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Vintage Radio (domestic) Domestic vintage radio (wireless) receivers only.

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Old 19th Jan 2022, 10:58 am   #1
Lucien Nunes
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Default Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

MEET - the Museum of Electrical and Electronic Technology - is the new name for our museum project. It has a committee, a constitution, some (temprorary) premises and some money in the bank. But it doesn't have any radios.

That might seem odd given that I have been acquiring all sorts of vintage equipment for years, but there is logic. a) Radios are not endangered in the way that industrial equipment is. Many kinds of electrical plant are inaccessible to the average hobbyist collector and do not appear at boot sales. 99.9% is destroyed as soon as it becomes redundant, so I have saved some of that in preference. b) Other people have already created nice collections of radios and TVs. And c) We can start on radios and TVs any time that suits us, which is now, as opening day is in sight.

MEET needs a radio and TV collection that tells the story of domestic radio and TV. As curator, I am interested to get opinions on what should be in, what can be left out and why. I can make my own list but whilst I would consider myself an expert curator on the history of electric organs, I think there are people here who have a much more comprehensive view and assessment of the development of domestic radio and TV in the UK.

One advantage of starting from zero is that we are not influenced by what we already have. Each set will be obtained on its merit as a representative of the field. We need to show technological developments, styling changes; above all we need to show what people actually used rather than what we retrospectively think was best. Nothing is banal to the historian; if 90% of radios were cheap rubbish, then 90% of our collection should be cheap rubbish.

It will be a museum collection so the majority of accessioned exhibits will be kept in original condition, not restored. All models that we want to demonstrate will, where possible, be acquired in duplicate. One to keep original and one for the handling collection that will be overhauled to perform as near as possible to factory spec. This is important, as we want to present what a radio *was* with unmolested, unmodernised examples, and what a radio *did* with examples in the best possible functional condition.

Anyway, concoct your dream collection and let's see what a 'definitive' radio exhibition should consist of.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 1:33 pm   #2
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

I would think if anything from very early radio to the latest technology would be educational to the schools and colleges. Include though visual of the underside of the items on display so students can get a better feel of the subject, even hands on stuff.

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Old 19th Jan 2022, 1:45 pm   #3
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

I really like the idea that you will have "museum" pieces as well as restored duplicates for hands on touching. One of the sad things about many museums is that they might have lots of examples of great radios / radiograms etc they are almost always silent and behind glass. In the days of all things being slickly digital that experience of tuning in a radio to find a station is these days unfortunately a rare experience for the young. This sounds like a really interesting project.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 1:46 pm   #4
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

I would say that if you have the luxury of more-than-one example of a particular radio, you should restore one of them to the point where it is usable.

"Old things in glass-fronted cabinets" don't grab the interest anywhere near as much as seeing.hearing the things actually working in the way they were intended to.

I like the Blists Hill museum at Ironbridge for this reason - though they have some exhibits that are just too big to have 'working versions' of, their preserved industrial buildings are actually _used_ to do the things they were originally built for [though in some cases there have had to be a few historically-sympathetic adaptions to comply with things like fire-safety].

You can actually buy the candles made in their candle-factory and tiles from their tile-works.

Museums should be living places!

And your radio exhibits? I would suggest at least a Round Ecko or two, a Wartime Civilian Receiver, a few of the little 'midget' TRFs, a Pye P75, a Pye Fenman, a Dansette record-player, an early legal CB set and an Amstrad hifi.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 3:28 pm   #5
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

Interactivity and visitor participation are the foundation stones of this whole project. We have some unique approaches to this that we expect to take the learning experience to a new level, including our single most powerful concept which is to use low-tech real-life analogues to explain complex, impenetrable high-tech. E.g. learn about the memory in your phone by playing a record on the transparent Wurlitzer jukebox, setting some stops on the Compton organ and checking the train times at MEET Parkway station. This is our area of expertise.

What I am looking for here is a list of maybe 100-200 models of domestic receiver that make a cohesive and representative collection of radios, that I need to go out and acquire. This is where the forum collective knowledge will come into play. For example, I want a motor-tuned McMichael but is that representative of anything? An early application of AFC? Automation? An example of the best of pre-war performance? It needs a reason to be there, over and above my desire to see one in the collection.

