inside, comments to an unnamed "Secretary" at a Berkeley, California address are solicited. Treasure Island was the San Francisco location of the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition ("world's fair").

Membership Cards & Certificates - Radio clubs flourished in the 1950s and 1960s and members would often receive cards or certificates upon joining. Here is an assortment of membership cards and certificates issued to the late California DXer, Bill Flynn.

Shortwave Clubs and World War II - It was 60 years ago, in January 1942, that the war had its most dramatic effect on the shortwave listening hobby. The January bulletins of both the International Short Wave Club, headquartered in East Liverpool, Ohio, and the International DXers Alliance, in Normal, Illinois, took note of Pearl Harbor that had occurred the month before, and how things had changed. The ISWC carried on until May 1942, the IDXA until July 1943. Here are a few pages from their bulletins of those days, giving a flavor of the times.

Some scans from Henrik Klemetz of early DXing publications, this time two from Sweden. "Sweden Calling DXers," one of the best known DX programs of all time, was on the air from 1948 to 2001 (by then it was called MediaScan). In addition to the weekly radio program, "SCDX" issued a weekly printed DX sheet. Here are pictures of the front and back of No. 187, September 22, 1951. Regarding the music shown on the back, Henrik notes: "This is ALL the music that was broadcast in the course of ONE WEEK on the sole home service channel of Radio Sweden. No wonder Swedes turned to shortwave for some more music."Next are four covers of Nattugglan, or "The Night Owl," which was the first and foremost DX monthly in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The covers are from May 1948, January 1949, January 1950 and August 1951. Also shown is a copy of an advertisement for the World Radio Handbook that appeared in a 1948 issue of Nattugglan. (Henrik passed away in 2019.)


LISTS, LOGS, GUIDES & COLUMNS

1922. "Official Radiophone Broadcast Map" - The "Official Radiophone Broadcast Map" accompanied the May 1922 issue of Science and Invention magazine. This was 19 months after the first broadcast over KDKA. It is a map of the United States with red dots showing where the broadcast stations were located. You could look up the city in the map’s border and find call letters, wavelength, and map coordinates. As explained in the instructions in the magazine (which were accompanied by additional station information), Science and Invention committed itself to publishing the information on new stations each month, from which the reader could update their map.

1923. "Radio Encyclopedia and Call Book" - If you were a "radiotrician" back in 1923, you wouldn’t leave home without this pocket-size, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink book. Among its contents: callsigns, time signals, Morse code, "simplified electricity," time zones, aerials, units of measure, and lists of broadcasting stations.

1923. Pittsburgh Press "Radio Broadcasting Stations" - A very early BCB "log," this one from the Pittsburgh Press, owner of station WCAE. The log must have been the property of R. B. Dakin, whose name is penned in at the top of the cover. The size is 3-1/2"W x 6-1/2"H. To put the date in perspective, KDKA came on the air in November 1920, and the "broadcasting boom" took off in 1922 after a slow start in 1921. This item is dated January 1, 1923, and is thus from the time when the boom was really booming. It is hard to believe that so many stations had come on the air in so short a time, although it is worth noting that stations came and went quickly and some licensees never made it on the air at all. What makes this item especially interesting is that it lists the owners of the stations. Everyone wanted to get into the radio act, it seems, from the American Legion in Lincoln, Nebraska (WGAT) to the Motor Service Station in Casper, Wyoming (KFCQ) to St. Patrick's Cathedral in El Paso, Texas (WPAT). Note the handwritten notes on the third to the last image.

1924. KSD Radio Log - Here is a 1924 radio log from KSD, St. Louis, Missouri. The station was owned by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper, and the log contains, in addition to the usual list of stations, much information about the paper and the station.

1924. White's Mileage and Radio Call Book - Although White's Radio Log was not the first AM station log, it became the best known; and while it disappeared for a time in the 1950s and again in the 1980s, it also had the longest overall lifespan. Known under various names in its early days, the first issue was published in 1924, and the last in 1985. Here is a very early copy of White's, known as White's Mileage and Radio Call Book. This was probably not the first issue of White's; however, this one was published in 1924, which was White's first year of publication. It lists stations by call letters and states (but not by frequency, which came later). It was published in Rhode Island, and the New England flavor of this edition is evident by the mileage chart (p. 16) that is based on Boston, and the hours of operation (p. 18) "of the principal broadcasting stations commonly heard by Mass. radio fans."

1924. "Radiofoto Log" - True to its name, the emphasis of the 8x11" "Radiofoto Log" is on photos, specifically, pictures of 33 U.S. broadcast stations of 1924 (mostly personalities and station interiors), plus two Canadians and 6KW in Cuba. For good measure there are some station lists at the end.

1925. WSKC Radio Log - WSKC was located in Bay City, Michigan. It went on the air in 1925, and was owned by the World’s Star Knitting Company, offering "World Star Service from Yarn to You." This log is undated but looks like it is from the 1920s. In addition to the usual station list, there is information about the station facilities and equipment, and much about the manufacturing process and the mill. There are many photos, including one"view of looping machines which join the upper part of the reinforced toe of hosiery to the foot of the hose" (inquiring minds wanted to know).

1925. 1925 Station Lists - We are so used to going to the WRTH or the internet for basic shortwave station information that it is almost impossible to imagine a time when such information was not available. Before the WRTH, listeners had to rely mainly on shortwave station lists of varying detail which were published in magazines, or the occasional list put out by the Department of Commerce. What was the first list of non-amateur shortwave stations? It's hard to say for certain, but a strong candidate would be one that appeared in the August 1925 issue of QST and was reprinted in the August 2, 1925 issue of The New York Times. It had 48 entries (frequencies). Most were commercial or experimental stations, but some were directly related to shortwave broadcasting: KDKA and 8XS (the original KDKA shortwave call); GE station 2XI, predecessor to W2XAF (later WGEO); KFKX, the KDKA relay station in Hastings, Nebraska that rebroadcast KDKA's shortwave signal; and 1XAO in Belfast, Maine, an RCA station used to pick up 5XX longwave from England and relay it on shortwave to RCA New York, from which it was rebroadcast on the standard broadcast band. Keep in mind that at the time, KDKA and 2XI (plus perhaps a very experimental WLW shortwave simulcast, 8XAL) were the only shortwave broadcast stations on the air, anywhere. The Times list differed slightly from the QST list. Call letters were different in a few cases, and a couple of entries were omitted. The original QST list was found to contain a number of errors (there were some typos, it got some station locations mixed up, and it listed 1XAO as Belfast, Ireland instead of Belfast, Maine), and so a revised list was published in the September QST. For shortwave experimenters, this list was probably big news at the time. Here is a file containing the three lists--the QST original, the Times reprint, and the QST correction.

1927. Kohler & Campbell Radio Log - In the 1920s, and even later, medium wave "radio logs," with lists of stations and places to enter dial readings were issued as promotional items by many different kinds of organizations--schools, markets, shoe companies, insurance firms, and, as this week's colorful item attests, piano companies, in this case Kohler & Campbell of Littleton, New Hampshire. This is from 1927. Note that station channels are shown only in meters, not kilocycles, and the original owner has enteerd a couple of dial readings from long ago.

1929. Radio Design (1929) - A 1929 article about the shortwave broadcasting stations of the world, their times and frequencies. It also included a world time chart. This is the first of several such articles that appeared in the magazine Radio Design, the house organ of the Pilot Radio and Tube Corp., Brooklyn manufacturer of the "Wasp" series of shortwave receivers. We will present more from Radio Design in the future.

1930. Radio Design (Spring 1930) - Another review of SW logs from the Pilot Radio & Tube Corp. house organ, Radio Design, this time the Spring 1930 isue. Actually, the heart of these logs is a reprint of part of the February 10, 1930 issue of the bulletin of the International Short Wave Club of Klondyke, Ohio. There is an introductory feature about the club, including a photo of the club's founder, Arthur J. Green. For the definitive history of the ISWC, see George Zeller's article, "The Founding of the International Short Wave Club in Klondyke, Ohio."

1932. Tung-Sol "World Radio Log and Map" - We recently posted the 1932 Tung-Sol "World Radio Log and Map."< Now we have posted three later versions: 1934, 1935 and 1937 (the latter two are almost identical). In those days Tung-Sol was a major manufacturer of vacuum tubes.

