{"id":9236,"date":"2018-06-30T13:33:00","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T03:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2018\/06\/30\/tom-swift-had-the-knack\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T02:10:55","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T16:10:55","slug":"tom-swift-had-the-knack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/2018\/06\/30\/tom-swift-had-the-knack\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Swift had The Knack"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thanks to Richard for alerting us this important piece of Knack history. Not bad for 1910. You can see Tom’s shack and antenna in the cover image (above). I don’t think he was going for a fan dipole. He built the kind of multi-wire antenna that was in fashion in the early days of radio. <\/i><\/b><\/div>\n

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The full text of the book is avaialble free on-line. The radio fun begins in Chapter 20: <\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
https:\/\/en.wikisource.org\/wiki\/Tom_Swift_and_His_Wireless_Message<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Bless my door knob, this was a lot of fun! <\/i><\/b><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Bill, <\/b><\/div>\n

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I am certain I missed the origin of \u201cthe knack\u201d as used on your blog. I, wonder, however, if in your youth you read Tom Swift novels? Although now they seem somewhat politically incorrect, I feel that the word may have, for our purposes, evolved there.<\/b><\/div>\n

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In the first novel, \u201cTom Swift and His Motor-Cycle\u201d (sic) Tom repairs a butter churn\u2019s \u201csystem of cogs and handles.\u201d When praised for his abilities he declares, \u201cIt\u2019s just a knack.\u201d Stick with me.<\/b><\/div>\n

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In a later novel, written around 1910, \u201cTom Swift and His Wireless Message\u201d Tom is shipwrecked on an ebbing volcanic island. He saves the day by constructing a transmitter and receiver from the wreckage of his plane, even though he \u201cdid not have the magnets, carbons, coherers and needles\u201d needed. He strings \u201c wires from the top of the dead treed, to a smaller one, some distance away, using five wires, set parallel, and attached to a wooden spreader, or stay. (Fan dipole?) The wires were then run to the dynamo, and the receiving coil, and the necessary ground wires were installed.\u201d Then,\u201donce the impulses, or electric currents, are sent out into space, all that is necessary to do is to break, or interrupt them at certain intervals to make dots, dated and spaces.\u201d He sent \u201cC.Q.D. (come quick\u2014danger) even though a \u201cnew code has been instituted for them, but I am going to rely on the old one, as, in this part of the world, the new one may not be so well understood.\u201d Needless to say, a ship hears, responds and rescues the crew.<\/b><\/div>\n

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That\u201ds \u201cthe knack”, alright!<\/b><\/div>\n

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Never give up, and 73.<\/b><\/div>\n
Richard, KD0NPM<\/b><\/div>\n

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Thanks to Richard for alerting us this important piece of Knack history. Not bad for 1910. You can see Tom’s shack and antenna in the cover image (above). I don’t think he was going for a fan dipole. He built the kind of multi-wire antenna that was in fashion in the early days of radio. … Continue reading “Tom Swift had The Knack”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,103,100,31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-knack-stories","category-old-radio","category-radio-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9239,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9236\/revisions\/9239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.homebrewradio.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}