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TMCNet: Antique radios still making waves among collectors

[November 06, 2009]

Antique radios still making waves among collectors

Nov 06, 2009 (News and Record - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- The radios in Ron Lawrence's collection are relics of the Jazz Age. But they still sound like music to his ears -- even if they pick up little more than talk radio these days.

"With receivers of that vintage, you can only listen to AM," he said in a telephone interview. "But if someone wants to listen to a 1922 radio, I've got one that I can turn on. I just put the right (vacuum) tube in and make it work." Lawrence, president of the Carolinas Chapter of the Antique Wireless Association, is one of about two dozen collectors who will be showing off and peddling their wares at the organization's fall swap meet in Jamestown on Saturday .

The event is one of four regional swap meets the CC-AWA hosts each year, along with a three-day conference in Charlotte.

"You see primarily radios and parts from the 1920s through 1950s, some working, some not working," said Brad Jones, an anchor at WGHP (Channel 8) and chairman of the Jamestown swap meet. "But it's fun to take a piece that was built in the 1920s and 1930s and bring it back to life, see it fire up again." Clare Owens, treasurer for the group, said the hobby tends to attract mainly those older than 40, although the organization does have a few younger members. Many collectors are ham radio operators and have backgrounds in electronics and engineering, as well as a love for tinkering. They also enjoy the simplicity of older devices.

"The number of people nowadays who are interested in electronics to fix them up is fairly limited," said Owens, who lives in Apex. "Electronic equipment today is relatively inexpensive. When something goes wrong, you don't try to fix it because it's just about impossible to repair or it's just cheaper to get another one." The 57-year-old Lawrence, who works in electronic and mechanical design in Charlotte, has been collecting for nearly 40 years and says he likes learning about the history of the pieces. Among the items in his collection of more than 400 radios are two Clough-Brengle transmitters used by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.

"The Corps, they worked on National Parks, roads, bridges, planted trees in the '30s," he said. "Anyway, my father had been with the Corps. He wasn't in radio, but he worked with them in the mountains of North Carolina. And when I discovered the link these radios had, that got me a little more interested.

"Anyway, they had these camps way out there in the boonies, so they had to teach people radio. That was a big benefit when the U.S. went into World War II, because here you had a group of trained radio operators who were ready to go to work. A lot of them went straight from the Corps into the U.S. military. And here are two pieces sitting in my collection that were part of that." The first radio sets were built around the turn of the last century, but what most collectors have dates back only to the early 1920s, about the time the first commercial stations were started. With a dusting off and a little tinkering, many will work just fine.

"If you have a good antenna, a good multi-band set will pick up shortwave from around the world," Jones said. "And a good AM set can pick up stations in Atlanta, Boston, Fort Wayne, Ind., especially at night when the reception is good.

"They perform wonderfully." Contact Robert C. Lopez at 691-5091 or robert.lopez@news-record.com To see more of the News & