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Halligan left West Point after two years to marry Katherine Fletcher, and the couple settled in Boston. A first professional taste of radio came in 1923, when Halligan became a sales manager for the Tobe Deutschmann Corporation, then a major manufacturer of radio parts.
- The Artifact
- A History of Hallicrafters, Part I: The Boston Ham
- II. Crafting A Brand
- III. Bombproof
- IV. New Adventures in Hi-Fi
- V. Video Skilled, The Radio Star
- VI. End Transmission
“Now Hallicrafters, unchallenged leader in the field of advanced short wave for foreign reception, brings you a remarkable instrument—the Hallicrafters 5R30A. Here is more than simply a radio—here is the key to the airwaves of the world, for with this set, small though it is, you get world-wide reception. Naturally, you get the finest in regular ra...
“Until Bill Halligan came along and designed a radio set for ham radio operators, the hobbyists built their own receiver and transmitter. These consisted of a ton or more of equipment piled tier-on-tier in a jungle of wiring, usually in an attic or basement. Most of them looked like Goldberg nightmares.” —Sales Management, 1947 William Halligan was...
In 1928, with radio sales exploding, Halligan decided to strike out on his own. He also made the astute decision to move his family to Chicago, which he’d visited several times as a salesman and had deemed the rising epicenter of his industry. This is the part of the story, of course, where the stock market eventually crashes and all youthful optim...
“Hallicrafters sets were developed in the great testing grounds of amateur radio. They have served an ‘attic apprenticeship’ and have come out of the attic to go around the world with victorious Allied armies.” —Hallicrafters advertisement, 1944 In the summer of 1941 (according to company lore), one of Bill Halligan’s tidy new 450-watt transmitters...
In the introduction to his 1945 African safari memoir South of the Sahara, explorer Attilio Gatti wrote in glowing terms about Hallicrafters, which had also (coincidentally) sponsored his expedition. The Italian-born adventurer noted the “admiration and gratitude I owe to the Hallicrafters organization, their imaginative leadership, their precise t...
“When you turn on this beautiful console, you’ll thrill to television’s clearest picture . . . a spectacular performance! Hallicrafters sensational DYNAMIC TUNER with the ‘Precision Printed Circuit’ is the answer.” —Hallicrafters Television ad, 1950 America’s transition from radio to television wasn’t as gradual as one might presume. Since much of ...
Despite fizzling out of the TV market, Hallicrafters’ final decade as a family business, from 1956 to 1966, still saw record sales figures—mostly through military contracts (including the new fields of space communications and missile defense systems), but also through steady success in the shortwave radio market, as the company’s ham kits continue...
Northrop sold the company name (but kept the factory, by then located in Rolling Meadows, a Chicago suburb) in 1975, bringing non-military electronics production to an end. The Hallicrafters plant became Northrop Corporation's Defense Systems Division.
In 1924 he became sales manager for his old friend Toby Deutschmann, who was distributing imported radio parts to American radio manufacturers. By 1928, Toby's business was booming. Bill decided to strike out on his own as a manufactures' representative, selling parts directly to the radio makers.
They chose the name "Radio Shack", which was the term for a small, wooden structure that housed a ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as hams (amateur radio operators).
William Halligan, one of Deutschmann's first employees and later the founder of Hallicrafters, suggested the name, “Radio Shack”. They chose the name, "Radio Shack," which was a term for the room that housed a ship's radio equipment.
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This webpage indexes and links to a virtual museum of a large collection of radio equipment from Hallicrafters and the History of Hallicrafters. It includes color photos, specifications, descriptions and interesting information for those interested in Hallicrafters radios.