1930s. The Philips Daily Shortwave Guide - From the U.K., the "Philips Daily Shortwave Guide, arranged by the hour" contains no date but appears to be from the 1930s. The U.S. stations exchanged their "X" calls for four-letter calls in 1939, and this booklet still reflects the former. Note the reference to "Br. India," and the use of wavelength rather than frequency.

1930s. Station ID Sheet - A sheet from Radio News containing info on IDs and interval signals from shortwave stations. This appears to be from the 1930s.

1933. The "Practical Wireless Radio Atlas and Wavelength Guide" and "Answers—World Radio Atlas, Gazetteer and Log Book" are another example of an early radio log with "dual parentage." Judging from the note on the inside front cover of each, these must have been printed in 1933. The two publications, from the U.K., appear to be identical. At the beginning there is a combined list of short, medium and long wave stations in Europe, arranged by city ("The Concerts of Europe); at the end there is a similar list of non-European stations ("The Broadcasts of the World"); and in between are maps of the continents, with red dots at the station locations (the lists contain reference points so a specific "station dot" can be found on the maps).

1933. "Radio Map of Europe" - Here is a very nice map from a 1933 publication called "IDEAS." The map covers a longwave and mediumwave frequency realignment plan that was to take effect in January 1934. The plan is explained in the text at the top of the map, with station-by-station detail shown in the columns on the left and right side of the map. Zoom in to read the fine print.

1934. "Atwater Kent World-Wide Radio Station Directory" - The mid-1930s were the end of the line for the famous radio manufacturer Atwater Kent; the company closed in 1936. But two years prior to that they issued the "Atwater Kent World-Wide Radio Station Directory." There were two editions, both issued in 1934; the first had a green cover, the second tan. They share much of the same content, but they are not identical. Note the inside back cover of the green version, where some unknown BCB DXer of almost 90 years ago entered his logs and dial readings.

1934. "RCA Victor Globe Trotter Radio Log" - This promotional item is somewhat similar to the 1934 "RCA Victor World-Wide Radio" log that we have posted earlier. It contains much info about shortwave, including lists of stations, both shortwave and broadcast band, and particular places to listen for. Also included in this file: a "personalog" to note dial readings, and more detailed information sheets on the all-wave eight- and six-tube shortwave receivers.

1934. Haynes' Long and Short Wave Radio Log Book - Here is the 1934 edition of the Haynes' Long and Short Wave Radio Log Book. Many groups gave radio logs as favors to members and others. This one is from Mel Tierney Post, No. 247, American Legion, in Park Ridge, Illinois. Note the promotion for the Chicago Short Wave Club in the section, "Principal Short Wave Stations Being Heard in America."

1934. The RCA-Cunningham-Radiotron "World Wide Radio Tours" Map - What DXer doesn't like maps? Here is one from 1934 called the RCA-Cunningham-Radiotron "World Wide Radio Tours" map. On one side it has a world map showing the call letters of many of the principal shortwave stations of the world, together with frequency references along the left and right hand borders and other useful info about time, power, and frequency bands at the bottom. Zoom in for detail. On the other side is a map of the United States with the call letters of numerous broadcast band stations, plus a frequency index and a writeup about a "yardstick" to gauge the performance of your receiver. There are also some "Tips on Radio Touring," and, of course, ads for RCA Radiotron tubes.

1934. RCA Victor World-Wide Radio - This pamphlet was published in 1934. RCA introduced its first all wave radios in 1933, just as "all wave" was becoming a consumer sensation. This pamphlet promoted shortwave and facilitated customers' use of their new receivers. It covers many of the basics of SWLing--time changes, propagation, the types of signals heard on shortwave, etc. It also contains a listing of the times and frequencies of many of the shortwave broadcast stations of the day. It closes (p. 11) with a brief promotion for "the Short-Wave Club" in Klondyke, Ohio (by which it means the International Short Wave Club), and for the Electrical Division, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, U.S. Department of Commerce, which in 1934 published the first "official" shortwave station list in the U.S., "World Short-Wave Radiophone Transmitters."

1934. The Silvertone World Wide Radio Log of 1934 - Silvertone was a Sears brand, and the Silvertone "logs" were published into at least the late 1940s, albeit in a smaller format in the latter years. This issue contains, in addition to the expected advertising for Silvertone receivers and other radio products, lists of U.S. BCB stations, a world time chart and a time zone map, "Ten Rules for Better Short Wave Reception," "How to identify Most popular Stations by Their Signatures," and "World's Shortwave Stations" and "Best Short Wave Stations" (by frequency).

1934. Scott Allwave Short Wave Station Schedule - Here is another E. H. Scott item, a brochure called the "Scott Allwave Short Wave Station Schedule." This is a 1934 item containing news of the BBC, France, Germany, Spain, and Australia, a chart covering the transmissions of U.S. and foreign shortwave stations, and instructions on "How To Tune On Short Waves With Scott Allwave Fifteen."

1934. J. B. L. Hinds "Picks the Ten Best" - What would be your vote for the "Ten Best Foreign Short Wave Stations"? Here are the picks of editor J. B. L. Hinds in his first article for the shortwave section of Short Wave Radio magazine, July 1934.

1934. "Simplified World-Wide Radio Log," advised that "Mystery, Romance, Adventure and Thrills Aplenty to Be Found in New Greater Field Opened Up by Short Wave Radio." This 16-page pamphlet from 1934 contained just about all you needed to get started: an explanation of propagation, descriptions of stations (there is Eddie Startz on p. 7), logs of shortwave broadcast, BCB and utility stations, and, on the back cover, an ad for some Stewart-Warner "Round-the-World Radios."

1935. Sylvania Radio Log - Here you'll find some introductory material on shortwave, followed by broadcast band and shortwave station listings, and an advertisement for Sylvania tubes.

1935. "World-Radio Station Identification Panels" - The weekly, newspaper-like BBC World-Radio began publication in 1925 to cover foreign broadcasting, mostly mediumwave with only very limited shortwave. World-Radio offered various services to their listeners (including a station identification service). One of their listening aids was a booklet called "World-Radio Station Identification Panels," which included station data presented in the same format it used in World-Radio. There were at least four editions of this booklet—1930, 1931, 1932 and 1935 (probably more). We have posted the 1935 edition. You'll find shortwave info on the last few pages.

1935. 1935 Shortwave Map - Here is a map from August 1935, showing the shortwave broadcast stations of the world. The numbers in the black circles correspond to the numbered stations at the bottom of the map, which are listed alphabetically by city. The map apparently originated with the BBC publication World-Radio.

1935. "General Electric Radiotron Radio Log and Bridge Score" - Here is a 1935 two-panel folder with a sliding card inside each panel. On one panel, the slider has U.S. stations on one side and Canadian stations on the other, and you can view the frequency, call letters and location by moving the slider and looking through cutouts in the folder. The other slider works similarly, but instead of stations the slider shows tricks, doubles, etc. There is also a list of international shortwave stations, and advertising for Radiotron tubes.

1935. WBEN Radio Log - Here is a "log” booklet published in 1935 by Buffalo Evening News station WBEN. In addition to the usual broadcast band station lists that were the heart of such logs, this one contains information on WBEN, and WBEN "shortwave," i.e. W8XH, the station’s apex-band transmitter. The shortwave list starting on pg. 3 contains many stations beyond SWBC, e.g. police stations, portable field transmitters, lighthouses, etc.

1935. Radio Pictorial Listeners' Guide - Here is a March 1935 supplement to Radio Pictorial, a weekly British radio magazine. The inside of the supplement contains a map of the major mediumwave stations in the U.K. and continental Europe at the time. There is a list of locations and wavelengths on the back, and pictures of station personalities on the cover. This item is best viewed by setting your Adobe reader to one of the "side-by-side" viewing modes.

MID 1930s. Dial of the World - "Thrills, entertainment, education are at the command of the D-X fan . . ." says Stewart-Warner in a nice 16-page promotional booklet. There are instructions on how to tune (the lesson seems to be to "Tune Slowly"), photos of world events and some well-known stations, and a list of shortwave, longwave, mediumwave and police stations. The back cover contains advertising for their Ferrodyne Round-the-World shortwave radios. This booklet contains no dates, but it appears to be from the mid-1930s.

