WIFX - Jamestown College Radio

I do love a mystery. What I know of WIFX mostly comes from this QRL card. A QRL is not the same as QRS. QRL is just asking if a frequency is occupied. The normal response is "yes", or silence. The "PH" on the card specifies voice mode.  So as you would imagine, this is not something that makes sense to do by mail. The card gives two calls, one Ham, one apparently broadcast AM or FM; WIFX and W8ZET. That they are in different radio bands is very uncommon The date is August 18th, 1948, 9:10 PM central time. 

The ham calls are based in Ashland, OH.  WIFX were receiving in Jamestown, ND which is about 100 miles west of Fargo, ND, which is to say basically nowhere... it's a small town. The population today is about 15k. If the kids were masquerading as a college radio station on the 10 meter amateur band at 28 Mc it'd be very unusual, but not impossible. Voice is permitted on 28.200 - 29.300 MHz even today. [SOURCE] But despite that context I don't think that's the case. I think what we have is a college radio station reporting QSL because they also listen on the10 meters band.

The community of Hams are pretty good at preserving information so we know exactly who W8ZET is. The call sign started with Jack Hire in 1929, then to Jim Hire, then Jim's wife Janeen Hire who held them until her death in 2002.  [SOURCE] At the bottom is a note "Sorry Jim QRM put us out better next." It seems clear from the note that Jim Hire had the call sign by 1948.

This is not the WIFX you are looking for

 There is a lot of Ham lingo on here which makes it clear the card is from WIFX to W8ZET.

1. 73 - Best regards
2. VY  - Very 
3. DE - From
4. DX - Long Distance
5. Ph - Phone/voice mode 

But in consulting the 1948 Broadcasting Yearbook, I see less than a page of stations in North Dakota: KFYR, KDLR, KDIX, KFGO, WDAY, KVNJ (CP), KFJM, KILO, KNOX, KVNW, KDJB, KGCU, KLPM, KOVC and KWBM (CP). That's just 15 stations, two of which were still CPs. But there really was a station in Jamestown. It was KSJB owned not by the university but the Jamestown Broadcasting Co. The university had a station, 88.1 KJKR. It was founded in 2012, then was sold to a christian satcaster in 2019 for a measly 20k. It's never had any call sign other than KJKR. More here. 

Then the obvious dawned on me. A "W" station shouldn't be on this side of the Mississippi as late as 1948. There are a handful of exceptions but generally speaking, not a thing. There is a WIFX today in Jenkins, KY. That station was founded as WREM in 1970, and changed calls to WIFX in 1981, and has stuck with that for 45 some years now. That has nothing to do with this station.

My theory is that Jamestown College had a carrier current or part 15 station in 1948 and it's operator(s) also sent out QSL postcards. I have little evidence except for a footnote on the university website campus map. [LINK] The entry describes Orlady Hall, built in 1941. 

"The lower level housed the Jimmie Grill and student union until Westminster Hall was built in 1960. In the 1950s, a campus radio station was also located in the lower level. The building continues to house biology, chemistry, math, and physics facilities."

It's hard to say who may have been involved with so little documentation but  the former staff announcer from KSJB and owner of KEYJ, Robert Richardson was also a radio instructor at Jamestown College from 1956-1960.  If the station survived form 1958 to 1956 he'd be a likely candidate to have been involved having been a student there previously. I'd ask him but he died last January. [LINK]  The 1952 Directory of College Courses in radio and television has an enticing entry, with just one more name: Robert E. Dressler. I think he's Robet Eugene Dressler, formerly of Northwestern University. [LINK] He was only faculty 1950 - 1953, so he was likely replaced by Richardson, but just as likely to have been involved with WIFX.

But that 1950s foray into carrier current college radio wasn't even that wasn't Jamestown College's first foray into broadcasting. The is a record of a student debate between Concordia and Jamestown Colleges way back in 1922. Because of an ad in Radio News in June, 1923 I know they were using an ESCO motor generator for their broadcasts, presumably experimental. In an issue of The Wireless Age I did find a listing for 9BVR belonging to Byron E. Fahl at Jamestown College in 1922; then in a Department of Commerce listing of 1924, a Raymond L Ringuette with 9EDU. It's strange that I can find more information about amateur radio at Jamestown College in the 1920s than their carrier current station in the 1950s but that's currently the case. 

