Mackay Radio's Press Station
August 1945 Radio-Craft

August 1945 Radio-Craft [Table of Contents] Wax nostalgic about and learn from the history of early electronics. See articles from Radio-Craft, published 1929 - 1953. All copyrights are hereby acknowledged.

Mackay Radio & Telegraph Company, established in 1925 in Nevada by Clarence Mackay as a sort of spin-off of his father's Commercial Cable Company, is not usually a name that comes to mind when recalling early communications pioneers. Mackay was one of the earliest radio and telegraph companies, but also is still in business today under the name of Mackay Communications, Inc., based in Raleigh, North Carolina. That makes Mackay one of the oldest electronics companies in the United States and in the world. Congratulations to them for surviving the cut-throat realm of corporate mergers, buy-outs, and hostile takeovers. As with nearly all technology concerns during World War II, Mackay did its part to help the Allies beat back the advances of Communism, Marxism, and Socialism by designing and manufacturing state-of-the-art radio communications systems that would work reliably under fire - literally. This little insert for a 1945 issue of Radio-Craft magazine reports on Mackay Radio's press station at a European Theater battlefield, where company vice president Leroy Spangenberg accompanied the equipment.

Evidently Mackay Radio was at the center of a landmark 1938 union labor collective bargaining legal case known as "NLRB v. Mackay Radio & Telegraph Co." Its result, which allowed companies to retain workers (aka "scabs") hired to replace striking employees after the strike has ended, became known as "the Mackay doctrine." Then there's this 2015 paper: "Have We Been Wrong About Mackay Radio All Along?"

Mackay Radio's Press Station

"Station 25" Sends News from the Front

Illustration courtesy International Telephone and Telegraph Corp.

The picture above is the artist's conception of Mackay Radio's press station dispatching news from the European battle theatre. The truck-mounted unit was a 5-kilowatt transmitter, with suitable receiving apparatus, and was operated by a crew headed by L. F. Spangenberg, vice-president of Mackay. The makeshift aerial masts were exactly as shown above.

Posted  January 14, 2022