[CW] Old Book

[Richard Knoppow]

    I've been going through  books I have in storage. I wish I 
had the room to shelve all of them. One I pulled out this 
afternoon is titled "The Wireless Experimenter's Manual" by Elmer 
Butcher. Butcher worked for Marconi and later RCA. The book is 
dated 1920 but the introduction is dated 1919. According to the 
introduction it is a "completely re-written" version of a book 
issued before although not marked a "second edition". It was 
published by the Wireless Press, which seems to have been an 
imprint of the Marconi company. The address is 236 Broadway, this 
is the same general area as Vibroplex, who's address was 253 
Broadway. An interesting neighborbood. I am sure all here know 
that Vibroplex also sold typewriters.
    The Wireless Press also advertised a set of code practice 
records made by Marconi and offered through Victor Records. There 
is a list of the sides which include recordings of traffic from 
the Marconi station at Cape Cod (WCC). The set of 12 sides is 
$5.00, which translates to nearly $70.00 in current dollars. Not 
stated if these are 10" or 12" inch. In 1920 they would have been 
acoustical recordings. RCA did not acquire Victor until 1929. I 
am very curious as to whether The traffic recordings were actual 
recordings off the air or were synthesized. They are supposed to 
include static and one track includes interference from a second 
station. I wonder if anyone has a set of these, I have not looked 
on the web to see if any are available, perhaps on Archive.org or 
you tube.
    There is a catalog section in back of the book with a long 
list of books available.
    Also included is Butcher's advice on how to start and run an 
amateur radio club. At the time Marconi was in competition with 
the ARRL and was not friendly towards it.
    Almost all the references in the book are to Marconi, RCA is 
mentioned only in the introduction where Butcher is stated to be 
an engineer for RCA. The changeover must just have happened.
     The book has a section on tube receivers and nothing on arc 
transmitters. I must say the instructions for building spark sets 
is a bit daunting.
     A friend and mentor built a rotary spark for a museum many 
years ago and I got to key it a little. I have no idea what 
happened to the model.
     It would be interesting to know what else was in that 
section of Broadway at the time, maybe an early wireless 
neighborhood like the later "radio row".

-- 
Richard Knoppow
1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
WB6KBL