Foxhole Radio

What should have been a simple book about radios…

A new book!

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In the process of writing Foxhole Radio, I accumulated files of notes regarding early army radio, especially on what would have been considered portable equipment for field use. These letters, diagrams, manuals, and photographs cover 1897 through the First World War, from spark sets through the first vacuum tube transmitters and receivers and the earliest radio telephones.

Rather than simply let all of this languish in file boxes and computer hard drives, I organized it all chronologically, and, as these things do, it began to take a life of its own. It soon became a sort of field guide to these early sets.

Mostly based on contemporaneous records, U. S. Army Radio: portable transmitters and receivers 1897-1918 covers an overlooked area of tactical communications. It is hoped that it will inspire further research and future volumes on related communications topics from the same period, especially the development of aircraft communications, radio telephony, and early radio development in other military services.

U.S. Army Radio is available through Amazon in both paperback and eBook formats.

First glimpse

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This is a picture of George B. Ferree’s WWI crystal radio from the old Fort Monmouth website. The radio had been in storage for many years by the time I first heard about it. This led to trips to Fort Monmouth to see it firsthand, to Arkansas to meet George Ferree’s son, Eddie, who provided a copy of his father’s war journal, and to several libraries and archives, meeting some wonderful people and seeing some amazing things along the way.

pee-wee radio

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It has been too long since the last post! Here is a little home-brew radio from the Coast Artillery, Panama Canal Department, July 1944.

The caption on the Coast Artillery Command photo reads:

No larger than the palm of his hand is Sgt. Donald Develder’s home-made pee-wee radio, said to be the smallest receiving set in Panama. The Rochester, N.Y. soldier in the Panama Coast Artillery Command was unable to buy a radio, so he made one himself out of a discarded piece of plywood, and spare parts scavenged from junk heaps. It weighs three pounds, is six inches long, six inches wide, and three inches deep. And it plays! Sgt. Develder is shown getting earful of latest invasion news.

The day has finally arrived!

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Foxhole Radio is now available for purchase on Amazon, at Barnes and Noble, and available for order at most bookstores. Thank you to everyone whose contributions, support and interest have made this possible. I am very happy with how the book turned out and I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed working on it. If you are a bookseller, thanks for taking a look, and Foxhole Radio is available through Ingram, ISBN 978-0578536583.

Tune In…

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A flyer for U S Army radio stations (Information and Education Section, which spawned the Armed Forces Network) operating in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations. This was printed sometime between Summer 1944 when the Rome station was established and June 15, 1945, the final broadcast of the Fifth Army Mobile Station.

Details of George Ferree’s radio

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Here are some extra pictures of George B. Ferree’s radio that won’t be in the book. He built this crystal set from a German battery box during WWI (see the book for more details). I took these at the US Army Communications Electronics Museum at Fort Monmouth in 2006. The radio, along with much of the museum’s exhibits, are, for now, in storage at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.