Elmer G. Osterhoudt
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Elmer Osterhoudt
    Photo from 1918 Compton Union High School yearbook Photo thanks to Victor Rodriguez  

One day in 1915, after reading a 10¢ booklet* concerning a new technology called "wireless telegraphy," a 16 year old boy named Elmer G. Osterhoudt began the construction of a crystal radio. He was attempting to receive the signals that were said to be invisibly traveling through space, undetectable by human senses.

He wound a beautiful coil made of 200 turns of 28 gauge cotton covered wire on a piece of broom handle. Then he painted it with white lead paint which he had invented himself. Connecting the coil to a galena crystal, headphones and antenna, he listened in vain for the wireless signals. He soon came to the realization that his radio didn't work. The lead in the paint had ruined the coil. The radio was stone dead; he couldn't get as much as a click out of the headphones.

Elmer had a neighbor who was also interested in Wireless and who was also named Elmer.** This Elmer also had made a radio that didn't work. He came by with his radio because Elmer Osterhoudt "knew all about radio." Elmer put the other Elmer's non-painted coil into his set and in came a powerful rotary spark signal from station 6JG! ***

The magic of this single event influenced the entire remainder of his life. A first-hand account can be found on Page 2 of "How To Make Coils" by Elmer Osterhoudt, written in 1957. Link

* In HB-5 "CRYSTAL SET CONSTRUCTION" Elmer names two magazines, "QST" and "The Electrical Experimenter." In April of 1915 the price of "The Electrical Experimenter" went from 5¢ to 10¢, which narrows down the volume that Elmer actually read. The July issue, on page 109, shows a simple wireless receiving set. There is no coil data, but the illustration resembles what Elmer described above. Page 109 also has an article on how to blow up a toy boat using homemade wireless apparatus and a simple mine filled with gun powder. Link


QST was also 10¢ but there were no "how to" articles published in QST at the time. In any case, it doesn't seem that Elmer put down the magazine and spontaneously assembled a crystal set. He already had the wire, the detector, and a pair of headphones.

** After searching Los Angeles property records and the US census for any neighboring household that had a boy named Elmer of the appropriate age, fellow MRL fan Victor Rodriguez has determined that this person is Elmer Stevens. He appears in the Compton Union High School yearbook with Elmer Osterhoudt. Link

The two Elmer's were in the high school band and school orchestra together, but their friendship is unknown. Elmer referred to him as "a neighbor boy" in his account.

*** There was indeed an amateur with the call sign 6JG. The 1916 edition of "Radio Stations of the United States," issued by the Department of Commerce, lists him as James A. Homand of 1423 McKinley Street in Los Angeles, California. This address is about three miles from where Elmer lived.
 
1936 East 77th Ave Los Angeles CA
In 1917 Elmer Osterhoudt and his family lived at this address at 1936 East 77th Street in Los Angeles, CA. The 100+ year old house, built in 1908, lies under the additions and modern exterior of this building.

Elmer wrote that in 1917, while living at 77th and Crockett (the house in the photo above), he had erected a 55 foot antenna mast made of all sorts of 2x4s, 2x3s and pairs of 1x2s. It had a dozen guy wires made of bailing wire. On top of the mast was a four wire antenna, each wire separated by 30 inches. (He didn't say what the other end was connected to.) It was up for about a year when his father decided to move, so he had to take it down. That's when he noticed the bailing wire had almost rusted through. It would have fallen down by itself in another month, and would have either hit the house or have fallen into the street!

If that was the case, we're probably looking at the exact spot where the mast was located.

It was just as well. On April 6, 1917, due to the war, it became illegal for a private citizen to own a working transmitter or receiver. It was considered an act of treason to operate a transmitter, and no excuse would be made if they were operated by "boys." In addition, the Department of Commerce directed that "the antennae and all aerial wires be lowered to the ground." It's almost hilarious that Elmer's antenna would have complied of its own accord.

On May 1, 1917, the Osterhoudt's moved to 241 E. Truslow Avenue in Fullerton, California. Elmer was interested in entomology and biology, and without being able to use his radio equipment he pursued these fields instead. He was a member of the Lorquin Natural History Club, he corresponded with professional entomologists, and placed ads in the Lepidoptera, a Boston publication, to trade insects and butterflies from the east coast. He raised the butterflies himself.

By 1918 the Osterhoudt's were back in Los Angeles at the same address of 1936 E. 77th Street, but would eventually move to 8011 Crockett Boulevard, a few blocks away. This might have been the end of the story of Elmer Osterhoudt's interest in radio, just another boyhood hobby set aside. However, the young Elmer was very resourceful. Since it was illegal for a civilian to own radio apparatus, he joined the Navy and became a Radio Mechanic!
 