Bellarmine College Radio

 

I spend too much time on eBay. I'm starting to see patterns. Apophenia is the human propensity to imagine patterns in what is totally random information. I don't think I have that problem. There is surely a good German noun that describes obsessive research radio history. It doesn't require treatment, it just requires something new to read. The internet tells me it's funkforschungsbesessenheit.

Anyway, I meant to discuss Bellarmine College Radio. On eBay I found a set of empty college radio mailers for sale. (It's an odd thing to sell, but kudos if you can make a buck on that.) The few visible postmarks date to 1971-1973. The addressee is often scratched out, but the rest of the address is usually intact. The timing is interesting because in June of 1968, Ursuline College and Bellarmine College merged to form a "co-educational" college that is now known as Bellarmine University.  

Both colleges existed before 1968 separately. Ursuline College in Louisville was founded in 1921 as Sacred Heart Junior College and renamed in 1938. It was a women's college, and only 1,100 women graduated before it merged with Bellarmine. Bellarmine was founded in 1950, and had issued 1,000 diplomas by 1964. It was the larger college and was growing aggressively. After the merger, they used the name Bellarmine-Ursaline for 3 years, then name became just Bellarmine College in 1972.  

In the early 1970s that merger was still in process. So some address variance seems normal. The address on the envelopes is always 2000 Norris Place. But 2000 Norris Place tells us nothing. That was just the main mailing address of Bellarmine College going back into the 1950s.  (Today it's 2001 Newburg Rd)  Ursaline College was at 3115 Lexington Rd and does not appear to have any connection to this.  With the name changes and possible address changes, some mailing list errors seem inevitable. But that's not what I think we're looking at.  The really unexpected detail I noticed is that there are multiple different call letters on the different envelopes: WBVC, WHUT, WBCR, WBCK and a highly unusual WBLIC.

I checked the Bellarmine college radio website and it only states that the station was founded in 2005. [LINK] They're not disavowing the past but not acknowledging it either. The modern Bellarmine College radio station does not delve into their own history at all. But with thanks to the Wayback machine, the old version of their website had just a little bit more information 

"Bellarmine University started a radio station in the fall of 2005 with the help of Dr. Len Cooper, Dr. Gail Henson, Bellarmine’s Student Government Association, and a few motivated students.  In its early stages the station broadcast a Classic Rock format but has since developed into a viable College Rock “grab bag” station with an eclectic mix of music from the 1990’s and today, all the while supporting local artists from the Louisville music scene."  

Back to those call letters. While there are 5 of them, I couldn't at first tie any of them to Bellarmine with public records. From 1959 into the early 1970s WBVC was the Voice of Boston College until it got an FM license in 1974 and became WZBC. There is no FCC record of a WHUT or a WBCR at Bellarmine. In fact there are two other roughly contemporary WBCR stations. Firstly WBCR is at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY. They were already a carrier current station in 1968 and was a member of IBS going back into the 1940s. More here.  But also Beloit College has had the FM stick for 90.3 WBCR since 1979. 

There was a 1470 WHUT in Anderson, IN from about 1965 to 1970. I think that got deleted in some sale to Moody.... Then there's WBLIC, let's just assume that's a typo. My normal "formal" sources like the FCC, IBS and  radio directories list nothing connected to Bellarmine. So this is a carrier current station or possibly a pirate. It makes it harder to research but also way cooler.

The best, and really only corroboration I found was in the official history book of Bellarmine College, High upon a Hill: A History of Bellarmine College. It  mentions radio only a few times, and in the first 170 some pages, only in the context of local commercial stations 840 WHAS-AM and 970 WAVE-AM (now WGTK-AM). Those are heritage Louisville radio stations. More here. Then, unexpectedly, there it was on page 178; a confirmation of WHUT and WBUC.