1936. Philco All-Wave Radio Stations List - This is a 1936 production listing the major American BCB stations by frequency, ditto the world’s SWBC stations, and also a list of the American SWBC stations that simulcast their BCB outlets; plus brief notes on "how to tune" shortwave, and on police, aircraft, ship and amateur stations.

1936. "General Electric Listener’s Log to World Radio Tours" - This 1936 publication includes lists of U.S. and Canadian broadcast stations, police stations, and U.S.. and foreign shortwave broadcast stations; discussion of radio nomenclature, how to tune shortwave, and amateur radio; a world map showing shortwave broadcasting stations, and a shortwave "world tour"; and G.E. advertising for receivers and the G.E. "V-Doublet" antenna.

1936. Here is a copy of the list of "Best Short Wave Stations." It appeared in each issue of Official Short Wave Listener magazine, which was published in 1935-36. Shortwave station lists began appearing circa 1927, but for several years the absence of concrete information on foreign shortwave operations made the lists of limited use. For one thing, they seldom distinguished between commercial and broadcasting stations (in part because in those days many stations performed both functions). "Shortwave was shortwave." Also, little weeding of the lists took place, making some lists notoriously inaccurate. By the mid-1930s, published lists had become more useful. One of the best was the list published in Official Short Wave Listener. This one is from the February-March 1936 issue. There are some familiar frequencies there--the BBC on 11750, Australia on 9580.

1936. "First Class World Tours via the Superb New RCA Victor Magic Brain Instruments" was published in 1936. In addition to promoting the RCA "Magic Brain" receivers and instructing readers on how to use them, it contained a basic introduction to shortwave broadcasting and shortwave reception, lists of worldwide shortwave stations, American broadcast stations on shortwave, and domestic AM stations, and a glossary of radio terms and "Magic Brain" key words. The pamphlet also describes the RCA "Magic Eye" tuning eye. Some RCA radios of the day featured a "Magic Voice" speaker, and RCA also sold a "Magic Brain" record player. Be sure to check your tubes (back cover)!

1936. The "On the Short Waves" book and website are named after a column that appeared in Radio News from July 1928 to June 1929 and that was one of the first columns in any popular American magazine that was devoted exclusively to short wave broadcasting. Here are two "On the Short Waves" columns from the February and March 1929 issues of the magazine. The type is a little small, but careful reading of these columns will give a good feel for the status of SWBC SWLing at the time.

1936. "Globe Girdling" - One of the most popular DX magazines of the 1930s was "All Wave Radio." Here is its shortwave editor, J. B. L. Hinds of Yonkers, New York, with the January 1936 edition of his column, "Globe Girdling."

1936. 1936 Philco Radio Log - Tons of "radio logs," containing station listings, were published during the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Here is the 1936 Philco Radio Log (prepared by the Haynes Radio Log), which contains the usual things--lists of stations, in this case standard broadcast, SWBC and police channels--plus a few other things: an offer of a year's worth of the bi-weekly Chicago Short Wave Radio Club bulletin, and 2-1/2 years worth of updates to the Philco Radio Log, both for $2; major league baseball dates; presidential electoral results for 1928 and 1932 and blanks for 1936; and (no surprise) a centerfold ad for "The New 1937 Philco with the built-in Philco Foreign Tuning System" (color-coded bandspread dial). The log's size is 4-1/4 x 6-1/2".

1936. General Electric Radio Log - This 1936 radio log contains a one-page primer on shortwave and shortwave reception; a table containing the addresses, IDs and tuning signals of many stations (listed by call letters); a world timetable; a world map showing the major SWBC stations; a list of all types of shortwave stations, with frequencies, wavelengths and power; more info on shortwave tuning; great circle maps centered on New York and San Francisco; and a promotion for the G.E. V-Doublet receiving antenna.

1936 & 1937. "A Guide to Reception of Short-Wave Broadcasting Stations" - If imitation is indeed the sincerest form of flattery, the U.S. Department of Commerce should have felt very flattered by the March 1937 Philco (U.K.) publication, "A Guide to Reception of Short-Wave Broadcasting Stations," which borrows gobs from the December 15, 1936 Commerce Department publication titled—what else?—"A Guide to Reception of Short Wave Broadcasting Stations." Philco did say that its publication "included data supplied by" Commerce. Philco customized it, adding and deleting various things, including adding pictures and Philco promo, and expanding the station list, but the parentage is unmistakable. The Commerce Department of the 1930s was the source of a number of interesting shortwave publications, including the first authoritative list of broadcast and utility shortwave stations (the 96-page "World Short-Wave Radiophone Transmitters," published in 1934, second edition 1935).

1937. The Globe Trotter - RCA marketed numerous "Globe Trotter" receivers over many years. Here is a booklet, "The Globe Trotter," that was published in connection with RCA's Globe Trotter receiver of 1937. In addition to a list of the principal shortwave stations of the day (arranged by frequency and by country), a world map, and a list of American and Canadian broadcast band stations, the first few pages contain a good example of the kind of promotion that was embodied in shortwave advertising. "And to these fine radios have been added the adventure and thrill of short wave reception, enabling you to listen to the whole wide world--taking you to those places of which you have read--truly a magic carpet awaits you . . . ."

1937. Quixote Radio Club "Station Data" - When shortwave broadcasting started to gain a following in the early 1930s, numerous "logs" and "lists" began appearing. They were typically arranged by frequency. It wasn't until the World Radio Handbook appeared in 1947 that comprehensive information on a by-country basis became widely available. An early step in that direction, however, was the by-country compilations of the Quixote Radio Club. These gathered together in one place the basic data that was available on each country's shortwave operations. The listiings were too long for any one issue of the club's bulletin, the "Short Wave Reporter," so they were spread over several issues. Here is the full alphabetical compilation that was published during the months of October, November and December 1937.

1938. "The Radio Listener" - We had not run across the name of Edward Ayvazian of West Newton, Massachusetts, in connection with DX until we saw his 1938 publication, "The Radio Listener," which we have posted in PDF form here. Although he invited readers to send in various kinds of other info for this "magazine," "The Radio Listener" was basically a list, covering foreign LW and MW stations, plus SWBC. This is the first issue, dated September 1, 1938. It was planned as a quarterly, and there were December 1938 and March 1939 issues, both reflecting the same format as the first. How long "The Radio Listener" lasted beyond that is not known. But this mimeo publication looks like a pretty credible list, and includes for some entries not just station name and location but also address, QSL policy, interval signal, operating schedule, etc. There was an Edward J. Ayvazian , West Newton, Mass. who was a senior at Newton High School in 1939.

1939. 1939 Crosley and RCA Station Lists - Equipment manufacturers sometimes included station lists with their products, or offered them separately. Here are two logs from 1939, one from RCA and one from Crosley. As can be seen, they are nearly identical in layout and general content, having been produced by a third party, W. E. Eilrich (see bottom of pg. 8). The lists contain some interesting entries, considering that World War II started in Europe in 1939. The RCA list shows Prague under "Bohemia," while the Crosley list eliminates all Prague references; the RCA list for Austria says "See Germany," while the Crosley list does not mention Austria as a separate state at all, but lists Vienna as a transmitter site in Germany. And the Crosley list eliminates all references to Poland.

1939. 1939 Scott Foreign and U.S. Short Wave Tuning Guide - Here is another E. H. Scott item. After you bought your Scott receiver, you could use this booklet to tell you how to tune and what stations to listen for. It features an introductory section, "How to Get Results On Short Waves," along with schedules of U.S. shortwave stations, a very nice list of stations worldwide, a world time chart, great circle map of the world centered on New York, and a list of U.S. BCB stations.

LATE 1930s. Marconi World Radio Atlas - This atlas appears to have been issued in the late 1930s. It contains information about the Canadian Marconi Company factory, shortwave--the "thrill band" of radio, propagation, how to tune, and how to obtain QSLs. This is followed by a list of shortwave stations of the world, "Empire" transmissions from Daventry, and a list of North American BCB stations.

1940. Manufacturers Life Insurance Company DX map - Here is a 1940 DX map produced by the Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. What makes this otherwise ordinary world map interesting to DXers is the table of "Principal Short-Wave Stations of the World" shown in the lower right-hand corner and containing call letters, frequencies and map coordinates for many stations. The exact origins of this map are unknown, but it may have had something to do with GE station W2XAD, which seems to have been set apart for special treatment just to the left of the table. If you look closely at the map you will see indications of things, usually products, associated with various countries, e.g. "Wool. Tallow. Sealskins" for the Falklands, "Dates. Feathers" under Libya, "Coffee. Sugar" in Venezuela, and our favorite, above Kirgiz Kazaks, B14, "Caravan Traffic by Camels."