 
During his lifetime Elmer Osterhoudt would (in all probability) hand-wind more coils and design and sell more crystal radios than anyone who has ever lived. He outlasted all his competitors in the mail order crystal radio business. He, along with his wife Mabel, ran a mail order company named "Modern Radio Laboratories" for 55 years.

He sold thousands of kits, coils, crystals and all parts related to crystal radios, many of which he made himself. He published the MRL catalog, the MRL "Radio Flyer," MRL handbooks, MRL "Detail Prints" and a quarterly publication called "Radio Builder and Hobbyist." He printed them himself, at first with a mimeograph machine and later on a lithograph printer.

Everything needed for a radio could be found in his catalog; coils, capacitors, headphones, switches, jacks, binding posts, sockets, crystal stands, knobs, batteries, wire, all sorts of hardware and even vacuum tubes and transistors. He manufactured over FIFTY-FIVE types of coils, all made by hand!
 
 
MRL logo
MRL logo
MRL logo
MRL logo
MRL logo
 
The MRL logo was hand drawn by Elmer, and almost every one is different. "First use in commerce" of Elmer's trademarks is listed as  December 15, 1932. Today, these trademarks are owned by Paul Luther Nelson, current owner of Modern Radio Laboratories®, who registered the logos to himself in 1999.

 
 
MRL Catalog
 
MRL Catalog
 
In the 1970s the MRL catalog index was five columns wide (compare to 1986 picture on the right). The catalog began to shrink as more and more products became unobtainable. Click on the catalog pages for a larger version. (Will open in a new tab.)
 

 
There is little information about Elmer available but we can glean some details from city directories, census records, birth and death certificates, advertisements, and his literature - and he wrote a lot of literature. He also included a hand written note with each order, some of which have survived.

His company, Modern Radio Laboratories, was established in 1932. It says so, right at the top of the "EXPERIMENTER'S CATALOG." Oddly enough, Elmer rarely used the entire name in his handbooks and other literature. Even on the catalog it is shortened to "MODERN RADIO LABS" and elsewhere simply to "MRL." Some of his magazine advertisements listed the company as "Modern Radiolabs" but later it was shortened to "Laboratories," since these ads were charged by the number of words.

Every one of his handbooks has this list of accomplishments printed inside the front cover:

"WITH RADIO SINCE 1915." including:
RADIO Operator, R.C.A. Marine Service.
Radio Mechanic, Maximum, USN.
Technician, Electrical Products Corporation.
Southern California Edison Company.
Majestic Electrical Products.
U.S. Motor Company
Manchester Radio Electric Shop
Modern Radio Laboratories
Amateur and Radio Service
6NW (1919)
 

 
Scotts Mills Oregon
Scotts Mills, Oregon. Photo taken in 1912 by James Eaton.  (Click for full size - will open in new tab.)
An original copy hangs on the wall at the Scotts Mills Historical Museum
 

Elmer was born in the Scotts Mills Precinct of Oregon on October 6, 1899, the son of Wilbert and Minnie Osterhoudt. Wilbert (also known as William) was a farmer, carpenter, and a cabinet and furniture maker. According to the 1900 census, the family lived on the farm of Charles Higby Osterhoudt, Wilbert's father. Wilbert's mother, Elizabeth Woodruff, had passed away in 1896. Also on the farm were two of Wilbert's brothers, Henry and John. Cyril Wilbert Osterhoudt, Elmer's brother, was born on April 17, 1901.

Note: To be more precise, Elmer wrote on his 1942 draft card that he was born in Butte Creek, Oregon. Butte Creek was incorporated into Scotts Mills in 1916. He was apparently born on his grandfather's farm near the town of Scotts Mills but not in the town itself. A mortgage document from June 7, 1887 states this farm is where the actual Butte Creek intersects the "county road leading to Silverton". The property line ran down the the road, but followed Butte Creek for a short distance in the north. The county road, now route 213, or Cascade Highway, is about one mile north of Scotts Mills. Adjoining the southern end of the Osterhoudt farm was a farm owned by Cornelius Woodruff, Elizabeth Osterhoudt's father. Also, 10 acres of the Osterhoudt farm were owned by Elizabeth's sister, Sarah Coffin. A 1929 map of the Butte Creek area shows a plot of the Osterhoudt farm still owned by Elmer's aunt, Luella Dicken. (See this.)