"A little known campus project was a 7-watt, closet circuit AM radio station, WHUT-AM, which featured campus news and various kinds of music, from jazz to classical. Founded by David Kirwin and John Lindstrom in February 1968 and using a volunteer staff of 31, it broadcast from Newman Hall to dorm radio from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. In the early '70's another station, WBUC lasted for several years." 

A 7-watt carrier current station was certainly possible; actually up to 30 watts was possible with off-the-shelf-hardware in that era. (For example LPB has a 2-20 system capable of an adjustable output of 2 - 20 watts.) More here. From that kernel I found a little more information. This time in a Library of Congress interview by the legendary Jennifer Waits with Dr. Kyle Bennett of Bellarmine there was, another reference, no call letters but it fits the few facts we do have.  [SOURCE] and [SOURCE] I'll quote the whole relevant section. 

"I teach at Bellarmine University in Louisville and there was a campus carrier current station there that none of us knew about. It wasn’t in any of the official records at the university or anything like that. And then people, former DJs contacted us, it ended up in the alumni magazine and then more people contacted us. Similarly just like, February 14th, on Valentine’s Day, a new community radio station was launched in Louisville and part of just the initiative around that has led to other people recovering the city’s pretty robust radio history."

My initial theory for the multiple call letters was that there was either more than one carrier current station or a succession of them at Bellarmine. Today there are six dorms on Bellarmine. Due to the nature of carrier current, there could literally be one station in each dorm as long as they were isolated electrically. But all six of those dorms: Petrik Hall and Miles Hall were only built in the 1990s, Anniversary Hall around 2000 then Siena Primo, Siena Secundo, Siena Terzo, and Siena Quarto Halls. 

But surely there were a few separate dorm buildings in the 1970s. The two residence buildings I know existed in the 1970s were Bonaventure (a former friary) and Lenihan which housed priests. But they didn't become residence halls for students until 1982. [SOURCE]  they were town down in 2009 to make way for the Siena complex. Despite the long history, the only student dorm building that seems to have existed in the early 1970s, was Newman Hall. For a while I thought this was as much information as I was going to get. I had a rough time period and the name of a dorm. But then I found a reference in Billboard magazine. Thank you Bob Glassenberg. It is in the October 10th 1970 issue. There is a single note which describes a conflict with the administration which corroborates one set of calls and adds another name. 

"WBUC, Bellarmine-Ursuline College, Louisville, KY., is getting flack from the administration. Dick McCormick, program and music director, writes that they are on their last leg in a battle with the  administration which allegedly is trying to close the station down because of "lack of material," namely new and old albums that fit into a free form format which relies on Top 40 and underground mainly. Record Companies, the address is 2000 Norris Place, Louisville, 40205. Please help them out. They reach many people. Campus stations, if you have any dupes send them along. It means a great deal to the people at the station, in the community, and it should mean something to you!" 

So this adds a third name to the Bellarmine radio history: David Kirwin and John Lindstrom as founders of WHUT in 1968 then Dick McCormick as the continuation WBUC in 1970. It may have existed as late as 1979, but the mailers only validate through 1973. I could not find a single one of those people online. I don't normally do this but I reached out to the seller on eBay, but he politely declined to be interviewed. So I am sorry to report, this mystery still endures. I'll post a part 2 if I ever find a primary source. 

O.B. Kirkpatrick's Instructograph

 

 

I picked up a Morse code training course booklet at a flea market. This one was published by the Instructograph Company of Chicago, IL in 1937. On the inside leaf it reads "Copyright 1937 O.B. Kirkpatrick."  O.B. Kirkpatrick died in 1938 at the age of 66 just a year after the publication of the booklet. Weird detail, they did print instructions marked "Copyright 1947 O.B. Kirkpatrick" in later kits. The man had been dead for 10 years. 

But this is not Kirkpatrick's only book. He also authored a more proper book, The Station Agent’s Blue Book, published in 1928. The latter was published by Kirkpatrick Publishing Co. of 10 East Huron Street, Chicago, IL. It weighs in at a beefy 522 pages. More here. 