1940-41. Philco All-Wave Radio Log, Special War-Time Edition - Here is a pamphlet from 1940-41 called the "Philco All-Wave Radio Log, Special War-Time Edition." It appears to be a joint production of Philco and something called the "Western World Wave Club" in Berkeley, California. Whether the club was an independent club or a Philco offshoot is unknown. In addition to information about broadcast band stations in the western U.S., the log contains an interesting shortwave list showing the quality of reception of many shortwave stations (very strong, good, fair, weak), hour by hour, in western parts of the United States. This log is the "Winter Edition, 1940-41," and while Philco published a variety of logs and lists in its day, this is the only edition of this particular title that we have seen.

1941. "Radio Log & World War Map" - Here is a very nice "Radio Log & World War Map," distributed by David Spencer, Ltd., an appliance dealer in Vancouver, B.C., and promoting General Electric Radiotron tubes. With the reminder to "Keep Tuned to the Empire," it contains info on the company's radio repair service, a time zone chart, tips on getting good reception, and a list of American and Canadian broadcast band stations. The best part is the map, which is 19x24" in the original. On the map borders are lists of the world's principal shortwave stations, set out in three ways: by call letters (left hand side), by frequency (right), and by city (bottom). If you zoom in you can read the labels that identify numerous events of the war up to the time the map was published, which appears to be mid-1941. Examples: "DeGaulle welcomed at Douala [Cameroon], Oct. 10 - 40," "Germans scuttle Graf Spee, Dec. 17 - 39," "Nazi Battleship Bismark sunk, May 27 - 41," "The Germans invade Poland, Sep. 1 -39," "British & Free French invade Syria, June 8 - 41," etc.

1941. "Silvertone Radio Time Table and Log" - Here is an April 1941 publication from the Silvertone-brand parent company, Sears Roebuck. It includes both world shortwave and North American mediumwave listings, plus "Notes on Successful Short Wave Tuning."

1941-44. German Station Lists - Wolfgang Bueschel in Germany sends along two pictures of station lists taken by Bernhard Weiskopf, Mannheim, Germany at an exhibition of pre-World war II radio sets held by Prof. Soll in Neu-Isenburg, near Frankfurt am Main. These LW and MW listings are from around the 1941-1944 era. Note that the Podebrad site in occupied Czechoslavakia is listed, along with various stations that are still on the air, e.g. Warsaw 224 (now 225), Luxembourg 232 (now 234), Stuttgart Muehlacker 574 (now 576), Vienna Bisamberg 592 (now ITU registered 585), Prague 638, Leipzig Wiederau 785 (now 783), and Warsaw 1384 (now Kaliningrad Bolshakovo [soon Sitkunai, Lithuania] 1386).

1946. Broadcasting Stations of the World - The year 1946 was the first year that England's "Wireless World" magazine published the booklet, "Broadcasting Stations of the World." It contained lists of shortwave stations arranged by frequency and by location, and like lists of European mediumwave stations. Here is that first edition. Perhaps to avoid confusion with the "Broadcasting Stations of the World" which the U.S. Foreign Broadcasting Intelligence Service had started publishing in 1945, the British publication changed its name to "Guide to Broadcasting Stations" in the second edition. Many subsequent editions were published, the last in 2001.

1946. 1946 Universal Radio DX Club Station List - Shortwave station lists, together with loggings and feature articles in club bulletins and radio magazines, have long been prime sources of DX information. Some of these lists were commercial, while others were produced by clubs. Here is one of the most comprehensive lists, one prepared by the Universal Radio DX Club in 1946, the year before the World Radio Handbook started publication. Those bands looked mighty busy.

1947-2022. WRTH History - With the announcement that the 2022 World Radio-TV Handbook will be the last, it's a good time to look back at the history of the publication that sustained DXers for three-quarters of a century. Here is the WRTH section from the book, "Listening on the Short Waves, 1945 to Today."

1947. "These You Can Hear" - This was the name of a 1947 publication by the Amalgamated Short Wave Press of London, reprinting a series of station profiles that had appeared in the British monthly, "Short Wave News." SWN was oriented mainly toward hams, but it contained some excellent shortwave broadcast information as well. This 32-page pamphlet features writeups and photos on PCJ, Radio Brazzaville, Radio Canada, Radio Clube de Mozambique, HCJB, Voice of Guiana, Radio Australia, and the Rugby, England PTP station, plus tips for listening.

1952. Hallicrafters International Short-Wave Station List - This 1952, eight-panel list contains some introductory information about SWLing, and showing, by country, the most often-heard shortwave stations of the day, together with their frequencies and the best times to listen. The last panel contains a world time chart and a table showing best reception times for the various bands.

1953. 1953 Universal Radio DX Club Shortwave Log - Here is another Universal Radio DX Club shortwave station list, this one from 1953.

1957. Band Survey - Here is a band survey from the February 1957 NNRC Bulletin, listing all Caribbean, Central American and South American stations reported to be operating between 3 and 8 MHz. The list shows frequency, call letters and station name and location. On the right there are two columns showing the approximate times, morning and evening (EST), when the stations were heard. Keep in mind that this is not a survey of all stations heard in these bands--just those from the Americas. Read and weep.

1957. "Where to Find Them" - This shortwave station list was put out by Hammarlund in 1957. It covers English broadcasts, and one of the nice things about it is that it is arranged by time, rather than by country or frequency, making it a good source for targets during a listening session. One side of the list is for ECNA listeners, the other WCNA. The list was originally published in Popular Electronics, and we have also posted the November 1957 issue of PE, which contained the list in Stew West's article, "Listen to the Voices of the World." Credit goes to the excellent archival website American Radio History for the PE.

1961. The 1961 "Hallicrafters Guide to Short Wave Listening" - Just what possessed Hallicrafters to publish this pamphlet in a 2" wide x 3" long format I don't know, but here it is, with all you needed to know to get started, including information about receivers and a list of stations to try for. Promised its author: "Only by short wave radio can you become a witness to history as it occurs. And only through short wave can you hear, in a single day, a Wagnerian opera from Heidelburg . . . a news broadcast from behind the iron curtain . . . and an airport control tower bringing in a crippled plane. Every moment of every day and night, Short Wave brings into your home an absorbing new interest--a fascinating way to keep up with international affirs, to be informed and stay informed."

1966. 1966 WRTH "Special 20th Anniversary Messages" - The year 1966 was the World Radio TV Handbook's 20th anniversary. The 1966 Handbook contained a couple of pages of congratulatory messages, but WRTH also published a separate pamphlet, "Special 20th Anniversary Messages," containing many more messages. Shawn Axelrod of Winnipeg, Manitoba has kindly sent us a scan of the pamphlet, which we have posted here. Along with many messages from the world of international broadcasting, there are some familiar names among the DXers and club execs who wrote in: Arthur Cushen, Richard Ginbey, Victor Jaar, Barrie Wildblood, Don Jensen, August Balbi, Bill Eddings, Richard Wood.

1967. 1967 Hammond Award World Atlas - This 1967 world atlas also contains some DXing information. On the inside front cover and first two pages is a station list captioned "24-Hour Short Wave Schedule." It is a list of English-language shortwave broadcasts audible in the U.S., including time and frequency, and is reprinted from Electronics Illustrated. At the end of the atlas is another shortwave list, titled "Marine Weather Broadcasts," with many 2 MHz. stations arranged under four geographic areas. This is followed by a two-page world time chart. The rest of the atlas (not shown) is a standard atlas.

1967-78. WRTH Brochures - Here are some advertising brochures for the World Radio TV Handbook from the years 1967, 1974, 1976, 1977 and 1978. (Tnx to Michael Schmitz in Germany for the 1967 brochure.)

1971. Clandestine Broadcasting - It was the 1970s when clandestine stations became prime targets for DX listening. Over the years within the DX community there had been some material published on clandestine stations, usually about particular stations or about clandestine broadcasting generally during World War II and after. Comprehensive and timely information on which to base DXing was still scarce, however, until 1971, when two valuable items were published. One was "Clandestines--The Political Voice of Radio," an article by Bill Matthews which appeared in the 1971 issue of the WRTH annual, How to Listen to the World. It presented a survey of clandestine broadcasting activities past and present. The other was Larry Magne's "Broadcasting Stations of Exile, Intelligence, Liberation and Revolutionary Organizations," which presented information on all the then-current clandestines in a WRTH-style format. Thanks to Bill Matthews, Larry Magne and WRTH for permission to share this material here.

