A Crummy Commercial

While pursuing a favorite activity, browsing magazines, I saw this cover: It's from the March 1934 issue of Radio-Craft magazine.  And the Phonosone article is by none other than Hugo Gernsback himself ! source: https://dn760003.eu.archive.org/0/items/Radio-Craft_1934_03/Radio-Craft_1934_03.pdf If you've never heard of Hugo Gernsback before try the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback photo scanned from the November 1967 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine (page 4) by Michael Holley Swtpc6800. The phonosone itself was basically one half of a pair of headphones that were modified to provide for better bone conduction. No, I have not tried building one although the man on the cover does seem to be really happy  !  :) The inflated price of Radio-Craft : I will have to look to see if Mann's Store still has magazines for sale the next time I'm in there. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

Baseball is complicated (skip to 10 minutes in): source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_f8KpkKczQ Apparent 4th out ?  Huh ?  Here is the explanation from The Athletic: What are 'fourth outs'? Let’s set the scene: It’s the seventh inning. Runners are on the corners. Toronto leads Boston 2-0. The center-field scoreboard shows two outs, so both runners go on contact.   Except there weren’t two outs. An earlier play was announced in the press box as a double play, but the hitter (the Red Sox’s Nick Sogard) was the runner on first. As Anthony Seigler crossed home plate, the scoreboard operator realized the mistake.   Watch the very top of this GIF, as the number of outs rolls back from two to one: Blue Jays pitcher Simeon Woods-Richardson and catcher Brandon Valenzuela pounded their gloves in unison, seemingly also believing it to be three outs.   Second baseman Josh Smith knew. But when he doubled up Sogard at first to end the inning, why did the r...

Keeping on the grade school in the 1960s theme, I was reminded of my encounter with the urban phenomenon: crossing guards.  We moved to Fox Point in fall 1961 where I went to first grade at Indian Hill School.  Here's the class picture (I'm at the lower right): source: https://archive.org/details/MapleDale/Maple%20Dale6/page/n3/mode/2up For some reason I remember Mrs. Smith as being really OLD  :)     I HATE the fact that 4 of those 21 kids are dead in 2026 :(   Now except for maybe one time (that was a civil defense thing where school was let out early and we walked home from Maple Dale) I usually rode the bus, at least in the lower grades.  The suburbs didn't have sidewalks or crossing guards or even that many stop lights.  So it was probably asking a lot for a 4, 5 or 6 year old kid to walk 1.8 miles unsupervised to school and back home. Bing chose this route to Indian Hill where I went to 1st grade . Bing doesn't like direct rou...

As I kid who started school in the 1960s I immediately recognized this publication I came across recently: The scan is from this wonderful blog: https://dreamsofspace.blogspot.com/2011/03/my-weekly-reader-1960-1966.html I will be spending more time reading that blog.  I started first grade in 1961 so I *might* have seen this one while attending Indian Hill: And this 1/2 page about John Glenn was from 1962 when I we had all moved to the big school: Maple Dale: I really don't remember much specifically about My Weekly Reader except for one incident that I remember clearly.  This must have been in 1961 or 1962.  President Kennedy had started a new project called The Peace Corps in 1961.  One thing the teachers did was have students read aloud from My Weekly Reader .  I remember one girl was called on to read and when she got to Peace Corps she instead said peach crops - well as kids will do we all laughed.  Now that I think of the incident it must have been t...

I don't remember ever seeing or hearing about this: It reminds me of the Kellogg's submarine mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/02/kelloggs-submarine.html But the Power-Sub is much bigger than the Kellogg, about a foot long.  The magic pills, baking soda and fruit acid (ascorbic or citric ?) probably aren't available though. Of course it is patented: https://patents.google.com/patent/US2708810A/en Here is one on Ebay, $90 !!  https://www.ebay.com/itm/377247431224 I'll pass on that :)   The semi-obligatory inflated price (done twice, the regular site was down): Update: got this offer later in the day: That's still too much for me. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

https://www.un.org/en/observances/international-day-friendship I am late to World Friendship Day on July 30, 2026 (I got the name wrong, it's International Day of Friendship but you get the idea).  Bing offered 20 points for creating World Friendship Day pictures using AI.  I tried QSL cards: This was the input: ham radio qsl card for WB9KZY world friendship day showing an Elecraft K2 radio   Kinda nothing special, not horrible but generic, another AI miss (or AI whisperer swing and miss). And I didn't even get the 20 points, so three strikes on that one, missed the day, missed a good QSL and missed the points :( Here's one of my photo QSLs: Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

A Kentucky high school student brought some radios to school in January 2025.  The school and a local deputy appear to have then gone off the deep end: seized the radios, concocted requests for a warrant after the seizure and generally messed things up.  Now they may have to PAY. Three links with a few details: https://www.kentucky.com/news/local/article316639936.html https://www.wkyt.com/2026/07/29/lawsuit-alleges-pulaski-co-students-two-way-radios-were-seized-without-warrant/ source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddi3l9TCcIY I suspect the narrative was something similar to this:  - a ham/student brings handie talkie/s to school so he can listen for fire callouts  - some other kid asks him: "is that all it can do ?"  - then the ham demos a QSO on a ham radio repeater  - a teacher witnesses this and gets hysterical  - off-duty cop takes the radio/s and later fabricates a paper trail to make the seizure appear legal  - the kid's family goes...