Friday, May 14, 2010
Today, my sister Meta has her prom, Nana and I are going over to see her dress around 3 p.m. We're all really anxious to see what it looks like because Meta let my mother make it. This comes as a shocker because lil Meat used to be the epitome of everything froo-froo and girlie. When my mom made my prom dress six years ago, Meta was appalled and said, "I will NEVER let Mom make my dress!" Oh how the times have changed...
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Hi,
ReplyDeleteI'm writing a book about WWII veterans and the improvised radios they built. I've interviewed quite a few and thought I was done with research but a couple of weeks ago I found an old radio newsgroup post from your grandfather at https://admin.qsl.net/pipermail/boatanchors/2002-October.txt
"I have a small case of WW II stuff that I brought back home with me in 1945,
and the mention of the razor blade radio aroused my curiosity as I had build
one in the UK back in 1944 to listen to the BBC..
In April of 1944 I was sent with a driver to various signal depots to pick up
the radio and telephone gear we would need for D-Day..At one of the depots I met
a ham and he gave me a mimeograph schematic of a razor blade radio, which all
the guys at the depot were using. I bummed some wire from him and when I got
back to my station I put together the parts I had scrounged up and lo and behold
it worked as the strong BBC signal just saturated the area we were in.
I packed it in my B bag and after the invasion on D-Day, when our stuff caught
up with us I used it whenever we were back off the line..The BBC came through
like gangbusters as they were running megawatts of power from their new location
up in the Lake Country of the UK..I even made a SW model by taking turns off the
coil and was able to copy the BBC on the 49 meter band.
I brought the radio home with me and kept it with all the other
souvenirs..Amazingly the radio would only work with Gillette Blue blades I guess
that was because of the superior quality of the steel they used.
In 1948, my brother Dan was station in Germany on occupation duty and had a
portable radio..He kept bugging me to send him batteries so as a joke I sent him
the razor blade radio as I knew he was stationed next to one of AFN stations..He
used it successfully for two years and brought it home when he was discharged.
In the 1950s I replaced the razor blade with a WE co. radar diode and used it to
listen to WCBS in NYC.
Joe, W1GDZ, just gave me a couple of razors blades and they are blue but not
Gillettes so I will let you know how it works. The circuit appears in the 1945,
September issue of QST magazine and was also shown in either Time or Newsweek
magazine sometime in 1945. The circuit in QST, which was sent in by some guy
in the Pacific theater of ops was the same as the circuit the guy in the UK gave
me so it must have traveled around the World.
Thanks David and Dave for making me look in that box of stuff which I had not
opened in years. By the way you need a 2000 Ohm headset with razor blade
radios..I will fire it up with Joes razor blades and let you know how I make
out...
73 de Vic, W1NU"
I was hoping to find out more about Vic Politi and stumbled cross your blog in the process. I've sent a couple of letters to the address I have for him hoping for a reply. If you happen to know anything about the radio or his experience in the war I would love to hear from you.
Thanks!
Brian