1974. "Survey of Short Wave Broadcasting Stations Operating in the 60 m. Band" - If you were DXing as "recently" as the late 1990s, you probably knew the name Jack Perolo, PY2PE1C, of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Jack had been DXing since 1949, and he was a prime source of authoritative information on the shortwave DX bands, Latin American stations in particular. One of his work products, which he prepared with his friend, Jerzy Sielawa, was a 60 meter survey, published in 1974, which we have now posted (with Jack's permission). In his introduction, Jack describes why he compiled the survey, and he gives the meanings of the various conventions used in it. What sets this survey apart is that it is cumulative: it shows, for each station, the year that it was last heard, going as far back as 1957. This represents the kind of historical record that I have not seen elsewhere for that period. It was also a practical aid to IDing new signals--if you knew who had been broadcasting on or near a given channel before, it might be the same station now. Thanks, Jack.

1986. "A Guide to Radio Listening" - This was issued by the Voice of America around 1986 in connection with the "Worldwide Shortwave Spectrum" program. The program started in 1984 as a segment of "VOA Magazine" and became the standalone "Communications World" in 1987. It was hosted by Gene Reich, who was eventually succeeded by the guide's author, Kim Andrew Elliott, then the VOA's Director of Audience Research. Kim advises, "I wrote it in the 1980s in response to the many letters (not much e-mail back then) to VOA asking for advice on improving reception (which was mainly on shortwave then)." The guide is a good introduction to shortwave--frequencies, propagation, receivers, antennas, QRM, DXing, etc. It was a nice example by VOA of both promotion of SW and assistance to SWLs.

Radio Wheels - photos of several radio "wheels" that were used as aids in tuning. Included are wheels from Hallicrafters, Lines & Fitzpatrick, and Crosley.


EQUIPMENT & ADVERTISING

COMPANIES

AERO. Aero Products, Inc. - Here is a four-page promotional pamphlet from Aero Products, Inc. of Chicago. This is a rare piece of advertising that appears to date from 1929, as it promotes "the new 1929 'Aero-Call' Converter Box." "This amazing radio instrument now makes it possible to reach 'round the world--England, Germany, Holland, France, Australia, Panama, Java and many foreign stations are some that are tuned in regulalrly on short wave." No less interesting is the collage of QSLs on page two (shortwave QSLs from the 1920s are seldom seen), and the station list on page three. Operating instructions are on page four.

ALLIED RADIO. Allied Radio 1940 - Here's a look at what Allied Radio was offering the discriminating SWL in 1940. And how about those "terms": a Hallicrafters Sky Buddy for less than $5 down and less than $5 per month.

ALLIED RADIO. Allied Radio Corp. - Many DXers got their start in the hobby by buying an inexpensive ready-made or kit radio from Allied Radio Corp. of Chicago. I remember paging through those big catalogs over and over. Recently I come across an Allied catalog from 1929 and was surprised to see that the company went back that far. But according to an Allied history at https://web.archive.org/web/20070607092936/https://www.alliedelec.com/AlliedHistory.asp the company was founded in 1928. So this is about as early an Allied catalog as is likely to be found. I have copied some pages containing receivers that were offered at the time from Silver-Marshall, Hammarlund, Scott, National, and Pilot, plus some interesting antennas. I was also suprised to find in this 1929 catalog many items from the "Knight" line which was well-known to electronic hobbyists many years later.

AMERICAN-BOSCH. American-Bosch Radio Map - Here is the "American-Bosch Radio Explorers Club Authorized Radio Map of the World With Log of Foreign Stations and Police Calls," from July 1, 1934. "Be a Radio Explorer," says Master Mariner and Club Commander, Captain James P. Barker. "Tuning in on these new 1935 American-Bosch Round-the-World Radios is almost as thrilling as actually sailing to foreign lands!"

AMERICAN-BOSCH. American Bosch "Cruiser" - Here is a booklet about the American Bosch "Cruiser" receiver. The booklet dates to 1926, two years after the company, named the American Bosch Magneto Corp., began selling radios. The set had five tubes and sold for $100. Perhaps more important than the information about the receiver itself is the lesson it gives as to just what was involved in setting up for ordinary radio listening in those days. It was no small thing. If you want to know how the Cruiser was manufactured and tested, check out the article, "A Radio Factory," in the January 1927 QST, pgs. 22-27, at https://worldradiohistory.com/QST.htm

AMERICAN-BOSCH. 1935 Brochure - Here is a 1935 brochure and price list for the various models in the "Round-the-World Radio" line of radio manufacturer American-Bosch. Note the photo of "Captain James P. Barker, Master Mariner, Commander, American-Bosch Radio Explorers Club." And check out the club pin posted earlier.

ATWATER KENT. Atwater Kent Radio - There wasn't much going on in the shortwave world of 1926. A few American stations (KDKA, WGY) were dabbling in shortwave, as was PCJJ in Holland. But with no consumer-grade shortwave receivers, even an avid broadcast band DXer wouldn't know much about the short waves. Things were much farther along on the standard broadcast band, where, if you were looking for a high quality receiver, you might have considered an Atwater Kent. Here is an AK promotional catalog called Atwater Kent Radio. It describes the year's offerings, and discusses radio reception generally and the Atwater Kent company in particular.

EDDYSTONE. Eddystone - The Eddystone Company produced some of the most popular shortwave receivers used in the U.K. Here is a brochure giving a rundown of a group of Eddystone receivers, and a price list of components and accessories. The receivers are all early 1950s vintage, and the price list is dated January 1954.

GENERAL ELECTRIC. "General Electric Radio Short-Wave Primer" - If you bought a G.E. shortwave receiver in 1934, you might have been reading this booklet. "Written," it said, "by one of the country’s leading [but unnamed] authorities on radio," it was a non-technical look at the worldwide scope of shortwave, and what various countries—England, Germany, Italy, Russia, others--had to offer. This was followed by a bit about amateur, police and air listening, a lesson in the rules of propagation, pointers about "how to tune," and an explanation of where stations were located on the dial. Then came promotion of various G.E. receivers, a list of stations, and a place where you could jot down your results.

GENERAL ELECTRIC. "Short Wave Radio Listener's Guide" - This General Electric pamphlet accompanied three mid-1960s GE receivers--the P965 and P968 hand-helds, and the P1830 multi-band portable.

GILFER. Gilfer Associates - Here are some memories of Gilfer Associates, Inc., a favorite shortwave mail order house in the 1960s, 1970s and after. Oliver P. (Perry) Ferrell and XYL Jeanne began the business circa 1952 and were well-known in the DX community. Perry died in an automobile accident in 1984 and Jeanne carried on the business until she sold it in 1994. Gilfer closed in 1997. Here are some Gilfer catalogs from 1970 and 1974. R.I.P., Gilfer and Perry Ferrell.

GREBE. I. J. Cooper - I. J. Cooper of Cincinnati was one of Powell Crosley's two partners (brother Lewis Crosley was the other) when they formed the American Automotive Accessories Co. in 1916. Cooper followed with the I. J. Cooper Rubber Co., and branched out from tires and accessories to the radio distributor business. We have posted an original photo of Cooper at the dials of a Grebe CR-18 receiver, together with a clipping from the May 22, 1927 edition of the Newport News (Virginia) Daily Press, one of several papers where the photo appeared. We have also posted a file containing two I. J. Cooper Rubber Co./Grebe advertisements, the first from the Indianapolis Star (December 18, 1927), the second from The (Nashville) Tennessean (November 20, 1927). Zoom in to see the details. The CR-18 was one of just a few "consumer grade" shortwave receivers of the day.

HALLICRAFTERS. Hallicrafters was one of the biggest names in shortwave receivers, offering numerous models in various price ranges. Here is a 1970 Hallicrafters brochure, "Shortwave puts you where it’s at," which gives an introduction to listening beyond the standard broadcast band. It also includes advertising for Halli consumer-grade shortwave receivers, ham transceivers, and utility band handhelds and table models.

