Tour of many of display in the museum. Ham radio, cell phones, spark, VOA, tubes and much more. Telegraph Office video • Visit to Antique Wirel... Please join AWA to support wireless history. www.antiquewireless.org/
After a few minutes watching your fine video, I realized I was grinning ear-2-ear seeing many old electronic and mechanical friends, and thinking about all the fine innovators who built them. It was very pleasing to see the obvious hard work and caring of the museum staff and members. I would be happy to lose track of time there some day!
Though RadioShack was Often known as RatShack.. If you were friendly with them. You often could get free or near free equipment.. I used 4 RadioShack's for just that reason
Yes, I had built many kits from that store, and my very favorite is the Realistic 65 in one, where you had spring loaded to connect the wires to the electronic component.
The Stromberg Carlson at 16:30 is a one year only manufacture, 1956. As to the question of "how would you like to own one?" I do and it is a nice radio indeed!
Simply wonderful!! I can actually remember working on some of the equipment, back in the late '60s - early '70s. The Navy hung onto a lot of that old Collins stuff, and we got to keep it alive and useful! Another spot that i have to visit....and this one is actually near enough to get to!! :-) 73 KC1MGW
I was a member of the AWA and worked in the museum when it was in town in the 70's I was a friend of Bruce Kelly W2ICE and several others I do not remember. I am old now, 67 years but this museum got me going to get my Novice license in 1978. I think I was 18 then, just beginning to get out on my own. Radio, not TV was fascinating to me back then. I used to stay up and listen to Larry Glick on WBZ Boston, what a wacky character. I also knew Jack Slattery from 1977 on WHAM in Rochester NY then. "World's Tallest Midget" he styled himself. I used to listen to WHAM on my crystal radio - no batteries. My friends would say "where are you hiding the batteries"? I would pick up the board when they were listening to show them that here were no batteries at all. Great days, those were!
As an old timer and broadcast engineer from the 1960s to today, designing and building18 full powered FM and AM stations, I'm glad to see you guys keeping the museum. I would like to make one request. Has anyone there in the museum contacted the Lynchburg Virginia Museum, to get documented info concerning Dr. ( Dentist ) Mahlon Loomis, who demonstrated the first known wireless in the mid 1800s, from 2 mountaintop locations 14 miles apart, before Marconi was even born? Loomis held several patents including the one covering the wireless. He had a working relationship with the US Navy and they were working out details to advance the designs, but then a big depression hit and everyone forgot about it. Dr.Loomis died broke at his brother's residence, but he made a closing statement that can still be read in that museum, where he predicts the advancement of wireless communication far into the future. He predicted what Marconi and professor Hertz proved to be possible. Bill K5EYS
I love this stuff, old and new! I think I could live there in the radio museum, never getting tired of the wonder and nostalgia. While I appreciate and marvel at the tiny (SMD) components in today's radio gear, I miss the old through-hole components because they were big enough for me to build with. It's a good thing those spark gap transmitters didn't coincide with the era of modern television. Thanks for the tour. I'm looking forward to a return, in-person visit to the museum in 2023!
there must be over a thousand museums all around the countryside. Many are little known, often maybe a one-room museum in a house. Why my little home town of Interlaken, by, has an old farm tool museum. I lived there in the 90s when They just opened it. Who knows today how to use a scythe?! If the end times ever come, the survivors might find such museums very useful.
Thank you. I just dived into a 20 minute rabbit hole researching spark gap radio transmission technology. I did not know this is how we started transmitting radio waves. Fascinating subject. I plan to visit the museum as soon as it is practical and possible. Hope they stay alive through COVID.
Thank you this is fascinating. My uncle was one of the early marine radio operators on the White Star Line. The equipment in his basement, recovered after up-grading, stimulated my interest. At 13 I designed and built my first H.F. receiver. Thereafter, travelling Europe and Africa working. It was the finest career.
The Hallicraft was my go to radio and watching the tubes glow while listening to Radio Moscow and BBC in the fifties Thank You really enjoyed Jim K4YNA
Years ago, my uncle built a wire recorder during WWII, and had it into the 60's when I was a young boy. It was fascinating to see and was actually quite a good machine with high-quality audio. Another uncle worked for Teletype in Skokie, IL, back in the day, assembling these machines. Notice that the speaker grills in that console around 15:00 have "Realistic" - Radio Shack's brand - on them!
very awesome tour and narration its neat that not only does the mueseum have so much restored but its working as well ive been a boater my entire life so i was very interested in the Marine radios and the related displays i also found it interesting that you had personal knowledge and relationships with some of the staff and personel
Video brought back so many memories. My first receiver was a BC-348, then a Drake 2C when I was a novice. I've either owned or used much of the ham gear shown. Thanks, N8CA.
Waw, so much beautifull things ! I had a collection myself, which I donated to a local radio museum. It's nice to see that people take care of this kind of heritage.
Hello from Bob Jonasson WB6JRY.I am a retired television engineer.I worked at KSBW-TV in Salinas,California from 12-9-1968 until 5-2-2019.Television technology changed tremendously during my tenure there...from film,slides and video tape to digital server...Harris automation talking to Nexio server!
