Daytime DXing in 1939

[kevtronics]

The presets on an antique radio are often an interesting snapshot of what reception conditions were like many decades ago. Bob Andersen just restored a Philco radio from 1939 and these are the presets on it:



WRAK is a 1 kW "graveyard channel" station in Williamsport, PA, pretty much in the middle of the state. So that was the original owner's local area. That means all the other presets were for 50 kW clear channel stations about 150 to 170 miles away: WOR, WJZ (now WABC), and WABC (now WCBS) in the NYC area, KDKA in Pittsburgh, KYW and WCAU (now WPHT) in Philadelphia, and WHAM in Rochester, NY.

Easy to pick up even now at those distances at night via skywave, but back in the late '30s and 1940s, I'm sure they could be received quite well even during the daytime, with a sensitive radio like this Philco, an outdoor longwire antenna (this model doesn't have a built-in loop antenna), a ground connection (luckily this isn't a shock-hazard hot-chassis design), and the much lower electrical noise levels of 85 years ago.

And yes, it would've been annoying to buy this radio in 1939, and then need to have your serviceman re-tune all the presets only two years later due to NARBA, since the presets were not meant to be user-adjustable.

 

[Gregg.]

Wow, I hadn't thought there were pre-sets on radios that could not be owner-adjusted. I thought these old receivers were like car radios. The pre-sets could be changed with little effort.

At least WOR was usable after NARBA. Stations at 550 through 730 kHz were not moved.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Remember, in the the earlier 30's many stations did not operate in all of the daytime hours. Neighs were prime time, and daytime had fewer big shows. There were some daytime soaps and other shows, but a lot of daytime radio was far less important.

Of course, in aggie areas, there were early morning, midday and afternoon farm reports.

Daytime radio became "top importance" after TV killed the night network shows.

 

[DavidEduardo]

Wow, I hadn't thought there were pre-sets on radios that could not be owner-adjusted. I thought these old receivers were like car radios. The pre-sets could be changed with little effort.

Some radios came with punch-out cards of all the stations. A user would remove the ones they listened to and insert them in the push button after it had been set... a job sometimes requiring taking the set to a dealer or service shop.

Those cards pop up on eBay occasionally.

 

[kevtronics]

As Bob explained in the video, the presets on that Philco radio do not operate like a car radio. Each one has its own tuning coil, and the dial pointer does not move to indicate the frequency of the station.

Here's another late '30s/early '40s radio with call letters on the presets. It clearly was from the Nashville area, but has presets for WSB from Atlanta (about 210 miles away), and WLW from Cincinnati (about 240 miles away). At 500 kW, I'm WLW surely would've come in well during the daytime at that distance.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

The Westinghouse Table Radio from 1938 that I have has oscillator and antenna adjustments for the presets on the chassis in the back. It had a 6U5 Tuning Eye. Tuning indicators as signal strength meters are one of my favorite radio features. Originally it had the presets on WJR 750, WWJ 920, CKLW 1030, WFDF 1310, and WBCM 1410. In 1941, the order changed to WJR 760, CKLW 800, WFDF 910, WWJ 950, and WBCM 1440. The presets didn't cover the whole band. They replaced some of the station tabs. Later, they changed the last button to WCAR 1130, 1 kW in Pontiac at the time. The WBCM tab remained. I inadvisably tuned one of the IF transformers without test equipment. It improved selectivity but reduced the bandwidth and high frequency audio response, which had been bimodal to increase bandwidth. With a long wire, I could get WLS 890 at about 50 uV/m Daytime right next to WFDF 910 in the Daytime with a field strength approaching 100 mV/m, and set a preset on it. Seems like I also had a preset on WCFL 1000 for a while. With the DA favoring my direction, the ground wave field strength was about the same as WLS. Both were listenable Days in Genesee County on my setup, along with WMAQ 670, WGN 720, WBBM 780, and WJJD 1160.

Later, we got a Sony TRF front end SuperSensitive Portable. I could get WAIT 820 and WOSU 820 by nulling out the other, also WGR 550 and WKRC 550, and WSAM 1400 and WJLB 1400. This story led to my English Teacher Jesse Champion revealing the letter in his desk offering him a job at WBRC/WERC 960, owned by Taft with WGR and WKRC, which were listed on the stationery with the letter, which I have bored David with several times. I was saddened when he left, having impressed him greatly with my radio knowledge. I suspect I was first to know he was leaving. I told no one else.