The Instructograph was a punched paper tape machine used to learn Morse code.  It was advertised in the magazine, The Railroad Telegrapher back in 1929. It was $7.50; that's about $140 in 2025 dollars. Interestingly, the address 10 East Huron St. was also the address for the publication The Train Dispatcher, from the American Train Dispatchers Association. They were at that address from 1920 to at least 1960.  Instructograph later moved to 4701 Sheridan Road, then 5071 N. Broadway both in Chicago before they move to California.

A 1925 issue of The Train Dispatcher confirmed that Kirkpatrick had "long experience" in station work and was the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Railway Auditors Association. But it also described the Blue Book in detail which most sources report wasn't published for another 3 years, a date corroborated by the Library of Congress copyright entry. That same entry confirms his full name to be Otto Bernard Kirkpatrick. But with that I found his obituary. There is little online about his life. He was born in 1872, he married Blanche Maize Barber. His parents were Snyder Solomon Kirkpatrick and Rosannah Hoke Bowen. He had 4 siblings and had 2 kids.

The amazing thing about the Instructograph is that some sources report it was still being made into the 1980s. This is easily corroborated by advertisements. The one below is from Tune In the World With Ham Radio from 1981. By then they were using the address PO Box 5032 Grand Central. Dept.B Glendale, CA. 9120. One advertisement actually had the phone number 213-246-3902. That only seems to be listed in the late 1970s. On eBay I saw a stack of Instructograph paper tapes which included a receipt dated to 1984. That's as far forward as I can push the date. 

But I can confirm that amateur radio newsletters were absolutely aflutter, buying and selling them and requests for repair parts and paper tapes in the late 1980s and 1990s indicating the primary source had closed up shop. The 1981 advert also corroborates a 1920-ish start for the company. Another ad I found in 1977 put their founding more specifically in 1924, which fits that Train Dispatcher article. 

According to Russ Kleinman of zianet.com, the Instructograph was an improvement on a prior telegraph devices.  I'll quote his whole annotation: 

"Both the Omnigraph and the Natrometer were predecessors of the Instructograph. The Instructograph was made from 1947 or earlier to at least up until the late 1950's and was available with both an electric motor drive with cord and plug, and with a hand crank and spring drive. These machines read perforated tape which is drawn across a contact point. They were available with several different perforated tape rolls and an instruction booklet by O.B. Kirkpatrick. The Instructograph Company was located in Chicago, IL. early on, but appears to have later moved to Glendale, CA."

I also found a patent, 613,928, for a seal-lock intended for use in the doors of railway cars by one Otto B. Kirkpatrick based in Aspen, CO. It was filed June 16th, 1898. It seems likely that is our Kirkpatrick. (There are several other historical O.B. Kirkpatricks I have doubts about, including a doctor, and a poultry fancier.) But one entry in The Santa Fe Magazine of May 1927 is definitely him. It describes the Instructograph but adds that he is an old-time Santa Fe employee who began his railroad experience as a student-operator at Oxford, KS. "He later worked at Fredonia, Kan, and Colorado Springs, Co. Mr. Kirkpatrick later became a traveling auditor on the Southern Pacific and chief traveling auditor on the C.M. and St. P. Ry."

But back to the Instructograph booklet. My edition has a single typed page addition tucked in between 22 and 23. It's thin office paper but it has a watermark, two words that are probably "MODERN FORM." The inserted page makes a correction. The change isn't to an error per se. But the booklet was published in 1937, and in 1938 the International Radio-communication Convention held in Cairo changed both the Continental Morse codes for the period and the comma among other things.  [SOURCE]

 

Up until 1928 the original codes were: 

• Period .. .. ..
• Comma . - . - . -

The rest of the inserted page describe the changes to a tape recording I don't have, so it's hard to follow. Btu I understand that the way the machine worked is that the holes in the paper tape actuated a set of contacts which actuated a sounder. Learning to receive code is much harder than learning to send. The Instructograph took the place of an instructor for students to practice live transcription with the added advantage of adjustable speed. It allowed home study and some schools even rented the devices to students. More here. Courses on punched tape were available in both International (Continental) Morse Code, and American Morse Code. 

