Category Archives: Radio History

Video: The Battle of the Beams

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Jonathan Marks, who shares this video about Luftwaffe Navigation Beams via YouTube–fascinating WWII history:

Video description:

This episode documented how British Intelligence became aware of various German Luftwaffe Navigation Beams, such as Knickebein, X Gerat and Y Gerat, and the counter measures developed to combat them, in what became known as the Battle of the Beams.

It is largely based on the book Most Secret War written by R.V.Jones who features heavily in the series. This programme contains rare footage of The Blitz including the bombing of Coventry. Interviewees include Albert Speer and AVM Edward Addison.

Wartime radio: The secret listeners

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After publishing the post about Geoff Hanley and the Radio Security Service last week, I discovered this brilliant 1979 documentary from the BBC which highlights civilian involvement in radio-based intelligence during WWI and WWII.

Here’s a description from the East Anglian Film Archive:

“It was the tireless work of amateur radio enthusiasts during World War I, that initially convinced the Admiralty to establish a radio intercept station at Hunstanton. Playing an integral role during the war, technological advances meant that radio operators could pinpoint signals, thus uncovering the movement of German boats, leading to the decisive Battle of Jutland in 1916.

Wireless espionage was to play an even more important role during World War II, with the Secret Intelligence Service setting up the Radio Security Service, which was staffed by Voluntary Interceptors, a band of amateur radio enthusiasts scattered across Britain. The information they collected was interpreted by some of the brightest minds in the country, who also had a large hand in deceiving German forces by feeding false intelligence.”

Click here to watch the 30 minute film.

1930s refrigerator had built-in radio

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Many thanks to Andy Sennitt for sharing this fascinating piece of radio nostalgia:

Gizmodo columnist, Matt Novak, writes:

Jesse Walker, author of the book Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America, pointed me to this rather novel invention from 1937 — the refrigerator-radio combination unit. This may seem like an odd marriage of tech, but it makes perfect sense when you realise that it in the 1930s it was becoming harder to sell new radios and much easier to sell new fridges.

Despite the Great Depression, America saw an explosion of mechanical refrigerator ownership during the 1930s. In 1930, just 8 per cent of American households had a fridge. By the end of the decade, nearly half of American homes had one.

But the market for radios was pretty saturated in the late 1930s. Over 80 per cent of American households had a radio by the end of the decade. So radio set manufacturers tried to insert their products into new places that from the vantage point of the future, we can see didn’t pan out (like refrigerators) and others that did (like cars).

Continue reading on Gizmodo…

Geoff Hanley and the Radio Security Service

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Geoff Hanley (Photo source: Express and Star)

Many thanks to my friend, Phillip, for sharing this brilliant article from the Express and Star:

Researchers discover Wolverhampton man’s secret past

He was a happily married insurance agent with a secret that he took to the grave.

Geoff Hanley was known to be a keen radio ham but nobody realised exactly what he was doing once he donned a pair of special issue headphones in his garden shed.

He would leave his family night after night to operate from the ‘radio shack’ that was specially blacked out for fear of air raids and in which he kept a sten gun, Lee Enfield 303 rifle and hand grenades.

When the siren sounded he ensured his wife, two children and dog were safe in the shelter he had dug in the garden of their Wolverhampton home but he would not join them. He stayed above ground at his post in the shed continuing to secretly monitor German military radio signals.

The operation was so hush-hush that even he may not have been entirely sure how the information he gathered was being used. But he was certain of two things – it was important and he could not speak about it to anybody outside those he worked with.

Continue reading…

Paul Litwinovich’s Vintage Radio series

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Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, Richard Cuff, for pointing out a brilliant series of articles called Vintage Radio by WSHU Chief Engineer, Paul Litwinovich.

Here are links to each article written thus far in the Vintage Radio series. If you would like to start at the beginning of the series, go to the bottom of the list first, then work your way up:

Paul Litwinovich is a shortwave listener, amateur radio operator and holds a commercial FCC license as well; here’s his bio, taken from the WSHU website:

“Paul caught the radio bug as a child. By age 12, he had taught himself the basics of vacuum tube theory. He began repairing old, discarded radio sets, the kind that we now call vintage sets. He loved listening, too, to local programs, DJs who picked their own music, talk shows designed to inform, not shock the listener. But his favorite listening was to short wave radio, with its magic of music and programming from all around the world.

Hobby led to career. Paul was a design engineer and engineering manager in the broadcast industry for 14 years before coming to WSHU in 1990. He holds an FCC commercial radio license, and an extra class Amateur radio license. And, oh yes, he’s still restoring and collecting vintage radio sets, for more than 45 years now, and counting.”

I’ve been in touch with Paul who tells me that an upcoming article will focus on one of my favorite WWII era receivers, the BC-348.

I can’t wait to read it!

Coldwar Radio: When the VOA was an offshore broadcaster

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Photo courtesy of former Courier crewman David M. Newell. Source: US Coast Guard

(Source: VOA News)

In 1952, amidst the Cold War, a 338-foot Coast Guard Cutter was transformed into the mobile broadcasting base of the Voice of America. Its mission for more than a decade: send information beyond the Iron Curtain to counter Soviet propaganda in more than a dozen native languages. Daniela Schrier reports from an exhibit honoring the veterans and broadcasters who served aboard the ship in the waters off of Rhodes, Greece.

Click here to watch the video if the embedded player above is not visible.

BBC Radio 4 Extra: The First Pirate

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The First Pirate is the title of a Radio 4 Extra–an interview with Les Woodland who tells the story of Captain Plugge, founder of Radio Normandy, the first station to take on the BBC.

(Source: Southgate ARC)

Capt Leonard Plugge was the driving force behind Radio Normandy in the early 1930s. He created the International Broadcasting Company in 1931 as a commercial rival to the British Broadcasting Corporation by buying airtime from radio stations such as Normandy, Toulouse, Ljubljana, Juan les Pins, Paris, Poste Parisien, Athlone, Barcelona, Madrid and Rome. IBC worked indirectly with Radio Luxembourg until 1936. World War II silenced most of Plugge’s stations between 1939 and 1945.

Click here to listen to The First Pirate which will be broadcast on Thursday, August 21st 2014 at 05:30, 12:30, and 19:30 UTC and Friday August 22 at 1:30 UTC.