Radio News Magazine Feb. 1946

Transmitter used in the simultaneous radio range equipment manufactured by the Wilcox-Gay Corp. for CAA peace-time airways. Feature of the equipment is that a single dial telephone operates the complete equipment. Frequency of this service is between 200 to 400 kc. and has a service area of approximately 200 miles in diameter.

Above is the legend for the cover photo of this magazine, published shortly after the close of World War II. Chock-full of historical references, as well as radio information, this issue of Radio News is a real testament to its times. When the war ended, domestic radio manufacturers were released from their wartime service to the US government, and could turn their energies to consumer radio production. At the same time, consumers sought the radios they had been denied during the wartime embargo.

Although the need for propaganda had passed, some 1946 ads echoed familiar wartime themes. For example, a Sprague advertisement in this issue shows an elaborate "city" formed entirely of capacitors, with flames drawn in the background. The caption reads:

How We "advertised" in Japan. Shown here are only 333 of the 9,675 capacitor and Koolohm resistor types engineered by Sprague and produced in 1944—most of them for war requirements of the most exacting type.

Other parts of the ad feature a military-looking flag and more jingoistic copy that trades on the company's wartime manufacturing experience:

How good are Sprague Capacitors and Koolohm resistors? Ask the Germans! Ask the Japs! From radar to the atom bomb and VT (radio-controlled) fuze, those nations got the most convincing evidence of electronic component quality the world has ever seen. And were they convinced!
      Today with Sprague Capacitors and Koolohm resistors coming back on the civilian market in goodly quantities you'll also be convinced—but in a much more pleasant way. Every Sprague unit you now buy brings you the full benefit of a wartime engineering record unsurpassed in the entire component field. Sprague Capacitors and Koolohm resistors are tops—because an unparalleled program of engineering makes them that way.

Sixty years later, a term like "Jap" is considered offensive. During the war, however, it was commonplace in patriotic writing.