Don't worry about record players, HiFi, hairdryers*; those are topics for another day and some are already well underway. I might ask a similar question about TV soon though.

* According to the database we have 134 hairdryers. About 40 are earmarked to be accessioned; those are the hairdryers that will be there in 250 years time for historians to study. The remaining 94, or at least the ones amongst them that don't contain asbestos, are for people to try drying their hair with, all of which are expendable (the hairdryers, not the museum visitors.). The radio collection will be stacked more in favour of conservation, with perhaps 75% left alone and 25% restored.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 5:33 pm   #6
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

"Kids (how old could they be?) never having tuned a radio", valid point. You would need a few "pantry transmitters" with relevant content to keep interest and negate the shrinking MW/LW transmitter count. At the Henlow RAF signals museum you can have hands on.
 
Old 19th Jan 2022, 5:38 pm   #7
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

I certainly support the inclusion of some 70s and 80s tat. This stuff attracts little interest from enthusiasts and is steadily disappearing into WEEE skips. In a few years there won't be any Amstrad/Binatone/Saisho stuff left. Many won't mourn it, but it's part of the history of consumer electronics.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 5:43 pm   #8
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

Hello Lucien,

I think a "cohesive and representative collection" would require some departure from the principle that "if 90% of radios were cheap rubbish, then 90% of our collection should be cheap rubbish". I wouldn't at all say that 90% of radios were cheap rubbish - well, not until the 1980s anyway - but through the '30s to '50s the vast majority of radios could fairly be described as ordinary sets, with ordinary capabilities, at ordinary prices. As long as it's made clear that they were oddities in whatever way, I'd say a collection had much more to gain than lose in value by being in some measure slanted in favour of extremes - the very large, the very small, the most elaborate and the most basic, the most exclusive and the least adequate, the most visually striking and the most drab.

Drawing up a list of 100 or so sets - often categories rather than exact models - for discussion/amendment/enlargement by all comers sounds an engaging exercise, I may be disposed to have a crack at it if nobody else does so first. I'm guessing you intend to take 1922 as start of the timeline, with or without an example of something from before domestic broadcasting began, but have you an end date in mind or will the collection aim in some measure to represent the state of play right up to 2022?

Paul
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 5:53 pm   #9
Lucien Nunes
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

Quote:
As long as it's made clear that they were oddities in whatever way, I'd say a collection had much more to gain than lose in value by being in some measure slanted in favour of extremes - the very large, the very small, the most elaborate and the most basic, the most exclusive and the least adequate, the most visually striking and the most drab.
Yes, this is true; we can partially suppress the carrier here. I made the point about proportional representation in order to emphasize that the accessioned collection is a historical record, not a means to auditory enjoyment. Many enthusiast collectors, myself included, enjoy playing music through 'good' equipment, but that is not aim of this exercise. It is one of effective curation - the collection should be neither a freak-show with a token DAC90 representing the mainstream, nor an endless procession of 30's woodies with many interesting deviants excluded for not being 'representative.'
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 5:58 pm   #10
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

As Merlinmaxwell says, you'll need quite a few low-power 'pantry transmitters' since you're unlikely to get any reasonable reception from the dwindling number of AM stations, particularly from the sets that require an outdoor antenna. The day will come in the next few years where there won't be any UK MW or LW transmissions at all.

So perhaps a better solution than lots of little transmitters might be to approach Ofcom with your project and request a Low Power Restricted Service Licence for a MW channel, and possibly FM too. I've helped set up a few in the past decade or so. I don't expect your site will be vary large, so a 1 watt ERP transmitter/antenna should be more than adequate to swamp any urban interference, and even provide a sufficient signal for those sets that theoretically require an external antenna.

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Old 19th Jan 2022, 6:21 pm   #11
Lucien Nunes
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

There are many good points here and I welcome them. Looking sideways it's interesting how everyone wants to talk about *operating* the radios. That goal, fun though it may be, is however tangential to this thread. Actually what I am looking for is a list of model numbers for which to go out shopping, with the aim that in the year 2300, when telling the story of the birth of the connected age, my successors can say: "And here are the 'radio sets' that people listened to 'programmes' on."
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 6:28 pm   #12
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

Just a thought but a good starting point may be RadioRadio

I think that Jonathan Hill made a really good effort to include representative sets from each era.

