What is this?
What is this?
I have to disagree with Larry.
In 1932 you did not need a huge antenna for AM radio. They had ferrite core wound antennas for am by then. I would guess that was for armature or primitive HAM radio. A long horizontal wire is not very good at am capture, but a vertical one is, depending on the ratio of length to frequency. As am is amplitude modulation a horizontal wire would pick up a very small signal and lots of noise and you don't need a ground plane for it either. I bet the ridge wire was tapped in the middle, making this a classic "T" antenna for shortwave.
But I have been wrong before.
And I just reread the OP. Is the roof a 12/12 pitch? I see now you said it ran UP the roof, not along the ridge like I thought. So it is a "slope" antenna, the almost perfect type for multiple bandwith reception. Is there an old RCA Transoceantic radio in the house?