History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world's first artificial satellite was about the size of a basketball, weighed only 183 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path. That launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments. While the Sputnik launch was a single event, it marked the start of the space age and the U.S.-U.S.S.R space race.They equipped the Sputnik with transmitters to broadcast on frequencies at 20 and 40 MHz so everyone would know it was up there.
http://history.nasa.gov/sputnik/
.WAV file - What it sounded like.
My father Fred Toeppner ran a Radio / TV repair shop in Powassan. When he heard that Sputnik was to be launched carrying a transmitter he became very interested. He built himself a receiver and found out (presumably from the news paper) what time the satellite was to travel over Canada. Right on schedule he heard the beep.....beep....beep as it passed over Ontario.
It wasn't until this year, 2006 that I heard this story from my Uncle Sandy Toeppner. I was out visiting him one Sunday morning and we got talking about old radios and the projects that Dad had built. He wondered what happened to that receiver from the 1950's, if I had realized what a part of history that would have been, I would have made sure to have kept it when we cleared out his work shop in 1974 after he died.
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Photos And Scans By Jamie Toeppner