The population of Scotts Mills at the time was about 100. There is no birth certificate for Elmer, as none was needed in 1899. Cyril obtained a "delayed" birth certificate in 1942. On it, he claimed he was born in Silverton, Marion, Oregon, about 5 miles from Scotts Mills. Silverton was larger than Scotts Mills, with a population of 656 in the year 1900. A natural assumption is that Minnie went to Silverton so Cyril would be born in a hospital, but there was no hospital in Silverton until 1918. From this we my surmise that Cyril was also born on the Osterhoudt farm, and he listed the largest town near the farm on his birth certificate. Charles, Elizabeth and Minnie are buried in Miller Cemetery, which sits almost exactly between Silverton and Scotts Mills. Today, most of the area is still open farmland.

Sometime around 1902, Charles Osterhoudt, Wilbert, Minnie, Elmer, John and Henry left the farm and moved to Spokane, Washington. Cyril was probably with them but ended up living with Wilbert's sister Nellie McConnell and her husband Charles. The McConnell farm was right outside of Scotts Mills.
 
1903 Spokane Washington listing
Entry from the 1903 Spokane, Washington City Directory. The house in the listing, built in 1889, still exists.

From Spokane they moved to Yakama City. Charles died there in April of 1903. Minnie Osterhoudt died of typhoid fever in September 1903 at the age of 27. A lone newspaper article hints that Elmer and Cyril had a three month old brother named Clarence who died two weeks after their mother died (see page 12). Wilbert, Henry, John, and four year old Elmer moved to Vancouver, Washington. From there they moved to Eugene, Oregon. (It may have been around this time that Cyril was sent to live with the McConnell's. All we have to go on is the 1910 census.)

On July 27, 1904, John Osterhoudt married a girl named Lillie S. Shields in Vancouver Washington. They lived on a 160 acre homestead near Enterprise, Oregon. John listed himself as a farmer in the 1910 census.

Elmer wrote in MRL Data Sheets Vol. 6 that his father owned a planing mill in Eugene. (A planing mill takes boards from a saw mill and turns them into finished lumber.) Actually, Wilbert didn't own the mill outright, he had a partner named Jim Smith. The company name was "J H Smith & Co," according to the city directory. The mill was
a few blocks from the Willamette River near Skinners Butte, where the mill race met Eighth Avenue. Henry Osterhoudt also worked at the mill.

The 1910 census shows that Wilbert and Elmer lived at
205 8th Avenue in Eugene. This was the actual address of the planing mill, named "Eighth Avenue Planing Mill." The mill was also known as "Eighth Street Planing Mill." Wilbert's brother Henry, his wife Fanny and their son Darrel rented a house a few blocks away at 316 East 15th Street. In 1912, John, Lillie and their children moved from Enterprise to 593 8th Avenue in Eugene. John then worked at the mill, along with Wilbert and Henry.
 
1911 Eugene City directory
Entry from the 1911 Eugene City Directory.
Henry has moved from East 15th Street to West 10th Street. The street names change from
East to West at Willamette Street, and the new address places his residence much closer to the mill.

Cyril was reunited with his father and Elmer sometime between 1910 and 1912. An article in the Eugene Guardian states that Wilbert had married Lela May Smith in 1911, and the 1914 City Directory shows they lived at 656 E. 8th Avenue. However, it seems Wilbert was abusive, and he encouraged both Elmer and Cyril to act unkindly towards her. Lela May went into hiding and filed for divorce in June of 1914. The divorce was granted on August 18, 1914.
 
1914 Eugene City listing
Entry from the 1914 Eugene City Directory.
 
Was Lela May Smith the daughter of James H. Smith, Wilbert's partner? After some investigating, it has been determined she was not.  There was a Lela May Smith in Eugene who was the daughter of James Smith, but it was a different James Smith. He was James L. Smith, a farmer who died in 1907. This other Lela May Smith married Clark H. Hileman in 1903 and was still married to him when she died in 1933.

Lela May Smith Osterhoudt's mother's name was Nancy. The 1920 census states that James H. Smith, 67, of 205 8th Street in Eugene City, was married to Jessie D. Smith, 48 (not Nancy). His occupation was "Carpenter in a planing mill."
 
Wilbert Osterhoudt and Jim Smith at the Eighth Avenue Planing Mill 1909. Click for full size.
The mill opened in September of 1908.

 

Left to right: Jim Smith, Wilbert Osterhoudt, Mr. Basinette, Henry Osterhoudt, John Edwin Osterhoudt. Click for full size.

Fun facts: Wilbert was 5'8" tall. Henry was 5'9" and John was 5'8". (Information  from a census document from Marion County, Oregon, 1895) When this picture was taken Wilbert was 39 years old, Henry was 44 and John was 34.


 
The 1910 census shows that Henry Osterhoudt, his wife Fannie (or Fanny) and his son Darrel lived at 316 East 15th Street in Eugene. Darrel was born in 1903 in Cottage Grove, Oregon, so he would have been a few years younger than Elmer and Cyril. This is interesting because the 1903 Spokane, Washington city directory shows Henry Osterhoudt was in Spokane with his father and brothers that year. 1903 was also the year that their father Charles and Elmer's mother Minnie died in Yakama City.

