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Foxhole Emergency Radios

G OOD MORNING boys. The class By HUGO GERNSBACK pencil, wired it to the movable end of the safety
will now come to order and I want pin and used it for contact with the blade. Vol-
ume increased appreciably.
you to pay strict attention to your head. Jack Gould of the New York T I M E S "A good deal of patience may be required to
old schoolmaster. And please, for find the most sensitive part of the blade for the
has the following to say about it: pencil point. A 'rough' spot, such as where
once, no spit-balls and no catcalls, when the trade name is imprinted, proved effective
We go into our subject which may sound "Details of one of the war's wonderful gadgets, after experiments with several makes of blades
ancient today to some of you old-timers. the 'fox-hole receiver,' are to hand this morn- had been made. A couple of light scratches on
ing. Employing an old rotor blade, a safety pin the blade, made with a nail file, helped, too.
If you have read the newspapers, and and a coil, the device was used by some of our "Mr. Hanson suggested any small cotton-cov-
magazines lately, you will have observed troops on the Anzio beachhead to pick up broad- ered wire, such as No. 28 or 30, for the 120 turns
that there has been a regular rash of emer- casts from Rome, thirty miles away. on the coll. The coil can be wound on any non-
"Lieut. M. L. Rupert, attached to an Infantry metallic cylindrical form, preferably two inches
gency radios which ingenious GI's have unit on the beachhead, voluntarily forwarded the or more in diameter, or around the spread fingers
constructed at the front and in foxholes. 'technical' description of the receiver to the of the hand. Nails, if not rusty, make convenient
Your schoolmaster did a bit of research Marlin Firearms Company, one of whose blades binding posts on which to wrap connections.
happened to be employed on the set that he put "A long outside aerial and a good ground are
and found out that the first one of these together. essential and phones of low impedance seem to
. emergency radios was printed in the FIELD 'The set it built on whatever small piece of work better.
ARTILLERY JOURNAL in thai July l944 issue. wood in available. We print Lieutenant Rupert's "In essence, the pin-and-blade is a first cousin
own diagram of the receiver as reproduced from of the crystal set, the combination fulfilling the
See Exhibit No. 1. This particular one was his letter, and the following are his instructions rectifying function of the galena rock and cat's
"invented" by Lt. William H. Rosee, FA. on its construction and operation: whisker."
In his communication to the FIELD ARTIL- "HERE'S how It works. The razor blade is tacked
down with a wire or tapped (coonected) to it The illustration in Exhibit No. 2, as you
LERY JOURNAL, he said as follows. and going to one side of the coil and on to the will note, is Lt. Rupert's own diagram and
aerial. The other side of the coil goes to the it not too clear. This prompted T I M E maga-
M U S I C , ( ? ) FOR YOUR DUGOUT ground and to one side of the head set.
RECEPTION REPORT zine a few weeks later, to get up a better
There's no limit to a GI's Ingenuity. One bat- "From the other side of the head set a wire diagram. See Exhibit No. 3.
tery on the Anzio beachhead has a "Razor Blade" goes to the safety pin, which is driven into
crystal radio set for every dugout! Each antenna some wood at one end so the pin may be turned. Now thren, you will pardon your old
is about 70 yds. of wire—any kind. The coil is Then the free end of the pin is moved across schoolmaster if all this stuff bores him,
about 75 ft. of copper wire (cornbat wire will the unground part of the Marlin blade and in because all these nice "discoveries" of 1944
do) wound around a grenade container. Ear that way you can find your station. Reception is
phones ?—ask GI where he picks them up ! The very good, and at night we can get several sta- are just too ancient for words:
carbon sticks act as a crystal, the razor blades tions, including the Berlin 'Sally' propaganda Indeed the original "Razor Blade Radio
at the "tickler." programs put on in English"
This "Razor Blade" radio pulls in from two Detector" was published by your school-
to four stations—and sometimes all four at one "Here at home, O. B Hanson, vice-president master in his magazine. MODERN EI.ET-
time ! in charge of engineering for the National Broad-
casting Company, constructed a set from Lieu- TRICS in the January 1909 issue, page 352,
LT. WILLIAM II. Rosee. FA tenant Rupert's instructions and reports satis- just thirty-five years ago ! The real and first
factory results. He got one station. A model built inventor of the "Razor Blade Detector" was
About a week after the appearance of the by this department outdid even the most mod-
FIELD ARTILLERY JOURNAL, the New York ern set, in that no tuning was necessary; all the one Clark Pettingill. The illustration of it
T I M E S in its issue of June 25, came along stations came in at once ! is reproduced herewith and labeled exhibit
A PENC1L TOO No. 4 for all those interested. Mr. Pettingill
with the second foxhole receiver. See ex- "As is the engineer's way, Mr. Hanson made
hibit No. 2. This one is authored by Lt. one refinement. He broke off the point of a lead described his detector as follows:
M. L. Hupert, formerly of Anzio beach- "The detector shown is made of two

THUMBTACKS

EXHIBIT 5
Exhibit 4 shows the original razor-blade detector invented 35 years ago.
Exhibit 5 shows a simple detector made by means of a five cent piece and
a coiled wire spring. Exhibit 6, a combination carbon-grain detector (a drop
of mercury can also be used) of the year 1906.
RADIO-CRAFT for SEPTEMBER, l944
FOXHOLE RECEIVERS

Gillette razor blades mounted on an in-


sulating base of paraffined wood, and held
against a block of wood or hard rubber
by two brass springs, to which the binding
posts are connected.
"A piece of pencil lead is laid across the
blades. A piece of incandescent lamp fila-
ment with a small weight fastened to its
center may be used instead."
Several years before that however, your
schoolmaster had made a simplified detector
called the "Nickel Detector" shown in Ex-
hibit No. 5. Here you see an ordinary nickel
held down by means of a thumbtack on a
small block of wood. Now take a pencil and
wind a piece of copper or brass wire all
the way down to its point. This gives you
a conical sort of spring. You fasten this
with another thumbtack as shown. Now ad-
just the spring on the surface of the nickel
and with your headphones on, you will soon
find the spot where reception is best.
Years before this, to be exact, in 1906
your schoolmaster constructed and sold
through his historic E.I. Co., several thou-
sand "Auto Coherers." This is shown in
Exhibit No. 6. As the illustration shows,
it is composed of two binding posts and a
glass tube in the center of which we place
some ordinary polished carbon grains, such
as are usrd in ordinary microphones. Only
about a dozen grains e i r e needed which
make contact with the two metal or carbon
plugs shown in cut. The "Auto Coherer,"
probably one of the oldest of the type,
works very well and unless you shake or
jar it, it will give good reception continu-
ously.
,

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