HALLICRAFTERS. Hallicrafters 20th Anniversary Brochure - Here is a Hallicrafters brochure, issued circa 1954, containing brief writeups of receivers, transmitters, and other equipment.

HALLICRAFTERS. Here is a nice Hallicrafters catalog dating from around 1948 or 1949. There are a lot of familiar communication receivers here - the SX-43, S-40A, S-53 and S-38, as well as FM, TV, and amateur equipment.

HALLICRAFTERS. "Flight of the Skyrider, 2010" - Jerry Berg has a "new" receiver--a Hallicrafters SX-28A, vintage 1944. Here is his writeup, with photos, about his experiences in fixing up and operating this classic old receiver.

HALLICRAFTERS. Gatti-Hallicrafters Expedition - The "Mountains of the Moon" would surely be a destination to get the DX juices flowing. They were the geographical target of the 1947-48 Gatti-Hallicrafters Expedition to Kenya, Tanganyika and Uganda. Said to be the first commercially-sponsored amateur DXpedition, and a big event in ham radio, the trip was the brainchild of adventurer-explorer-author-promoter Attilio Gatti, veteran of ten pre-war trips to Africa. Gatti's main partner in the adventure was the Hallicrafters Co. Here is a promotional booklet that was published by International Harvester Co., which supplied the trucks for the expedition. The booklet was published after the expedition was over. The story of the Gatti-Hallicrafters Expedition is an interesting one. To read more about it go to a site devoted to the expedition http://www.qsl.net/p/pa0abm//ghe/.

HALLICRAFTERS. More Gatti-Hallicrafters Expedition - Here is another promotional booklet about the 1947-48 Gatti-Hallicrafters Expedition, this one produced by Hallicrafters itself. The booklet was published before the expedition actually took place.

HALLICRAFTERS. "Your Guided Tour of the Amazing World of Short Wave Listening" - A six-page brochure from Hallicrafters presenting their 1961 line of receivers along with information about how shortwave works and what you can hear. "Those were the days."

HALLICRAFTERS. Hallicrafters 1949 - Surely there is no company that produced more shortwave receivers over the years than Hallicrafters. Here is a 1949 catalog from Hallicrafters--"the radio man's radio."

HALLICRAFTERS. Hallicrafters Letter Writing Contest - During late 1944 and early 1945, Hallicrafters would offer cash prizes for letters from servicemen describing their experiences with Hallicrafters equipment. Every writer received $1, and prize winners received from $10 to $200. Here are three ads for letter writing contests that appeared on the back covers of Radio News in October, November and December 1944.

HAMMARLUND. "Short Wave Listening Radios" - Here is a combination catalog-primer from Hammarlund. Note the references to Popular Electronics, Gilfer, WRTH, NNRC and Radio New York Worldwide on p. 13. This was probably issued in the early 1960s.

HAMMARLUND. Hammarlund SP-210 - A pamphlet from Hammarlund on the company's SP-210 (with the 10" speaker--if you wanted a 12" speaker it was the SP-220). This was an 18-tube superhet with bandspread, crystal filter selectivity and coverage up to 20 mc. in five bands. It was sold during the 1940s, having first appeared around 1942. Check out those list prices on page 15.

HAMMARLUND. Hammarlund - Here are some advertisements from the war years. These are from Radio News, 1943, and show the contribution that the Hammarlund Super Pro was making in the war effort.

HEATHKIT. Heathkit History - In the 1950s-70s, shortwave listening often led to building a Heathkit, like the AR-3, the "GR" general coverage receivers, and the higher-end SB-310. With the AR-3 you could get into SWLing for $27.95. It was a fun receiver, even with its tiny bandspread and its propensity for microphonics (which were usually dealt with by a knock on the case). The SB-310 was not general coverage, but crystal-controlled to cover six international bands, three ham bands and the citizens band. The nice thing about the SB-310 was that by lifting the hood, swapping in new crystals and tweaking a few coils, you could tune just about any 500 kc. band segment, with frequency resolution to 1 kc. Here is a paper from the Antique Wireless Association Review, titled "The History of the Heath Companies and Heathkits: 1909 to 2019." It is by Erich E. Brueschke and Michael Mack, and it will be of interest to anyone who ever built a Heathkit. This paper is reproduced from the 2019 issue of the AWA Review, Vol. 32, by permission of the Antique Wireless Association. For more from the AWA, look for "Jack Poppele" in "Clubs and Publications," above.

KRESGE. S. S. Kresge - You may be old enough to remember S. S. Kresge's, but you probably weren't around when they had a radio department that sold tubes, batteries, parts, speakers, and the Pilot "Super-Wasp" receiver in kit form. Here is their 1929 radio catalog.

MCMURDO SILVER. McMurdo Silver "Masterpiece Forum" - Although E. H. Scott was surely the leader in the "hi-fi" shortwave market of the 1930s, and a world-class promoter, his main competitor, McMurdo Silver, was no slouch in the promotional department either. The McMurdo Silver "Masterpiece" series, which ranged from the Masterpiece I to the Masterpiece VI, was produced from 1932 to 1937 and was the subject of extensive company advertising. Scott had his monthly Scott News, and McMurdo Silver had The Masterpiece Forum. Here is the September 1936 issue of The Masterpiece Forum. Twenty-eight pages long, it contains letters from Masterpiece owners attesting to their reception and offering their views on various matters of DX, plus a list of shortwave broadcast stations of the world (pages 24-27).

MCMURDO SILVER. World-Wide Nine Radio - A 30-page booklet about the World-Wide Nine Radio, "custom built by McMurdo Silver," circa 1934.

MCMURDO SILVER. More McMurdo Silver "Masterpiece Forum" - Here is another issue of The Masterpiece Forum, this one from June-July-August 1936.

NATIONAL. For many years the National Radio Company of Melrose, Massachusetts was one of the leading names in shortwave receivers. Here is a booklet that was published by National in 1964 in commemoration of the company's 50th anniversary. It contains photos of much of the fondly remembered National equipment. National started business in 1914 (!) as a manufacturer of power plant specialty items. It expanded into the toy business, then aircraft parts and household items, finally getting around to radio in 1924.

NATIONAL. "World Wide Short Wave Reception" - James Millen went to work for the National Company in Malden, Massachusetts in the mid-1920s. He became the father of the highly-regarded National line of recevers. Here is a monograph, "World Wide Short Wave Reception," written by Millen in 1932, wherein he introduced shortwaves and shortwave broadcasting, described in detail two new National receivers (the latest progeny of the "Thrill Box" line), supplied a list of stations to try for (courtesy of the International Short Wave Club), and promoted National products. Millen was with the company until 1939, when he left to start the James Millen Manufacturing Corp. National remained in the radio receiver business for many years. For more on the man, and National, visit the website of the James Millen Society at http://www.isquare.com/millen/millen-page.htm.

NATIONAL. 1936 National Catalog - Before it became a major receiver manufacturer, the National Company sold parts. Its receiver line developed later. Here is the 1936 National catalog and price list showing their wares. In additon to capacitors, cabinets, chokes, coils, transformers and other parts, you will find the HRO and HRO Junior, the NC100, and the famous FB-7 and SW-3.

NATIONAL. "Official Log - National Association of Armchair Adventurers" - In the late 1950s, shortwave receivers manufactured by the National Company of Malden, Mass. were among the most popular. Here is a promotional logbook distributed by National circa 1958. Welcoming users to the "National Association of Armchair Adventurers," it contained a promotional preface about National; a 7-page introduction to shortwave listening, courtesy of Electronics Illustrated; a very nice list of mostly-SWBC stations that brings back some fond memories; a page for the user's statistics; 20 pages of log sheets (only one is included in the scan); and an inside back cover with brief writeups on the National NC-60, NC-66 and NC-188 receivers.

NATIONAL. "1931-32 Short-Wave Receivers" - This is a 1931 publication of James Millen, chief engineer and general manager of the National Company. Serious shortwave receivers were just coming into use, and National was one of the first on the scene. The National "Thrill Box" came out in 1928, and by 1931 was being offered in the SW-3 and SW-5 models, both of which are described in this pamphlet. There is also a discussion of early television reception. National was one of the most famous of the early manufacturers of shortwave receivers designed for consumer use, and for decades remained a major player on the shortwave receiver scene. Although the list of stations on the inside back cover is titled "Short-Wave Broadcast Stations," the term "broadcast" is used in its widest sense. The list does include the broadcast stations of the day (W8XK, W8XAL, G5SW, I3RO, VUC, NRH, VK3ME, CT1AA, 7LO, etc.), but most of the stations shown were commercial or experimental stations.