Fanny's maiden name was Woodruff. Henry and Fanny were distantly related before they were married. Henry's mother's maiden name was Betsy Woodruff. Henry's grandfather on his mother's side, Cornelius Woodruff, and Fanny's grandfather Brock Woodruff were brothers. Henry and Fanny both had the same great grandfather, Asa Woodruff.

The only other information we have about Henry is that he died in 1920 at the age of 56. At that time he was a farmer who owned a farm in Hopewell, Oregon, about 90 miles from Eugene but only about 20 miles from Scotts Mills.

In 1922 Fanny moved to Portland with Darrel, who graduated Benson Polytechnic High School in 1924. Sometime after 1927 Darrel bought a tiny house at 3381 S. Francis Street, and he and Fanny lived in it for the rest of their lives. A voter registration card shows that Hazel May Osterhoudt, daughter of John and Lillie, lived with them in 1936. Hazel married Eldee Buhite in 1939 and they moved to Washington County, outside of Portland. Also living at the Francis Street address in the 1940s was Hazel's brother, Merrill Osterhoudt. Merrill joined the Navy and spent 20 months in the Pacific during WWII.

Fanny died in December of 1967 at the age of 92. Darrel died 11 months later at the age of 65. He was a foreman working for the Portland City Parks Department and had just retired that June. He had been there since 1932, the year Elmer Osterhoudt created Modern Radio Laboratories.

Henry, Fanny and Darrel are all buried in Hopewell Cemetery. Each has the same type of tombstone, and they are lined up in a row. Hopewell is located where two roads intersect in an area of ranches, farms and a winery. It has two churches, a cemetery, a little store that sells coffee, and a sign that says, "Thank You For Visiting Hopewell." It's considered an "unincorporated community" and there are very few houses in the area. Who would have been there in 1967 and 1968 to bring Fanny and Darrel back from Portland to be buried next to Henry Osterhoudt? Who in Hopewell would even remember them? If Fanny and Darrel lived in Portland for 45 years or so, why aren't they buried in Portland?

I can offer a theory: Fanny had in her will that she wanted to be buried next to Henry. Darrel would have taken care of this if he was able. Then Darrel died, and since he had no wife or children it may have been Elmer's cousins, the children of John and Lilly, who laid him to rest with his parents. Some of them, including Hazel May, still lived in Oregon and Raymond Osterhoudt lived in Portland.
 

 

The Star Toymaker

In 1912, when Elmer was 13 years old and living in Eugene, he traded in three empty beer bottles for the deposit and bought a 10¢ book named "The Star Toymaker." Using the plans from this book, Elmer and Cyril built a tin talking machine, bird houses, motors, waterwheels, stilts, telegraph sounders, electric bells and dry cells. They would also go to garages and acquire discarded dry cells from Model T Fords to power their projects. At one time they had about 100 of them connected together in series for "a sparking good time." When the cells became depleted they figured out how to chemically rejuvenate them using a saturated solution of Sal Ammoniac.

They also used the cells to set off their cannon, which was made of a foot long pipe 1" in diameter, mounted on a 2" x 6" board. One end was closed off with a big bolt and had a slot sawed into it to hold the end of a lamp cord. They charged it with Potash and Sulfur and sent an electric current through the lamp cord. According to Elmer, they once stuck the handle from an old umbrella into it, and it was blown out with enough force to drive it through a wooden box.

Handbook 8, Radio Kinks and Quips, contains the following three sentences: "At home, my brother and I used to drive our poor Dad nuts. We had an Edison Cylinder record phonograph. We used to reverse the belt and run it backwards."

Accounts of how to make a canon out of a 1" gas pipe, how to rejuvenate dry cells with Sal Ammoniac, how to reverse the belt on an Edison phonograph, and even how to acquire depleted batteries from automobile garages can be found in Popular Mechanics magazines that were published prior to 1912, so it seems Elmer may have been reading Popular Mechanics in addition to The Star Toy Maker.

According to Elmer, they sometimes threw their old dry cells out their 2nd story window at their dogs below when the dogs were "celebrating." What is interesting about this sentence is that the Osterhoudt's had dogs at the mill. Elmer and Cyril built "grass sleds" and used them to sled down Skinners Butte, which rises 250 feet above the surrounding city. Skinners Butte is still a recreation spot today.

Near the base of the Butte was a mill race connecting to the Willamette River. The mill race crossed 8th Avenue at the location of Wilbert Osterhoudt's mill at 205 8th Avenue. (There were several planing mills at the time in the immediate area.) Skinners Butte was only a few blocks away from the mill. On top of the butte were the charred ruins of an observatory which had been dynamited in 1905, so it must have been a great place for kids to explore. Also on the butte were two reservoirs, the larger one holding 2 million gallons of water for use by the fire department.

