Emerson Radio & Phonograph Corporation
Compact Model 25
World’s Biggest Selling Little Radio
Richard Arnold
From 1924 to 1932 Emerson Radio and Phonograph Corporation distributed radio receivers bearing the name Emerson through many diverse channels, including department and sporting goods stores. In 1932, Emerson began to specialize in small receiver sets for home use. One of these sets was the now very collectible and desirable model 25. This is the first true compact radio.

If Not “Television,” Why Not “Facsimile?”
So many people ask: “Are we ever going to have television in our homes?” Instead of replying, the Editors ask another question: “How would you like to have an attachment for your receiver that would print the original strips of text and illustrations shown on these pages?”
(Radio News, August, 1934)

New Styles in Broadcast Studios
The networks and the large individual stations throughout the United States are investing heavily in modernized and enlarged studio quarters. It was natural that, following recent trends in programs and technical equipment, appropriate studio settings for the physical presentation of broadcasts should be provided.
(Radio News, April, 1936)

Is American Broadcasting Economically Sound?
Back in 1920 when radio broadcasting was first introduced, the "problem" of who would ultimately pay for it was immediately recognized.
(Radio News, March 1931)

Hollywood Goes Radio
Mystery plays, comedies, color-movies, these and many other types of motion pictures have utilized radio in some form to round out the script or the staging. Radio finally came into its own, though, last month, when Paramount Pictures released "Arkansas Traveler," and MetroGoldwyn-Mayer sponsored "Pygmalion." These two top-flight sound motion pictures depend, in the first instance, on radio broadcasting, and in the second, on sound recording, as the main theme.
(Radio News, February 1936)

Who Invented the Superheterodyne?
By Alan Douglas
Of E.H. Armstrong's four principal inventions—regeneration, superregeneration, the superheterodyne, and frequency modulation—the superheterodyne has always seemed one of the least controversial. "Everyone" knows that Armstrong invented it. He devised it during World War I, patented it shortly afterward, sold his patent to Westinghouse who cross-licensed RCA and the radio industry, and that was that. Some Frenchman named Lévy claimed he was first, but whoever heard of him?

Problem In Decoration
Radios are furniture. Maybe that's what you think. But if you and the radio industry do, you are both almost alone in your opinion.
(Radio Retailing, November 1937)

Radio's Role in the Spanish War
The present Spanish civil war has caused a complete radio metamorphosis throughout Spain.
(Radio News, January 1937)

The New Self Tuning Radio Receiver!
The difficulties of accurately tuning modern superhet receivers are eliminated by this ingenious "tuning corrector."
(Radio-Craft, October 1938)

New French Radio Furniture
Radio sets built into modern suites of furniture offer new sales possibilities to manufacturers–and more business for Service Men.
(Radio-Craft, October 1938)

Is International Broadcasting Just Around the Corner?
Radio engineers who are working to develop the dream of worldwide interchange of radio programs into an actual fact today are the adventurers of broadcasting. The results of their efforts are felt all through Europe, in far-away Australia, in South America and in South Africa. The American radio listener gets occasional glimpses of the fruits of their experiments when a program originating in a foreign studio is picked up and rebroadcast by an American transmitter on a National Broadcasting Company network.
(Radio News, January 1930)

Laboratory Tests in High-Speed Production
From bare floors to the production of more than 5,000 precision-tested radio receivers per day by 13,000 employees is in truth an accomplishment, but when it is done in the brief span of twelve weeks it establishes what is believed to be a new record for the radio manufacturing world. Who can say that such an achievement lacks thrills throughout every step of the transition?
(Radio News, January 1930)

Putting Empty Spaces in Vacuum Tubes
Information on the methods of making the vacuum inside of the radio tubes considered the heart of radio transmitting and receiving apparatus.
(Radio News, October 1933)

International Radio Corporation
Builders of Kadette radios (and Argus cameras), International Radio was an small but innovative company in the 1930s.

Kadette Tunemaster
Just imagine yourself lounging at ease the whole evening through, really enjoying radio as you have never enjoyed it before. Never once is the spell broken by having to leave your chair to change programs or adjust volume. Think, too, how convenient for the busy housewife. She can carry Tunemaster from room to room and operate a radio anywhere else in the home as easily as if sitting beside it.
(1939).

Remler Radio
Remler is best known to collectors for their striking black-and-white plastic radios with little Scottie dog mascots. here's a look at the company from a 1931 sales piece.

Federal Radio Commission
"Public Interest, Convenience and Necessity" ... That one phrase has been the big stick with which the Federal Radio Commission has taken radio out of chaos and insured for the American people the best radio regulation in the world.
(Radio News, November 1929)

NBC Builds Radio City
The world's largest and most modern broadcasting studios will be opened for their inaugural broadcast on the evening of November 15, 1933, when the National Broadcasting Company officially enters the elaborate studio suite in Radio City, New York's huge realty development devoted to entertainment.
(Radio News, December 1933)

Tour San Francisco NBC Studios
Take a virtual tour of the NBC San Francisco radio studios of the 1940s. Complete with floor plan and photos of the building as it appeared when first opened.