If you want to know more about how it worked, in 1988, writing for the magazine Hands-On Electronics, Marc Ellis wrote a detailed article on the mechanism. [SOURCE] It's interesting that in 1988 it was also being discussed under the "antique radio" heading. In a 1970 issue of TM-73, Wayne Green suggested a theory which may be why the Instructograph faded away; essentially he stated that training options had diversified, W1AW, cheap LPs and tapes had taken over what was already a niche market. [SOURCE] But today there are still fine geeks 3D printing replacement plastic take-up reels so people can keep their Instructographs in service. 

Wisconsin College of the Air

Madison radio station WHA had already been on the air for about ten years when an experiment arose to see if radio could be used in education. In 1930, WHA tried teaching music and current events to grades 6 through 8 in rural schools in Dane County. The ten-week music program was taught by Professor Edgar B. "Pop" Gordon, who had been offering a music appreciation program on WHA as early as 1922. I uploaded a high res scan to the Internet Archive [LINK].

970 WHA-AM was founded as 9XM in 1922 by Earle M. Terry and operated by the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin. It is unfortunate but worth noting that Mr. Terry's widow discarded his research notes and personal papers after his death. It is due to that decision that there are certain gaps in the early record for WHA. But due to the research of Randall Davidson there is at least one great print source to reference on 9XM, his 2007 book 9XM Talking. 

I have written about Radio Courses before. [LINK] Some were generally educational, with the aspirational verve you find in early broadcasting. But there were a few that were real-deal college courses produced by real deal colleges and universities.  But even in that group, Wisconsin College of the Air was special. It was one of the most civic-minded efforts to build an educational tool out of broadcasting. This particular document below is from 1951.

The Jose Fritz Library

The Wisconsin School of the Air debuted the week of October 5, 1931, on WHA. It grew from that one station into a state-wide network. It continued to expand for decades. Even this 1951 pamphlet lists eight stations and two more "future" stations which I've identified tentatively as WHHI and WHSA. The 1952 Wisconsin Blue Book [SOURCE] appears to confirm confirm my assessment. Their respective 1952 sign on dates fit well with the geography of the map and the time of publication. The Wisconsin Public radio network today includes 31 stations and 8 translators. [SOURCE]  In other words this public radio network has quadrupled in size over the last 70+ years. Below is a list of the stations on that graphic for readability:

CALLS	FREQ	CITY	Year
WHA-AM	970	Madison	X
WHA	88.7	Madison	X
WHAD	90.7	Delafield	X
WLBL-AM	930	Wausau	X
WHKW	89.3	Chilton	X
WHRM	91.9	Wausau	X
WHWC	88.3	Menomonie	X
WHLA	90.3	La Crosse	X
*WHSA	89.9	Brule	1952
*WHHI	91.3	Highland	1952

Very few of these 1952 stations have changed call signs. WHA-FM in Madison is now WERN, but is still owned by the University of Wisconsin and airs classical music 24/7. WHKW in Chilton is now WPNE, it only changed calls in 1973 when WHKW moved its stick to the WPNE-TV transmitter site in Green Bay. 

The Wisconsin Blue book goes on to confirm that the radio network broadcast 16 hours a day from 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM.  But it further lists two stations transferred to the State Radio Council: 930 WLBL Auburndale which was founded in 1922 as WPAH which is in the area of Steven's Point. It operated then as a 5,000 watt daytimer. 

Programs each weekday were designed for use in school classrooms around the state. It was thought the programs would be of particular value to the rural one-room schools in the state, numbering over 6,500 at the time. [SOURCE] The College of the Air taught courses on music, art, literature, nature, health and safety and according to Davidson, boasted 70,000 students by 1938. Some schools would actually move a radio into the classroom like your teacher might have borrowed a projector or TV from the AV room. These were not "failed experiments" as some critics have written. However, it is generally true that educational radio courses declined in popularity in the 1950s. 

I'll reference the Davidson book one more time. He wrote about some of the most popular programs on Wisconsin College of the Air, including Journey In Musicland hosted by Edgar Gordon, Let’s Draw, Afield with Ranger Mac, and Rhythm, Games with Mrs. Fannie Steve, Aline Hazard's home maker program and many more. 