Observatory atop Skinner Butte

The observatory atop Skinner Butte before it was dynamited.
 

A grass sled

A grass sled from The Star Toy Maker. Elmer and Cyril would have had plenty of scrap wood from the planing mill.
A copy of the book is on Page 13.
By the way, Elmer still had the book in 1966.
 

Eugene, Oregon 1903

Downtown Eugene, Oregon in 1903. Skinners Butte rises in the background. On top of the butte can be seen the observatory. Elmer and Cyril probably walked down this very street. There are few, if any, of these buildings still standing as they've been replaced with modern structures. The Osterhoudt & Smith planing mill site became the location of Eugene City Hall in 1964. The building was demolished in 2015 and the site is now a large parking lot.

Eugene was home to the University of Oregon. See this map.
The Osterhoudt planing mill is at the bottom of Plate 16 of the 1912 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps. Link

Plate 16 can also be viewed here.


On August 14, 1915, one year after his divorce from Lela May, Elmer's father married Alice Elsie Shields, the sister of his brother John's wife, Lillie. By this time Wilbert and Alice had a daughter named Wilda Frances Osterhoudt. Lela May had asked for 1/3 of Wilbert's property and $25 a month alimony during the divorce. The Lane County History Museum states that the J. H. Smith & Co mill stopped operating in 1914, the year the Osterhoudt's were divorced. It's impossible to know the exact chain of events, but Wilbert and Alice left Eugene, taking Elmer, Cyril and Wilda with them. They were married in Santa Ana California, and would spend the rest of their lives in Los Angeles.

Elmer and Cyril eventually had six half-brothers and sisters, though two sisters died young; Nora died of Whooping Cough when she was almost 4 years old, and Ada May died of pneumonia the day before her second birthday. (See Page 12 for a list of siblings.)
 


 
Eugene High School
Eugene High School in 1912. Built in 1900, Elmer attended school here. In 1915 a new high school was built and this building became Eugene City Hall. It was located at Willamette Street and West 11th Avenue, a few blocks from the mill on 8th Street.

The white building on the right was Central Public School. Today a branch of Chase Bank and a convenience store are located on the two sites.
 
Willamette Street and West 11th Avenue, Eugene, OR
Willamette Street and West 11th Avenue, 120 years later. Only the fire hydrant remains, and it's probably not even the same hydrant.
 
Eugene High School Freshmen 1914
1914 Freshman class at Eugene High School. Photo from the yearbook. Click for original.
 

 
Fullerton Union High School
Fullerton Union High School
 
In 1917 the Osterhoudt's moved from Los Angeles to 241 East Truslow Avenue in Fullerton, California. Elmer attended Fullerton Union High School. He took biology, was interested in entomology, and had a large collection of insects. In a letter to the noted entomologist Fordyce Grinnel Jr, dated May 21, 1917, Elmer wrote, "On account of having to take my wireless down when we were at Florence* I have gone into Entomology about as deeply as ever again." The Junior College was in the same building as the high school, and he befriended the teacher who taught entomology there, Hiram Tracy. Elmer would offer advice and encouragement to the college students in the class. He stated they always got plenty of specimens but did a poor job of mounting them.

* What did Elmer mean by "when we were at Florence?" The area where the Osterhoudt's lived at 1936 E 77th Avenue is just outside of the Los Angeles city limits and is known as "Florence" or "Florence-Graham."
 
 
Compton Union High School 1903
Compton Union High School. Photo taken in 1903. The school was six miles from the Osterhoudt residence.
 
The Osterhoudt's moved from Fullerton back to 1936 E. 77th Street in Los Angeles. Elmer graduated from Compton Union High School in June of 1918. About 12% of the US population had a high school diploma in 1918.

 
Elmer Osterhoudt 1918
Photo of Elmer from the 1918 Compton Union HS yearbook.

 
 
Elmer Osterhoudt 1918
Elmer Osterhoudt 1918
Elmer Stevens
 
  Elmer played "First Trombone" in the school orchestra and the band. Also in the orchestra was Elmer Stevens (right), who played drums.
We believe Elmer Stevens was the "neighbor boy" who brought his non-working crystal set to Elmer Osterhoudt in 1915.
Click on the above photos for the complete orchestra or band group photo.
 
 

 

The Los Angeles 1916 Long Beach City directory lists W A Osterhoudt as a  woodworker at Jones Sash and Door Company, located at 1101 West Broadway. The "W A" would be William Arthur. Unfortunately it doesn't list his address, but the 1915 directory lists an Alice Shields at 922 W. 6th Street, not far from the Jones Sash & Door address. Neither of these addresses exist today, and we don't know if the listing is the correct Alice Shields, since her name would have changed to Osterhoudt in August of 1915.