Trapped by Radio!
Bootleggers' Use of unlicensed Short Wave transmitter proved their undoing when traced by means of direction-finding receivers.
(Radio News, January 1930)

Diary of a Radio Fan
(Popular Radio, September 1925)

“Weighing In” Radio Stations
A description of easily-constructed apparatus that will tune in different radio stations by the addition of weights on a balance.
(Radio News, April 1928)

Radio on the Hindenberg
(Radio News, August 1936)

Recreating a 1930’s Finish
A process for recreating the look of a factory finish using materials available to the radio collector.

Repainting Plastic Radios
Here's a method for making repainted radios look like factory painted ones. It's a little complicated, but the results are spectacular!

Building a Police Call Alarm
With this radio call alarm connected to your broadcast receiver you can listen in to broadcast programs at any time, yet hear every police call sent out from your local police station without touching the receiver controls.
(Modern Mechanix' Radio Builders' Manual, 1933)

Stereoscopic Television
John L. Baird produces moving images which are given the appearance of solidity.
(Radio News, November 1928 )

Remote Control Without Wires
An explanation of a proposed scheme for tuning a stationary receiver from anywhere in the house.
(Radio News, February 1928)

The Autoverter
An entirely new idea in portable radio set operation
(Radio-Craft, January 1932)

40 years of Television
When I wrote in December, 1909, what was probably the first technical television article to appear in print--"Television and the Telephot," for my former magazine, MODERN ELECTRICS, even I did not foresee all the coming wonders of television. As I write these lines almost 40 years later, television has finally arrived--after many false starts.
(Radio-Electronics, March 1949)

Radio That Fixes Itself
Here is an authoritative article on the much-discussed Cosmo Compo radio, written by the man that invented it. This receiver, which is already being sold in metropolitan department stores, has been hailed by some non-technical writers as a means of emancipating the radio owner from the repairman.
(Radio-Craft, December 1947)

What Radio Has Meant to Talking Pictures
Not until microphones, vacuum tubes, loud speakers and audio amplifiers were developed to their present high degree of perfection were talking movies ever possible as a labratory experiment. There general acceptance by a rather critical public is proof enough of the success of engineers to give movies its own voice.
(Radio News, April 1931)

Radios Serviced by Observation
Sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste are valuable instruments for checking receivers.
(Radio-Craft, September 1945)

All About Ballast and Resistor Tubes
From the number of inquiries which have been I received recently, it is evident that there is considerable uncertainty among members of the radio industry regarding the function, purpose, and application of ballast tubes.
(Radio-Craft, January 1939)

Radio Facsimile
Station W9XZY, the experimental radio facsimile broadcasting station operated by the St. Louis Post Dispatch, last month inaugurated the world's first regular broadcast on ultra-high frequencies of specially prepared facsimile newspapers. The broadcasts will be continued daily and Sunday at 2 p.m.
(Radio-Craft, March 1939)

Constructing the “Radiolamp”
This article describes the construction of a miniature radio set combined with a table lamp--the lamp serves as the limiting resistor in the filament circuit, the shade doubles as the speaker cone.
(Radio-Craft, May 1933)

World’s Largest All-Wave Set
The thrills of all-wave listening are no longer a novelty. The great enjoyment of tuning-in the world in your own home is now a commonplace. So much so, as a matter of fact, that fans are bound to miss the universal program fare when away from home on business or pleasure trips. There is now an indication that leading hotels throughout the land, in cognizance of the allwave radio trend, may follow the suit of the famous Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, of New York, in converting centralized radio systems into allwave program relay plans.
(Radio News, August 1935)

New Features in TV Sets
Improvements and innovations in design distinguish 1949's selection of receiving sets.
(Radio-Electronics, March 1949)

New Auto Radios for 1934
Auto-radio receivers have improved considerably in design and appearance in the past few months.
(Radio-Craft, July 1934)

KDKA: Radios New 500 Horsepower Voice
In the amazing manner of what may some day be known as the "radio decade," our erstwhile pioneer and infant commercial broadcaster, KDKA, has achieved the ripe old age of ten and acquired a 500 horsepower voice. It seems hard to realize that 400,000 watts of power have grown from the feeble hesitant 100-watt transmitter that undertook the task of sending news to a few eager listeners on that momentous evening of the Harding presidential election.
(Radio News, April 1931)

German Television in 1935
While America is still of the belief that television has not advanced sufficiently for general use, England and Germany are now endeavoring, through the aid of their respective governments, to make television as popular as broadcasting. Other European countries are following in their footsteps, and it can be truthfully said that Europe is now in the throes of "television fever."
(Radio News, July 1935)