Miscellaneous

Old Westinghouse Radio Station Directory

As I’ve mentioned in an earlier posting, I’ve been cleaning out my basement. My Dad gave me a box of old radio books and I found this Westinghouse Radio Station Directory for Canada.




There isn’t a date on it, but it looks like this book would have been included with the purchase of a Westinghouse World Cruiser Radio. That would probably put the book somewhere in the mid 1930s, as evidenced by these ads.



However, there is a curious passage on page 12: “The Paris Stations now handle the programs from Berlin, often without separate station identification.” I’m not sure if that’s an oblique reference to the German occupation of France or not. If so, that would date the book after 1940. There is a possible corroboration of this date based on a passage on the same page: “There are several other transmissions from London in some fourteen different languages for propaganda purposes but these have not been listed.” However, the meaning of the word “propaganda” has changed quite a bit over the years so I can’t be sure of this interpretation. There is also a reference to “Rumania” on page 13, which was in common use around and before the WWII timeframe, but I believe that spelling had largely died out after that.

It has a short description of the Canadian Westinghouse Company as follows:

“In two large plants at Hamilton, Ontario, the Canadian Westinghouse Company manufacture not only the enormous motors, generators and transformers used by industry, but also a complete line of electrical servants for the home: refrigerators, ranges, washing machines, radio receivers, radio tubes and lamps. These plants, covering 53 acres, employ upwards of 4000 people.“

It’s interesting looking through the stations listed from all over the world. For example, the Vatican City had a large number of radio stations. I wonder what they were all used for?

There’s a neat little ad for “Westinghouse Genuine Radiotrons” on the back page.

I scanned in the guide and OCR’d it. You can retrieve it by the link here.