Jones Sash and Door

MRL Mystery: The Osterhoudt's lived at 657 8th Ave in Eugene, Oregon. After they left for California a woman named Olga Jones lived at that address, while Wilbert worked for the Jones Sash and Door Company in Long Beach. Is this just a coincidence due to a common name, or did Olga have some family connection with Jones Sash and Door Company?



In the preface in his handbooks, Elmer wrote that he was a technician at "Electrical Products Company." This was a company in Long Beach founded in 1912 that made electric and neon signs. Elmer wrote that he worked there during the war, so this would have been sometime after 1915 but before he was in the Navy in 1918. Since the Osterhoudt's had moved to 77th Street by 1917, it was probably in 1915 or 1916.
 
Electrical Products Company Los Angeles
Entry from the 1913 Los Angeles City Directory. This address is in the Long Beach area.
 

 
PABCO Paper
In 1918, Elmer worked as a laborer at Southern Board and Paper Mills, now known as PABCO, located at Vernon and Santa Fe Avenues in LA. (He wrote this himself on his draft card.) The building in the photo above was built in 1912 and would have been quite new when Elmer was employed there. The actual address is 4460 Pacific Blvd. The area was known as Vernon at the time, but is now Los Angeles. 100 years later the building is still there making paper products. Presently, this building is one corner of a huge complex of buildings, some of them very dilapidated.

On September 12, 1918 there was a U.S. Military draft registration (the 3rd one of the war) for men aged 18 through 45. Prior to this third draft, the minimum age was 21. Elmer would have fallen into the new category. Apparently, working at PABCO didn't suit him, because he registered on the very day the new draft went into effect, Sept 12, 1918. He and his brother Cyril registered at the same time, but the Navy didn't accept Cyril till August 8, 1919. It seems Elmer was immediately accepted, as the US military was in desperate need of radio technicians but had no time to train them. He was stationed at the Alameda U.S. Naval Base. The war was over "at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918." Draft Card

According to Elmer, he attained the title "Radio Mechanic, Maximum" while in the Navy. Escaping both the war and the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic with his life, he was 20 years old when he got his Amateur Radio license in 1919, with a call sign of 6NW. (It wasn't until November of 1919 that it became legal once again for an amateur to own a transmitter.)

He never mentioned whether he had (or needed) a license while in the Navy, but all radio licenses for Amateurs had to be reissued in 1919. Since he was at Alameda in 1919 he probably went to San Francisco to take the test, which is a short distance away. If he had been back in Los Angeles he would have had to travel 382 miles back to San Francisco. Millions of men were sent home after the war, and by examining the dates of the known details of his life, he had not been at the Naval base for the whole two years of his enlistment. When he left the navy he moved back home to his family at Crockett Boulevard in Los Angeles.

1919 was during the age of the spark gap transmitter. Elmer's first transmitter was a spark plug coil from a Ford automobile that was fed with an AC doorbell transformer. The tone changed during transmission as the points got hot! His second transmitter, which he called his "handsome homemade rotary spark," was fed with a 1/2 kilowatt transformer from Sears and Roebuck. At the first press of the key the spark jumped to the shaft of the motor, burning it out. One can imagine the look on his face as the rapidly spinning motor slowly came to a stop - permanently. Later he "got a new rotary spark gap" and "proceeded to jam up the air." There were only a handful of operators on the air back then, and the best distance one could get was about 30 miles. His self-designated call letters were "EO" till the government made amateurs get a license because they were having "too much fun."

His receiver was a loose coupler with an Audion vacuum tube detector.
 
Navy Type loos coupler
A "Navy Type" loose coupler from 1921. (It's a "loose" coupler because the coil on the right slides in and out of the box, which houses a larger coil. Taps on the large coil are connected to the switches on the front.) Elmer's loose coupler may have resembled this one, but there is no way we'll ever know. It is just shown here as an example.

NOTE: A spark gap transmitter basically transmitted bursts of static. These bursts were created by rapidly opening and closing the connection to the low voltage side of an induction coil. Elmer used the spark plug coil from a Ford, possibly a Model T. (The coils were so plentiful that you can still buy one today.) The tone was determined by how quickly the circuit was interrupted, and this is probably what Elmer's AC doorbell was used for. The rotary spark transmitted a higher pitched tone, but it was still just a controlled form of static.

When Elmer wrote that he "proceeded to jam up the air" he wasn't kidding. These signals were so broad that two transmitters operating within a short distance of each other would drown each other out, blanketing the airwaves with noise.

