February 2021
The Superflex
A Publication of the Alabama Historical Radio Society February 2021
Greetings to All
I hope everyone is well. Maybe there is a small light at the end of the tunnel. With the vaccine role out and everyone continuing to do their part, maybe we can get all of the dashboard numbers going in the right direction. Soon the world may see a brighter place.
The Society’s auction was well received and a great success. Most items were sold in the live/Zoom auction, but a few did not receive any bids. Luckily, some of these radios were sold, after the auction, when members made sizable offers on these less-desirable items to help the Society. Donations are continuing to come in. When they are ready I am sure the Auction Committee of Ray Giles, Tom Killian & Boyd Bailey will announce they are ready for another auction.
The Birmingham Amateur Radio Club has announced they are hosting a tailgate hamfest in the side parking lot of the Trussville, Alabama Civic Center on Saturday, March 6, 2021, 8:00 AM to 2:00 PM. This hamfest will just be an outdoor, tailgate only evert, no forums, no door prizes etc. The Society is planning to setup a few tables to sell some of our excess and duplicate amateur radios and accessories. We will need help on the morning of the event to load the tables and sales items and transport them to the event. We will also need personnel to man the tables during the event.
That all for now!
See you at the shop…when we can?
Dave
Oh, and don’t forget Society dues are due as of January 1, 2021. See the AHRS website under the Membership tab for details on new ways to pay your dues. Thanks to all who have already paid their dues.
Announcement BARC BirmingHAMfest
Birmingham Amateur Radio Club is having a one-day Hamfest on Saturday, March 6, 2020 at the Trussville, Alabama Civic Center. This hamfest will be a “tailgate” only event in the parking lot. No registration and administration. The AHRS will attend as a group, setup several tables and sell some of our surplus amateur equipment.
Results of AHRS January 23, 2021 Auction
Dear Radio Lovers,
The Art Deco Society of New York and the Art Deco Society of Washington are excited to host this visually dazzling web-based illustrated talk that will tell the story of the most beautiful radios ever made with renowned expert, author, and collector, Peter Sheridan. Join us on Zoom on Wednesday, Feb. 24th at 6:30 p.m. EST. Can't make it? All who register receive a recording to watch later!
As a noted expert on Art Deco radios with one of the leading radio collections in the world, Peter Sheridan will share his expertise and passion with us as he reveals the untold and extraordinary contributions of famous 1930s industrial designers to the development of the table-top radio and the subsequent world-wide spread of the Art Deco style.
In this riveting online talk, Sheridan will beautifully illustrate the major influence Deco and Streamlining had on the evolution of radio design through the 1930s and 1940s. In addition, we will explore the worldwide spread of the Deco radio as a symbol of the new machine-age, bringing not only Deco styling and color into the home, but changing the listener from the family to the individual.
Sign up today to join us for Peter Sheridan’s fabulous presentation featuring superb examples of the most rare and beautiful radios ever made!
Sincerely,
The Art Deco Society of New York
.WELCOME TO TOMORROW/today
38 Interesting predictions.
Submitted by: Marvin Moss
1 — Auto repair shops will disappear..
2 — A gas/diesel engine has 20,000 individual parts... An electrical motor has 20... Electric cars are sold with lifetime guarantees and are repaired only by dealers... It takes only 10 minutes to remove and replace an electric motor...
3 — Faulty electric motors are NOT repaired in the dealership but are sent to a regional repair shop that repairs them with ROBOTS...
4 — Your electric motor malfunction light goes on ... so you drive up to what looks like a car wash, and your car is towed through while you have a cup of coffee... Then your car comes out on the other side with a new electric motor or component...
5 — Gas stations will go away...
6 — Street corners will have meters that dispense electricity... Companies will install electrical recharging stations ... in fact, they've already started in the developed world...
7 — Smart major auto manufacturers have already designated money to start building new plants that build ONLY electric cars..
8 — The "Coal Industries" will go away... Gasoline/oil companies will go away... Drilling for oil will stop.. So, say goodbye to OPEC... The Middle East is in trouble...
9 — Homes will produce and store more electrical energy during the day than they use... It will be sold back to "The Grid"... The Grid will store and dispense it, to the industries that are high electricity users. Has anybody seen the Tesla roof??
10 — A baby of today will only see "personal cars" in museums. The FUTURE is approaching faster than most of us can even handle...
11 — In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide... Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt... Who would have thought of that ever happening??
12 — What happened to Kodak and Polaroid will happen in a lot of industries in the next 5–10 years .. and most people don't even see it coming...
13 — Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later, you would never take pictures on film again? With today's smartphones, who even has a camera these days??
14 — Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975... The first ones only had 10,000 pixels but followed Moore's law... As with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment in the beginning ... before it became superior and mainstream in only a few short years...
15 — It will now happen again (but much faster) with Artificial Intelligence (AI), health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs...
16 — Forget the book, "Future Shock," welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution...
17 — Software has disrupted and will continue to disrupt most traditional industries ... (in the next 5 to 10 years...
18 — UBER is just a software tool (they don't own any cars), and are now the biggest taxi company in the world... (Ask any taxi driver if they saw that coming...