Inductive Coupling and the Select-A-Tenna

selectatenna.com - Feb 2008

For a couple years I've have had these two inter-related topics I wanted to write about. First there is the poorly understood concept of electromagnetic inductive coupling; then there is the Select-A-Tenna a passive radio antenna you can use at home with almost any radio. (They are not a sponsor, that product is actually no longer made) Inductive coupling is poorly understood because beyond a surface understanding of the concept it's best understood as a set of mathematical statements. Frankly that's lost on the non-engineers so I'll do my best not to do that. 

So I'll try to use the Select-A-Tenna as a real world application of inductive coupling and not talk math at you. This antenna wildly improves the reception of my little GE radio (model P2870A). The Select-A-Tenna literally "pulls-in" completely inaudible signals and renders them as listenable as local stations. There is a great video here demonstrating it's function here.  

The Select-A-Tenna is 11 inches in diameter and 2.5 inches deep.The chassis is PVC plastic, I suspect the early models may be metal but I've never actually seen one. The chassis design is completely consistent over it's entire production run so far as I'm aware.The bottom of mine bears a sticker which reads "Made in USA by Intensitronics Corp. P.O. Box 28, Ashland, WI 54806". 

Most people are at least passingly familiar with Electromagnetic or magnetic induction. If an electric current flows through a wire it will produce a magnetic field around it. If you wrap that wire into a coil, say around a ferrite rod, the magnetic field will be intensified. If you wrap additional layers of wire are around that coil, with the same current flowing through them, the magnetic field strength will be further increased. What I'm describing is a static magnetic field. 

Michael Faraday was performing experiments like these around 1830. He is usually credited with the discovery of electromagnetic induction. James Clerk Maxwell codified Faraday  as the father of induction (among other things) 30 years later in his works on electromagnetic theory. Maxwell referred to his discovery as Faraday's law of induction, making the case that his formulas were a direct extension of Faraday's discoveries.  This was not true but it's how Maxwell framed it. Thus this "law" takes the form of a set of formulas making two statements:

1.  The Maxwell–Faraday law, which states that when a magnetic field is incident on a coil of conductor, the magnitude of the electromotive force (EMF) induced in the coil is directly proportional to the rate of change in the inducing magnetic field and dot product between the field direction and the axis of the coil.

2.  The Faraday–Lenz law, which states when a magnetic field induces a current in a conducting coil, the induced current also generates its own magnetic field that points opposite to the inducing magnetic field.

In some ways Lenz law is the more direct extension of Faraday. His discoveries were only 3 years after Faraday and validates Faraday proving that it obeys Newton’s third law on the conservation of energy. More here. I've mentioned some of that before in other articles such as my 2013 series on induction coils. [SOURCE]

Here I wanted to focus on a small part of electromagnetic theory that describes inductive coupling. Just as is defined in Faraday's law of induction, energy in the tuned antenna circuit is transferred through induction to the receiver, which is just another other tuned circuit. Because the tuner (your radio) is a closed circuit, it takes advantage of all the energy in the circuit. i.e. it benefits asymmetrically from the net total energy in the coupled circuit.  The common inductance transfers that energy via indirect magnetic coupling. It's immaterial that the antenna is passive. Faraday's law applies to the fields themselves and does not even require the presence of a physical circuit. This is physics, not engineering. 

Do I fully understand this area of physics? No definitely not. To paraphrase a Reddit comment I once read: There is nothing about the physical world that is 100% understood. Engineers work with phenomena that are less than 100% understood all the time. The rest is "magic".

 Radio frequency amplification, theory and practice - Kenneth Harkness

Way back in 2011 I found a website with an article which went deep into the function and performance of different models of proximate loop antennas. These antennas exploited inductive coupling to improve radio reception. One such antenna, the Select-A-Tenna is in my personal kit and it's one I've been very impressed with for decades. So I was very interested in the model comparisons.

That website was radiointel.com and no longer exists. I eventually found it's author, Jay Allen. He gave me permission to quote his work and pointed me at the new online home for the article here. You should absolutely read it. Jay went very deep in his testing with multiple antenna models and provided context and information even the manufacturers did not share. 