 

[boombox4]

Night time radio was indeed a big deal back in the 1930's and 40's. My mom said that her father would bring in the car battery to run the radio for a while at night and they'd listen to the Grand Ol Opry, and they were in rural Wisconsin. I'm sure they weren't alone in using night time radio as the entertainment.

 

[Schroedingers Cat]

Probably the closest we can come to experience Critical Hours and Nighttime DX like around 1939 is with the expanded band, but it's not like the lower frequencies because of limited groundwave coverage and near Shortwave skywave. That's why the AM BC Band only went up to 1500 before then. The Clears after 1941 in the 1500s had 1/2 wave plus antennas and little duplication. 1590 and 1600 were sparse then, and had low Nighttime Interference Free contours. Until after WW II, the number of powerful stations was limited. The majority of stations were on Local frequencies with 250 watts. 5000 watts, Daytime or Fulltime, especially below 1230, was a lot of power then. It is amazing how many stations were just 1000 watts in the 1940s and even 1950s.

 

[KD4YQR]

As Bob explained in the video, the presets on that Philco radio do not operate like a car radio. Each one has its own tuning coil, and the dial pointer does not move to indicate the frequency of the station.

Here's another late '30s/early '40s radio with call letters on the presets. It clearly was from the Nashville area, but has presets for WSB from Atlanta (about 210 miles away), and WLW from Cincinnati (about 240 miles away). At 500 kW, I'm WLW surely would've come in well during the daytime at that distance.

View attachment 6639

I also see a WHAS button.
Louisville and Nashville (sounds like a good name for a railroad) are around 160 miles apart
I have listened to WHAS in Nashville during the day in recent times

 

[DavidEduardo]

Night time radio was indeed a big deal back in the 1930's and 40's. My mom said that her father would bring in the car battery to run the radio for a while at night and they'd listen to the Grand Ol Opry, and they were in rural Wisconsin. I'm sure they weren't alone in using night time radio as the entertainment.

Remember, before the mid-50's when TV took over night entertainment, radio's "prime time" was at night. That was when all the big network stations had their star shows. Weekdays did have network content, but nowhere near the importance of nights.

Car radios prior to the 50's were kinda' ornery and expensive. Portable radios used expensive batteries to power those tubes, and even home radios were large and looked monstrous compared to the late-60's transistor radio that fit in a person's pocket.

I can still remember from the early 50's sitting in our living room with my mom and dad and my sister listening to our favorite network shows on WGAR, WJW, KYW or WHK. That radio was bigger than the nightstand I have today!

And a regular thing was to have the radio serviceman come by at least once a year to check the tubes and make adjustments in the set. And when it quit working, an urgent service call was placed so we would not miss an episode of our favorite shows.

 

[boombox4]

Remember, before the mid-50's when TV took over night entertainment, radio's "prime time" was at night. That was when all the big network stations had their star shows. Weekdays did have network content, but nowhere near the importance of nights.

Car radios prior to the 50's were kinda' ornery and expensive. Portable radios used expensive batteries to power those tubes, and even home radios were large and looked monstrous compared to the late-60's transistor radio that fit in a person's pocket.

I can still remember from the early 50's sitting in our living room with my mom and dad and my sister listening to our favorite network shows on WGAR, WJW, KYW or WHK. That radio was bigger than the nightstand I have today!

And a regular thing was to have the radio serviceman come by at least once a year to check the tubes and make adjustments in the set. And when it quit working, an urgent service call was placed so we would not miss an episode of our favorite shows.

I'm sure this night time radio thing was especially true in rural areas, where a lot of the farm and other agricultural labor was done during daylight hours, and night time was the only time to relax and have some sort of entertainment.

Definite contrast to today's constantly connected media world.

Even in my lifetime we've gone from prime time TV being the big deal to media being present 24/7. It's almost like what was described in the Alvin Toffler book Future Shock. Toffler wrote about such a world in the 70's. We're living it today.

 

[DavidEduardo]

I'm sure this night time radio thing was especially true in rural areas, where a lot of the farm and other agricultural labor was done during daylight hours, and night time was the only time to relax and have some sort of entertainment.

It was the same in offices and businesses, too. A great big radio was not something an office would have. And before the Musician's union required live bands and little recorded music on the radio, records and music formats did not exist.