19 — AIR-BnB is now the biggest hotel company in the world .. (they don't own any properties). Ask Hilton Hotels or the Marriott if they saw that coming...
20 — Artificial Intelligence (AI): Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world... This year, a computer beat the best Go-player in the world ... (10 years earlier than expected).
21 — In the USA, young lawyers already don't get jobs (because of IBM's WATSON) ... you can get legal advice within a few seconds so for the basic stuff ... with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans.. So, if you're studying law, STOP IMMEDIATELY... There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, what a thought and only omniscient specialists will remain...
22 — WATSON already helps nurses diagnosing cancer ... it's 4 times more accurate and many times faster than human nurses...
23 — Facebook now has a 'face recognition' software that can recognize faces better than humans... In 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans...
24 — Autonomous cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars were already here... In the next few years, the entire auto industry will start to be disrupted... You won't want to own a car anymore as you will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination...
25 — You will not need to park it, you will pay only for the 'driven distance' and you can be productive while driving. The very young children of today will never get a driver's license and they will never own a car..
26 — This will change our cities because we will need 90% to 95% fewer cars... We can transform former parking spaces into green city parks...
27 — About 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents (worldwide). That includes distracted or drunk drivers... We currently have one accident every 60,000 miles driven... However with autonomous driving that will drop to 1 accident in about 6 million miles... That will save a million plus lives, worldwide each year...
28 — Most traditional car companies will doubtless become bankrupt... They will try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car ... while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels...
29 — Look at what Volvo is doing right now ... no more internal combustion engines in their vehicles starting this year with the 2020 models... They are using all-electric or hybrid only (with the intent of phasing out hybrid models in the not too distant future)...
30 — Many engineers from Volkswagen and Audi are completely terrified of Tesla... Look at all the companies offering all-electric vehicles... That was unheard of, only a few years ago...
31 — Insurance companies will have massive trouble too ... because, without accidents, the costs of insurance will become cheaper... Their car insurance business model will disappear...
32 — Real estate will change... Because if you can work while you commute, or you can work from your home ... people will abandon their towers to move far away to more beautiful and affordable properties.
33 — Electric cars will become mainstream by about 2030... Cities will be less noisy because all new cars will run ONLY on electricity...
34 — Cities will have much cleaner air...
35 — Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean, eventually free..
36 — Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years ... but you can now see the burgeoning impact ... and it's just starting to get ramped up...
37 — Fossil energy companies are desperately trying to limit access to the grid ... to prevent competition from home solar installations ... but that simply cannot continue... Technology will take care of that strategy in the not too distant future...
38 — Health: The Tricorder X price will be announced this year... There are companies who will build a medical device called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, a sample of your blood, then you breathe into it... It then analyzes 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. There are dozens of phone apps out there right now for health.
WELCOME TO TOMORROW — To think, I used to complain about my parents and grandparents being "out of it."
Discontinued temporarily due to COVID-19
We meet every Saturday (unless a Holiday weekend) at 9:00 a.m., at the one-story AHRS Shop at the corner of 8th Avenue North and 18th Street, (1801 8th Avenue North, Birmingham, AL 35203). Birmingham, AL 35203). Use the rear (Southeast) entrance.
Discontinued temporarily due to COVID-19
The Shop is open on Tuesdays at 9:00 a.m. until around 11:30 a.m. when we go to Marilyn's Deli and Dog for lunch next door. Note that parking can be a problem on Tuesdays, so you may have to find street parking occasionally.
Discontinued temporarily due to COVID-19
We meet on the fourth Monday night of each month, too, at 7:00 p.m. Please come join us!
Discontinued temporarily due to COVID-19 – Check your email for announcements of class activity via Zoom.
One more great benefit from becoming a member of AHRS--free Electronic classes!
Classes are taught the first Saturday of each month (except when something special is taking place, then we agree on what Saturday).
We start from the beginning Ohms Law, inductors, resistor and Capacitors color codes, as well as what each component does within the radio circuits. We also teach how to use test equipment used in the repairing of radios. We teach troubleshooting radio troubles, as well as how to read a radio diagram. There are coil winding classes, and one-on-one repair help. Come join these classes!
Membership dues are $25 a year, payable beginning in January. If you have questions about your dues, you can contact Treasurer Mike Woodruff at 205-823-7204. Dues can be mailed to AHRS at P.O. Box 131418, Birmingham AL 35213.
Be sure and check out our website at https/www.alabamahistoricalradiosociety.org, which has copies of all newsletters from 2006 to the present (click on News), videos, photo galleries, museum, Old Time Radio columns, Projects, Reading Rooms, Archives, and Contact Information
President – Dave Johnson
(205) 999—7178
johnelecco@charter.net
Vice President – Steven Westbrook
205-305-0679
spwestbro@bellsouth.net
Recording Secretary – – Dr. Richard “Wag” Waguespack
205-967-4210
k4hfx1@gmail.com
Treasurer – Mike Woodruff
205-823-7204
woodruff_michael@hotmail.com
Boyd Bailey, member and Instructor 334 412-6996
Boyd.bailey@charter.net
Website – David Lake
dave2008@gmail.com
Web Address:
http://alhrs.org
E-mail Address:
ahrs2000@gmail.com
Newsletter – Jim Rogers