 
Model T spark plug coil
 
doorbell
 
  A Ford Model T spark plug coil and an antique doorbell. Of course, it wouldn't have been antique in 1919.
 
 
Not all Model T coils look exactly like this one, but they are similar. The Ford Model T had four coils, each one in a wooden box. Millions of Model Ts had been produced by 1919 so there were plenty of coils to be had. There is a vibrator mounted on the top to create a high voltage spark, but Elmer used the doorbell (hopefully, minus the bell).

The "Pacific Radio News" issue of May 10, 1920 lists Elmer as holding the radio call letters 6NW. He is also listed in the "Citizen's Radio Call Book" of November 1922 with the same call sign.


Listing in the May, 1920 issue of "Pacific Radio News"

According to "Amateur Stations of the United States," in 1920 and 1921 Elmer had a 1000 watt station at 8011 Crockett Street in Los Angeles. Elmer later wrote that the power was actually 500 watts.
 


Hammond Lumber Co
 
Osterhoudt Hammond Lumber
Osterhoudt entry in the 1920 Los Angeles City Directory.

An entry in the Los Angeles 1920 City Directory shows an E. G. Osterhoudt working as a laborer at Hammond Lumber Company. Both his father and his Uncle John (who lived in the same house with Elmer) were carpenters, and would probably know if a job became available at a lumber yard. Though Hammond Lumber was about four miles from his house on Crockett Blvd, Alameda Street was only a few blocks away. A trolley car could have transported him up Alameda Street in less than a half an hour.

As for his roles at Majestic Electrical Products and U. S. Motor Company, Elmer never mentioned these in his writings, nor did he ever mention working in a lumber or paper mill, nor did he mention how hard it was for a veteran to find a job after the war.

Likewise, he never mentioned that in 1920 he was a member of the California Academy of Sciences.

The January 1920 US Census shows Elmer working for a power company in Fresno, CA as a wireless operator. In June of 1920, he traveled to San Francisco hoping to land a job as a radio operator aboard a ship. He arrived on a Saturday. By Sunday he was down to his last $20. By Monday he was employed at Southern California Edison Company as a wireless operator.
Apparently, he wasn't there very long.

According to Elmer's application to the Society of Wireless Pioneers, in 1920 he was at the RCA wireless station at Marshall, California, about 40 miles north of San Francisco. Today the station is an historic landmark in a park-like setting, but when Elmer was there it was surrounded by barren coast land. He was only there a week. In July of 1920 he finally obtained a wireless operator position aboard a ship.
 



Elmer relates in MRL Data Sheets Vol. 6 that  in 1920, while in San Francisco and waiting to go to sea, he had $25 and spent $20 of it on a Kodak camera to take a picture of a Japanese ship named "Tenyo Maru."
 
Tenyo Maru 1920
The Japanese passenger liner SS Tenyo Maru docked at San Francisco in 1920. The photo Elmer took may have looked very much like this one. This photograph was taken at the Brannan Street Wharf in San Francisco on October 5, 1920, which places Elmer at this very spot around the same date. Source.

Elmer may have had an interest in this ship because it was the first turbine driven steamship ever to enter the port of San Francisco. It carried Asian immigrants to Angel Island Immigration Station, an island in San Francisco bay.

Note: In this photo the ship is docked between piers 34 and 36. Built in 1909, the piers have since collapsed and have been replaced with a public park.
 
  1918 Compton HS yearbook page  
 

This crop from the 1920 Compton Union High School Alumni page shows Elmer as a 1918 graduate. He's working for Standard Oil. (Watts, CA is where he lived when he attended the school.) Notice that Elmer Stevens, whom we believe is the neighbor boy who brought his radio to Elmer Osterhoudt in 1915 (see top of page), is a plumber.
 

 

From 1920 to 1923 Elmer was at sea employed as a wireless radio operator. On July 6, 1920 he was the operator aboard the S. S. Rose City. This was a passenger ship named after the city of Portland, Oregon.

On July 20, 1920 he was the radio operator on "Standard Oil Barge 93."

On January 25, 1920 he served aboard a steam ship named the J. A. Moffett, also owned by Standard Oil of California. The J. A. Moffett, named after the former president of Standard Oil of California, was launched in 1914 and was the largest oil tanker in the Pacific at the time. The radio call letters were "WRE." Elmer made $225 a month, which he said was "good money." On November 2, 1920, during the Harding-Cox presidential election, the ship was docked at Vancouver, British Columbia. At the request of the captain, Elmer remained at the radio in contact with station NPG in San Francisco. When the election was over he gave the Captain the results, then left the ship and "ran up and down Hastings Street."