I am sure he had access to far more sets than he included.

I don't think he missed out many significant domestic sets.

You may need to take a view on sets which are included for their striking appearance today, such as the Emor Globe.

Cheers

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Old 19th Jan 2022, 6:34 pm   #13
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

As a start I would certainly second the inclusion of a round echo for the fact that it was a ground breaking design using an unusual material. I think this design of radio is one that the wider population would also be more likely to recognise as it seems to be the one more commonly used to represent vintage radios in general. I have a few more ideas with a justification which i'll add later.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 7:43 pm   #14
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

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I think this design of radio is one that the wider population would also be more likely to recognise as it seems to be the one more commonly used to represent vintage radios in general
Don't forget that many of our audience, e.g. those who step through the door 200 years hence, will have very different backgrounds and expectations, That particular cohort will mainly recognise things that will be invented in the late 2100s. They might have no concept of music, or sound, or design, or electronic goods. We mustn't make assumptions. All we can do is to tell the story as we know it, as truthfully as we can, and hope they will understand it.

The story that we might tell by showing an AD65 and stating that it is as much a style icon in 2021 as it was in 1934, is that aesthetics are still important to us now but we have run out of ideas.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 7:47 pm   #15
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

Some of the early Murphy radios went against the prevailing idea of what a radio should look like.

The Philco 444 'peoples set' is another candidate.

The post war Murphy 104 was unusual.

A chunky bakelite Radio Rentals set should be included.

How about an almost complete radio kit from 1929 with tools, valves and batteries nearby, on a dinning room table. This would represent the home enthusiast.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 7:51 pm   #16
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

A Sinclair Micromatic must clearly be part of this collection!

Perhaps one of the blue "Ever Ready" saucepan-radios too?

And a Zenith Transoceanic as a representative of the 'luxury portable' sector.

And one of the "two-man-lift" Dynatrons with Queen Anne legs.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 8:34 pm   #17
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Default Re: Creating a vintage radio collection from scratch

Hi Lucien, a difficult task and some good points in the posts above. Radio, Radio is probably your best reference book, but then the thread splits. Cabinet design is certainly a reason many sets were bought, then there was technical innovation that made it the "best set" and we should not forget ease of use as people became less technical.
There is probably also a call for the odd luxury set, radiogram and top of the range model to show what could happen if no expense was spared.
Another valid area would concern Mil or professional sets and the stuff folk bought and modified for amateur use.
There is also the whole area of kit sets, especially in the 20's and early 30's when it was a massive business area.

I take it your radio shop will also show both the repair and hobby side.

Quite an undertaking

Ed
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 8:43 pm   #18
Lucien Nunes
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Just a thought but a good starting point may be RadioRadio
I had this thought too. It would be interesting to get more feedback on how appropriate the selection is as a basis from which to add and subtract.
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Old 19th Jan 2022, 8:50 pm   #19
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At least one of "every" technology used for radio reception, crystal set, one valve headphone regen, the classic 1920's 30's three valve loudspeaker regen, the valve superhet. Post war miniature valve superhets both mains and battery, early transistors, late transistors (the "Empire Made" jobs).
 
Old 19th Jan 2022, 9:38 pm   #20
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Selection will depend on which side of things you care to emphasise, manufacturing or UK domestic use for example - if the latter, the "saucepan special" would be completely irrelevant, but the metal-cased Ever Ready Model 'H' might earn its place, a two miniature valve set designed to be as affordable as possible for households where mains power wasn't an option.

Such events as the sudden arrival of "all-wave" models in about 1935, bringing short wave reception to most manufacturers' middle and upper range sets, would certainly be worth marking: with one or two as well to represent such multi-bandspread models as the Pye international and its many successors.

A late '20s portable, whether upright or suitcase, could show when radio began to escape the home environment if only for the well-heeled: and something on the scale of a Marconi P20B might represent the personal portables which became much more viable with the advent of B7G valves.

Crystal sets - one or two from major manufacturers, then a homebrew and/or one from an obscure local enterprise to represent the hundreds of those that sprung up: and maybe an Ivalek or mid-'60s "rocket" showing how the very simplest form of circuit wasn't quite abandoned.
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