You know I almost blew past this but then I realised how important it is the people like you do content like this so I thought I would stop come back and show my support
My dad, W2EBF, donated his old Ham radios to this museum. He had a radio from a WWII bomber that was new and still in the original packaging that we donated. I'd be interested to see that.
At 4:24, your "WWI Field Station" is actually an interwar/early WWII SCR-178 radio. Designed in the early 30's, it was built until 1942 but used almost exclusively for training since by 42, the Army had the better SCR-284.
If you haven't already, you should visit the National Electronics Museum in Linthicum, MD which is close to BWI airport. A lot of the exhibits focus on the development of Radar as the museum is focused on Military electronics. Many years ago I got a chance to visit it with my Ham Radio Club, but it is currently closed due to Covid.
I would love to own that 1KW rotary Spark Gap Transmitter. A perfect fix for a neighbor problem I have. He plays his Boom Box way too loud! A bit of Spark RF should fix the problem. Great video and a trip down memory lane. Fun to see some of the rigs I have owned way back when, 73's Pete N6QW
Thanks Randy. I visited the museum several years ago, just before they moved to the new location. It's a great improvement over the old place. Shlomo 4X4LF
Great Video Randy! I remember seeing Bruce Kelly with his AWA display at the annual Rochester NY Hamfest when it was at the Monroe County Fairgrounds. Vince NY5AR ex WB2FYZ
Nice video Randy. Had the lot on. shows the place without it being to long!. So much stuff given. A popular place to donate things. In 80 years the stuff we bought today will be like this. People say "What some old big looking stuff, anologue things", Not by then :) All I have got is a Yaesu Handheld, new. (4 weeks) and some cheap chinese thing in the car 4 years. SDR dongle in computer to outside Diamond antenna as well
Very interesting, thanks for recording that and putting putting it on RU-vid. Is there more information about that Bell Labs transistor radio and what were the bottles at 17:00?
👍Great video. Thank you. I really would like to visit the museum. Brilliant that some of the exhibits are working and the condition of the equipment looks amazing. BTW, some of those "museum" rigs are still in use in my shack - not the spark gaps though. 😀
Ohhh all those Collins KWM-2s! Wish I had a dollar for every hour I worked on one! I was in an Air Force mobile FACP and we were still using them in the 80s - which was a major chore because they were designed for fixed installs and not for mobile combat comm bouncing around in the field, so lots of maintenance hours went into them. Still we kept them working.
It is amazing how far radio and communication had come. Now we have a pi-zero that weighs a few ounces and can communicate from local to around the world........................ Mike N6IMY
Seeing that Titanic radio room reconstruction was really something. The fact that the Titanic Marconi operator could actually *select frequencies*, even crudely, is a bit astounding to me. I had no idea there was anything approaching that sort of technology at the time. I suppose that truly was "bleeding-edge" in 1912. Regarding that disaster, it occurs to me that a completely factual headline of the time could have read: "Over 700 Survivors Saved by Wireless in Titanic Disaster", as the Carpathia did in fact receive the distress call, but was two hours away. Even so, without the wireless, the survivors of the sinking would likely have succumbed quickly to the elements, stranded in the middle of the icy Atlantic.
Randy, Thanks for the video. If you have the opportunity visit the Marconi Site and Info Age museum. Also in NJ. My Uncle used to volunteer at the museum. I really enjoyed my visit. You can even stop by and see what is left of the original Marconi towers.
Hi Randy, Brilliant film, would love to see some more in depth videos from the museum if you revisit. Thank you so much, I now want to own a teletype! Best regards 2e0xch.
3:49 $13 ebay bargain......just goes to show the stuff that ends up on there. One mans junk is another mans gem! As a teenager of the 60's my parents bought me a transistor radio for my 14th birthday. A Fidelity Comet. Made mostly of plastic apart from a thin aluminum speaker grille, it had four bands MW/LW/SW and a BS on Radio Luxembourg. The volume and tuning knobs were also plastic finished in chrome.....very 60's! I loved that radio but after I got married it just disappeared. Years went by and I often thought of that little radio. I spent many years scouring junk shops all to no avail. Then I put in a permanent search for one on ebay. More years went by until one day.....bingo! One appeared. I HAD to have it no matter what. It was advertised as working and in good condition so I put a crazy proxy bid on it but nobody else bid so I got it for the asking price £20 ($27.70). The seller lived less than one mile form me and when I went to collect it I was staggered........it was brand new still in the original manufacturers box with shop price tags!
Yeah I grew up and Hall of New York in the projects called the programs and New York and had a friend whose mother had one of them big screens in front of the TVs then where the good old days
When I started in the fire service we used VHF radios. Once Motorola came in and narrow banded everything. It got to the point you couldn’t even talk on the radio way out in the county. The paid Dept. I am on, we went from VHF to a digital 800 system last year. It’s amazing how clear those radios come in. Only downfall. The hand held’s would run you around 4 to 5 grand. Get the shoulder mic with the bigger battery it’s even more plus you have to pay a yearly subscription. I couldn’t go back to a VHF system, love the digital and they don’t use repeaters so that’s another upside to the system.
The transmitter looks like it is from a Lancaster Bomber. I don't know if the same rig was used with the Halifax Bombers. A very good collection well worth visiting. Reverend Peter Rafuse, Sydney Nova Scotia.