But I wanted to include two quotes in particular which get into some technical particulars you might struggle to figure out yourself:

"One bit of advice: Initial setup up and testing of these antennas can be confusing if done at night. During nighttime reception, there are many more strong signals than during the daytime. When you increase the level still further with an external antenna, the radio’s AGC circuits reduce the gain to compensate, so you may not hear a difference. This is often miss-construed to mean that these loops don’t do much at night, but believe me, nothing could be further from the truth. The improvements gained through their use at night is a bit different than what you may get during the day but sometimes will be very helpful...

 If your radio has no internal ferrite rod antenna (such as the Eton E-1 or vintage radios with wire-wound loops on their back panels), inductive coupling won’t work so you will have to use the direct connection. Both of the mini-jack equipped models (the SAT Model 541 M and the Terk) come with an adapter cable terminating in bare wires. Neither of these antennas furnish much information about output impedance, but when I tested them on a radio equipped with both high and low impedance antenna inputs (nominally 50 ohms and 500 ohms), both of the loops showed slightly higher signal levels with the high impedance connection, although they worked acceptably into either impedance so matching your particular radio’s input shouldn’t be a problem. However each antenna showed markedly stronger signal levels when used with inductive coupling so you may want to experiment to see which setup works best for you."

Back in 2011 when Jay Allen's article was published C.Crane was still selling the Select-A-Tenna. They no longer do. It was discontinued around 2015. They do still carry a Terk antenna which operates on the same premise. In the Terk antenna description today they state "C. Crane was started with this type of antenna 40 years ago in 1983." This is possibly true about the Terk, but the Select-A-Tenna is at least a decade older than that. 

This is how I first learned about the Select-A-Tenna —kids science catalogs and publications. Back then it was sold by the Edmund Scientific Co. of Barrington NJ.  Edmund Scientific was founded back in 1942 and it still exists today but re-focused on optical lenses. It's interesting to note that the debut of the Select-A-Tenna coincides with the retirement of Norman W. Edmund in 1975, when he left company operations to his son, Robert. What I remembered from those ads was the statement "Currently in use on Alaska's north slope where radio reception is very difficult." The smaller ad from 1988 I included specifically plugs 710 WOR-AM. I don't know why that particular Class A station would pay for that mention but presumably there was a deal with RKO general, then group owner.  Radiomuseum.com puts the start of manufacturing at Intensitronics to 1971. [SOURCE]  They're probably using the selectatenna.com website for that start date.

The ads from the Fall of 1975 are the earliest appearances of the Select-A-Tenna I am aware of. they ran in Popular Electronics, Radio Electronics, and Popular Science.  Back in 1976 the Select-A-Tenna came in two models 72095N and 72147N for $15.95 and 22.95 respectively. The difference is unclear. The latter model is merely referred to as the "ultra." In most ads only the 72147N is listed. By 1988 the price was $39.95 and by 1990 it was $49.95. By 1995 it was 59.95. I know it was reviewed in an issue of CQ around 1988 but I've never found that copy.  Sometime around 2005 another model debuted a 541S which took a 9v battery and provided "regenerative variable gain."  That unit went for $179.95 by 2011 and in the waning days of the series, $199.95.  I've never seen one for sale on the used market. More here and here. 

It appears in color in the Edmund Scientific catalog of 1990. [SOURCE]  It's in 1991 that I found the first C.Crane ad which specifically includes a Select-A-Tenna, but puts it beside other antennas and radios by Sangean, Grundig, Dymek and others. This was targeting radio hobbyists. I thought Crane bought the rights to the antenna around this time or otherwise negotiated exclusive distribution from Intensitronics. But in 2005 I found ads where Intensitronics was directly marketing the Select-A-Tenna themselves, but that may instead reflect declining sales and/or a loss of interest by C.Crane in exclusivity.

Edmund closed their factory store in 2001. The science-themed toys business was sold off to Science Kit and Boreal Laboratories in Tonawanda, NY.  Intensitronics operated their selectatenna.com website from  2000 through 2008 probably representing the time window where they directly marketed the Select-A-Tenna.