Inspecting the inside of the radio one day I touched my finger to the grid cap of one of the tubes. It made a buzz sound when you touched it. That fascinated me. If I touched it, moving my finger up and down quickly, it sounded like Morse code. I had been studying the code from a book a friend had given me. I made a key out of pieces of a tin can that I could practice Morse code on. Had fun with it until my Dad threatened to take the radio away for abusing it. Other contributors to my interest, a good friend of the family, an engineer for a local radio station would save old parts for me - old tubes - volume controls - capacitors - resistors, etc.
Along with all that junk that I prized was a small speaker. I would talk into it as though it were a
microphone. For some reason, as the day I touched my finger to the tube, I connected the two wires from the speaker to the grid caps of the
two 6L6 tubes in the old Airline - and "lo and behold" - when I talked into the speaker - my voice came out of the radio. I had let a Genie out of
the bottle, who landed, firmly on my shoulder and would ultimately mess with my brain, I suppose, forever.
Completely fascinated by this I later hooked up the wires from an old crystal phonograph pickup and found that I now had a great sounding
record player. Thought my Dad was going to shoot me when he saw that I had cut out a hole in the top of the mahogany cabinet to mount the
record player. But, it made a neat portable record player with good sound from the 10-inch speaker.
I began to collect records, the old 78's, mostly Glen Miller because I like the sounds of the horns. I lugged the new record player to parties - and - as far as I know was the first D J for parties. Carrying old, brittle 78's was a problem though - sit on them - heat warped them. Some didn't last too long. I think we used the player for music at out Junior/Senior prom in 1944. I remember I had bought a special 78 to play at the prom. I carelessly laid it in the seat of the old Model A and a girlfriend named Doris sat on it. "Old Black Magic" I believe, didn't get played at the prom that night.
LEFT: Sears Silvertone Radio from the History net.
Right: Mom's rubber tree plant where she just happened to get a partial picture of the old Silvertone in the living room. The rubber tree plant grew to the ceiling and over to the next wall before she gave it to the nursery where they placed her name on it.
Right: Mom's rubber tree plant where she just happened to get a partial picture of the old Silvertone in the living room. The rubber tree plant grew to the ceiling and over to the next wall before she gave it to the nursery where they placed her name on it.