In 1921 there was some sort of strike, which backfired. The radio operators lost $20 a month, and on July 21, 1921 Elmer ended up on a lumber scow named the "Willamette."  Apparently, life aboard the Willamette wasn't very pleasant due to the light ship lurching in the waves. Elmer wrote that he got six meals a day; "three down and three up." A good part of his time was spent "hanging over the rail." A Radio Service Bulletin dated October 1, 1921 lists a "Willamette" with a transmitter range of 200 miles. It had a Gray and Danielson radio. Gray and Danielson, also known as Remler Company, was founded in 1918 in San Francisco, so this seems to be the correct ship. (Searching on the Internet for "Willamette" will lead you down many strange paths.)

On August 31, 1921, Elmer was aboard the tug named "Sea Lion." In a newspaper article published by the Oregon Daily Emerald on November 29, 1921 it states that radio operator Elmer G. Osterhoudt is working aboard the tug "Sea Lion," plying up and down the Pacific coast, where he is also studying botany and physiology. (He was taking a correspondence course from the University of Oregon at the time, ergo the newspaper article.) By September 28, 1921 he was working aboard the SS Atlas, an oil tanker owned by Standard Oil of California.

 
tugboat Sea Lion
 
  The tugboat "Sea Lion," built in 1920 at the Main Street Iron Works, San Francisco, CA.  
     
 
 
     
 
SS Atlas Standard Oil Co
 
  On September 28, 1921, Elmer was in the radio room of the SS Atlas, owned by Standard Oil Co. of California. 
(This photo was taken at the Standard Oil facility in Ketchikan Alaska at an unknown date.)
 


El Sugundo
                            Entry from Radio Service Bulletin, US Department of Commerce, January, 1915. Page 12.
                     (NOTE: Marconi Wireless was incorporated into the Radio Corporation of America in October, 1919)


By June 17, 1922 Elmer worked aboard the F. H. Hillman, an oil tanker built in 1921 at the Alameda Works Shipyard, also owned by Standard Oil of California. From July 3, 1922 to September 4, 1923 he worked aboard the "El Segundo," an oil tanker built in 1912 and owned by Standard Oil. Though the SS Atlas, the J. A. Moffett, the F. H. Hillman and the El Sugundo were owned by Standard Oil , Elmer actually worked for RCA. Elmer wrote that in the 1920s he reported to a Chief Radio Operator named Dick Johnson, who worked for RCA. On the next page is a letter Elmer wrote while aboard the ship, signed "care of Radio Corporation of America."

Aboard ship, Elmer was known as "Sparks," a common nickname for the radio operator. Elmer said that he "quit" in 1923. By then, almost every other ship on the Pacific coast was a Japanese cargo ship. Elmer wrote, "After an OP spends several years at sea, he gets sick of the monotony of sea life and looks for a land station job." In a contradiction, Elmer also wrote in Radio Operating as a Career "If you spend a few years at sea - you'll never get off - it is so fascinating."


In addition to the correspondence course in botany he took from the University of Oregon, he was enrolled in a correspondence course in Pharmacy during his time at sea. In Elmer's own vague words, "Read up on Pharmacy for 2 yrs. with phones on." In 1923 he attended one semester at the University of Southern California College of Pharmacy in Los Angeles.
 
Elmer Osterhoudt USC

Afterwards, he became "official janitor" (his own words) in a drug store, and contemplated the idea of owning his own drug store. Elmer wrote, "I had a lot with my 6NW on the back." which he sold for $1000. With that and the money he saved while at sea (he called it Ship money), he opened a store. Thankfully, it wasn't a drug store.


                                                              "I had a lot with my 6NW on the back." - Elmer Osterhoudt

MRL MYSTERY:
Three separate publication list 6NW as being located at 8011 Crockett Blvd. This was the address of the Osterhoudt residence, presumably owned by Elmer's father. How did Elmer have a "lot" that he could sell at that address? What does "a lot with my 6NW on the back" actually mean?

It's possible that in the early 1920s some of the properties on Crocket Blvd were empty lots. Elmer may have bought one and built a ham shack on the rear of the lot, ergo "6NW [was] on the back." His residence would still have been 8011, so the Dept. Of Commerce would have had the station listed at that address. Around 1927 the Osterhoudt's moved from 8011 to 8019 Crockett Blvd. Was this Elmer's lot? Did he sell it to his father in 1924, or is this unrelated?

Is "a lot with my 6NW on the back" a figure of speech? If it meant his radio equipment, he sold it for over $18,000 in 2024 dollars. He  resigned from RCA as a radio operator 1923. It seems unlikely he built a state of the art ham radio station worth $18,000 while going to U of S.C. for pharmacy, and then sold it a year later. It's also unlikely that the technology available at the time would have cost that much.

Whatever it was, he got $1000 for it.


 
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