NATIONAL. National Radio Company - Here is a pamphlet from the National Radio Company containing photos and brief writeups about the receivers in the National line. Although undated, this looks like it hails from around 1960.

NATIONAL. "Short Wave Listeners' Guide" - Not entirely an advertisement, but a pamphlet from the National Co., "Short Wave Listeners' Guide," containing some basics about shortwave reception and a list of stations to try for. The receivers shown--NC-183D, HRO 60, NC-125 and SW-54-- suggest that this is from the early 1950s, but the station listings seem to belong to an earlier period.

PATTERSON. Patterson Radio - Here is a folder of instructions, tuning tips and a list of shortwave broadcast stations that was produced in 1935 by Patterson Radio for its line of shortwave receivers. "When you tune for Short Wave stations, tune very slowly, because some are close together. * * * Short Wave reception is very fascinating. * * * Be patient. * * * Should you write to stations in the U.S.A., enclose a stamped self-addressed envelope for reply. When writing to foreign stations, enclose an International Reply Coupon, which you can purchase from your post office. * * * We would advise every short wave listener to join the International Short Wave Club . . . ." All good advice. Patterson was in business until 1939.

PHILCO. "Philco War Atlas and Short-Wave Radio Log" - This 1939 atlas is different from the 1934-36 series we posted earlier. This one contains a short list of frequencies of the stations in London, Paris, Rome and Berlin, but it's mostly European maps, information on national resources, and advertising for Philco receivers.

PILOT. The Pilot Radio & Tube Corp. Spring 1932 Catalog - The sale of radio parts was big business in the medium's early days, and many manufacturers sold both parts and "ready made" receivers, as they were called in the days of home receiver building. One such company was the Pilot Radio & Tube Corp., which had relocated from Brooklyn to Lawrence, Massachusetts. Here is the company's Spring 1932 catalog, which featured numerous parts, as well as two shortwave converters and a kit version of the Pilot "Super-Wasp" receiver (power supply extra).

PILOT. The Pilot Radio & Tube Corp. - Shortwave was still new in 1930, and the industry, small as it was, was always looking for ways to showcase the technology, prove its indispensability, and set new records. The Pilot Radio & Tube Corp. had more to boast about than some, being the parent of one of the first line of what we would think of today as "consumer" shortwave receivers--the original Pilot "Wasp" and its "Super Wasp" progeny, all of which came to market during the years 1928-1931. To promote the wonders of the medium, the company sponsored several long-distance trips by a radio-equipped, single-engine aircraft, "The Pilot Radio." During these excursions the plane made numerous radio contacts via its transmitter, W2XBQ, while receiving signals over its Pilot A.C. "Super Wasp." The trips, first to Bermuda, and then from New York to the Caribbean and Central America, down the west coast of South America, over to Buenos Aires, and back along South America's east coast, headed to New York, were chronicled in four issues of Radio Design, the Pilot Radio house journal. Here is a file containing the four articles in the order in which they appeared. Pilot claimed numerous firsts for these flights, which eventually came to an end with the plane on its back along the beach of Great Exuma Island in the Bahamas (but with all occupants alive). With regard to the second of the four articles, about the flight to Bermuda, in 1983 Bermuda issued a postage stamp commemorating the flight. It was part of a four-stamp set about the bicentenary of the first manned flight (a 1783 balloon flight in France by the Montgolfier brothers). To learn more about the flight, Google "Pilot flight to Bermuda 1930" and you will find much information, including a nice writeup by our old friend Bob Ballantine, W8SU. If you have access to The New York Times archive you will also find many articles about the flight under dates of April 1-10, 1930. In the file of Radio Design< articles (at page 10) you will find a scan of the stamp.

PILOT. Two tours of vintage shortwave radio manufacturing plants. (1) From Scott, there is a brochure called "The Story of Advanced Design and Precision Engineering in Radio," circa 1932. (2) And from the Pilot Radio & Tube Corp., an article about the "new" 1.5 million sq. foot plant in Lawrence, Massachusetts to which the company moved from its old location in Brooklyn. This is from the Fall 1930 issue of Radio Design, the company's house organ.

PILOT. The Pilot A.C. Super-Wasp was the successor to the battery-operated set (below). "At last you can enjoy the thrills of short-wave reception with all the conveniences of full lamp-socket operation." These two articles are from the Fall 1929 and Winter 1929 issues of Radio Design. The A.C. Super-Wasp was one of the first A.C. shortwave sets.

PILOT. Here are two articles from Radio Design, house organ of the Pilot Electric Manufacturing Co., later the Pilot Radio & Tube Corp. The company was first located in Brooklyn, New York and later moved to Lawrence, Massachusetts. The magazine was published from 1928 to 1931 and was an interesting early source of information on shortwave stations and receivers. These articles are from the Spring 1929 issue and cover one of the earliest available "consumer" shortwave receivers, the battery-operated Pilot Super-Wasp (successor to the earlier Pilot Wasp). You assembled the Super-wasp from a kit of parts obtainable from Pilot. The first article, "The Pilot Super-Wasp," describes the receiver and how to build it. Says the article: "It should not take you more than an hour and a half to assemble a Super-Wasp. Once you have mounted everything you should be able to wire the whole outfit in another hour, or even less." The second article, "How to Get the Most Out of A Short-Wave Receiver," explains how to use the set.

POSTAL. "Methods for Improving Short Wave Reception," a pamphlet from Postal Radio explaining why the Postal Two Stage Tuned R.F. Pre-Selector and Booster is just what the doctor ordered. There is no date on this, but the NRA symbol places it in the period 1933-35.

RADIO EQUIPMENT LABORATORIES. "Short Wave Apparatus" - If it was 1926 and you had latched onto the first lists of non-amateur shortwave stations that had been published the year before in QST and The New York Times and you wanted to get into the game, you wouldn’t have had a lot to choose from if you didn’t want to start from scratch. There were no consumer shortwave sets as such, but there were some units made mainly for amateurs and available either ready-made or in kit form. This eye-catching catalog from Radio Engineering Laboratories on Long Island might have caught your eye. REL sold all kinds of transmitter, amplifier, and other circuit kits, and parts, as shown on the two-sided data sheets. They also sold a shortwave receiver kit (pp. 31-32). And their slogan from the back of the catalog—"Apparatus that you will eventually use"—was just what you had been telling your wife!

RADIO SHACK. Radio Shack - Here is an undated Radio Shack catalog that is numbered "47," but is actually from 1941, when Radio Shack was one store in Boston. This was the company's third annual catalog, and these are the pages showing their shortwave receivers. As you can see from the "Time Payment Schedule," you could buy an SX-28 for $15.95 down and 12 monthly payments of $12.68 each. Radio Shack and Allied Radio merged in 1970. For a near-complete collection of Radio Shack catalogs and other Radio Shack memorabilia, go to http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/ (click on "Radio Shack Catalog Archive" at the bottom of the page).

RCA. RCA Radiola Postcards - Here is a file of good-looking postcard reproductions depicting various models of the RCA Radiola that were sold from 1924 to 1930. These reproductions were made in 2012. Radiola was the name under which RCA marketed its early broadcast band receivers. The last postcard in the file is an undated card from France containing a form message seeking information on Radiolas.

SCOTT. E.H. Scott "Proof of Consistent Foreign Reception" - In additon to high end receivers, E. H. Scott produced some wonderful literature about their sets. Here is a 20-page sepia-toned brochure from 1932 entitled "Proof of Consistent Foreign Reception." These were the early days of shortwave broadcasting. In the upscale format typical of Scott, he explains in detail the prowess of his Scott Allwave receiver and the longterm monitoring and audio recording that permitted him to prove it. Also in this publication are some nice lists of stations of the day.

SCOTT. 12-tube Scott Allwave Deluxe - Here is some information about the 12-tube Scott Allwave Deluxe superhet sold circa 1932: a 12-page illustrated advertising brochure, and a two-page "Technical Questionnaire." "Roll up the carpet and dance to music direct from the Hotel Mayfair in London! . . . You have a totally new experience awaiting you--when you listen to programs not only in U.S.A. but from the far distant points of the earth through the peerless SCOTT ALLWAVE DELUXE."

SCOTT. "Scott Custom Built Radio--Special Deluxe Installations" - If you were a well-heeled SWL in 1940, your "shack" could have looked like one of those in this booklet. Scott receivers were not DX machines, but they had room filling audio, and these were some pretty nice rooms. Do you prefer Gene Autry's setup, or Barbara Stanwyck's? (For best viewing set Adobe Acrobat to "side-by-side with continuous scrolling.")

SILVER-MARSHALL. Silver-Marshall- Silver-Marshall was one of the great names in early radio manufacturing. Here are the pages from their December 1, 1928 catalog covering receivers. Note the "730 Round the World Four" shortwave receiver on page 10. Omitted are catalog pages covering parts and amplifiers.

SPIEGEL. "How to Operate Your Air Castle Radio" - You can study and decode for yourself just what the present status of Spiegel's is, but in the mid-1900s it was a well-known catalog merchandiser. Among its radio products was the Air Castle line of receivers. Here is a Spiegel-Air Castle publication which doubled as a log of broadcast band and shortwave stations. There is lots of good info in here if you were listening circa 1939-40, including maps, station lists, pictures of radio personalities, aerial and tuning tips, etc.

WESTINGHOUSE. Westinghouse "World Cruiser" Receivers - Here is a brochure in French and English from Westinghouse, describing their "World Cruiser" line of receivers. This must be from around 1934, as an advertisement for the radios appeared in the November 1, 1934 issue of Maclean's Magazine (from the Duke University Libraries Digital Repository).

OTHER MATERIAL

Radio Canada Shortwave Club Antenna Handbook - We have posted quite a few items from Radio Canada, and here is another.

Antenna Brochures - Anyone remember the days when shortwave stations were actually interested in helping their listeners get the most out of their equipment? Here are three antenna brochures from those days: "Aerials for Short-Wave Reception," from the BBC, 1967; and two from Radio Nederland, which have the same cover design but are different on the inside. It looks like one, "Give Your Antenna Some Air," which shows the P.O. Box 222 address, was published in 1959 or later, as 1959 is when that address came into use; and the other (no name) was published before 1959 (it uses an old P.O. Box 137 address).

Spec Sheets I - We have on hand a bunch of receiver spec sheets from (mostly) the 1950s through the 1980s that should bring back some nice memories. No doubt many of these sets--at least the "newer" ones--are still in use, or at least occupying places of honor in DX attics and closets. We will post these sheets in several groups, oldest sets to newest. The first group covers these sets: Hammarlund HQ-120 (1938), Hammarlund HQ-145 (1959), Hammarlund HQ-180 (1959), National HRO-500 (1964), Galaxy R-530 (1967), Hallicrafters SX-122A (1967), Drake SW-4A (1967), Hallicrafters SX-133 (1968), and Drake SPR-4 (1969).

Spec Sheets II - We continue posting some miscellaneous receiver spec sheets, this time from the 1970s: Barlow Wadley XCR-30, McKay Dymek DR 22C (1975), McKay Dymek DR 33C (1975), Yaesu FRG-7 (1976), Panasonic Command Series [RF-2200/2800/4000] (1977-1982), SONY ICF-7600 (1978), Drake R-7 (1979), Kenwood R-1000 (1979), Panasonic RF-9000 (1981), and Panasonic RF-6300 (1982).

Spec Sheets III - Here is another group of receiver spec sheets: JRC NRD-515 (1980); SONY ICF-2001 (1980)/ICF-6800W (1980) and others; SONY ICF-2001 (1980) and others; SONY ICF-2001 (1980); SONY CRF-1 (1981); Yaesu FRG-7700 (1981); ICOM IC-R70 (1982); Kenwood R-600 (1982); Kenwood R-2000 (1983); ICOM IC-R71A (1984); Yaesu FRG-8800 (1985); Drake R8A (1995); and AOR AR7030 (1996).

Spec Sheets IV - Here is our final group of data sheets on some old-timey shortwave accessories, specifically the Gilfer A-20 PreSelector (1972); the Autek QF-1 Audio Filter (1976); the Mosley SWL-7 Antenna; the Mosley SWV-7 Vertical Antenna (1970); the Palomar Loop Antenna; and Marantz Portable Cassette Tape Recorders.

"Midway" - For those who like to check out shortwave in the movies, here are a few photoclips from the movie "Midway" (2019). These include two photos of the Zenith Trans-Oceanic 7G605 "Clipper" receiver ("bomber" version, of course); a photo of a Hallicrafters PM-23 speaker (complete with metal "h"); and, in the Halli photo and two others, a receiver (the one with the plastic "bubble looking" dial) that bears a strong resemblance to the British R1155 wartime receiver, which was made mainly by Marconi but also by other companies. The controls are not exactly the same as the R1155, but the resemblance is more than passing; perhaps this is a lesser-known version of the R1155, or a modified R1155, or a different model of the "R1155 genre." In any event, thanks to Henry Rogers, WA7YBS, proprietor of the online Western Historic Radio Museum for identifying the unit’s lineage. Can anyone supply more specifics?

"Short Wave Radio Quiz Book and Kinks" - For many years, shortwave listening was promoted by electronics magazines—Radio News, Popular Electronics, in more recent years Popular Communications, and many, many others, and it was common for SWLs to "get their start” by way of these magazines. Sometimes the magazines would put together compendiums of articles or other information for its readers. Often they promoted the magazine’s more technical side. "Short Wave Radio Quiz Book and Kinks" was published in 1938 by Short Wave & Television, formerly known as Short Wave Craft. As can be seen, its appeal would have been almost completely to the constructor and the technically inclined.

Trinkets-X - Here are three items: an Atwater-Kent receiver escutcheon; a Collins Radio Co. 50-year medal; and a medal issued to promote the Panasonic RF-5000 receiver ("The Best Portable in the World," it says).

"The Finest Hours" - Here is a file containing several shortwave receiver photos from the movie, "The Finest Hours."

"Submarine Alert" - For those who like to keep an eye out for shortwave radios in the movies, here is a lobby card for an oldie entitled "Submarine Alert," a 1943 film starring Richard Arlen and Wendy Barrie. From Netflix: "When FBI radio engineer Lee Deerhold (Richard Arlen) is fired from his job, he's unaware that his termination is part of a larger plot by the feds to have him unwittingly infiltrate a gang of Nazi saboteurs who've developed a powerful new transmitter. By the time he learns that he's been used by both the FBI and the Nazis, Deerhold may be in too deep to escape. Wendy Barrie and Nils Asther co-star in this tale of World War II-era paranoia." That looks like a Hallicrafters S-9 or SX-9 Super Skyrider, c. 1936, a little old for World War II work. Apparently both Arlen and Der Bingle knew something about shortwave, as shown by the story, "Radio Stars are DX Rivals," from the October 1934 issue of RADEX, reproduced with the lobby card.

Hallicrafters and National - If you were buying a good a shortwave receiver in the 1960s, chances are you looked at radios from Hallicrafters and National, two of the best-known manufacturers of the day. Here are two items from these companies: a Hallicrafters brochure from 1964, and a booklet on National receivers (circa 1961, judging from the pictures).

Electronics Illustrated-January 1962 - Here's something that will bring back memories for SWLs who were active in the late 1950s and early 1960s: a SW equipment feature from the January 1962 issue of Electronics Illustrated. The first six pages contain brief writeups on some of the most popular equipment of the day--the Knight Ocean Hopper, the Space Spanner, the Heathkit AR-3, the National NC-60, the Hallicrafters S-38, the Hammarlund HQ-145X, and others, plus accessories. Following this are three articles on "new" receiver kits of the day--the Heathkit GR-91, the Philmore CR-5AC, and the Knight-Kit R-100. "Those were the days!"

Disk Cutting and DXing - If you were listening during the late 1940s and the 1950s, and if you were recording your DX, you were using a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Before reel-to-reel there was wire recording, but home recording did not really catch on until tape. What was available before tape and wire for those who couldn't wait? Disk cutting, and some DXers used the technique to record their DX. Here are three articles from 1935 about disk cutting and DXing. The first, from the February issue of Short Wave Craft, deals mainly with the technology. The other two articles, from the September and December issues of Radio Index (RADEX), discuss practice. Tuning a receiver while also cutting a disk looks like no small feat--a very long way from today's digital recording.

What gear did you use when you first started listening?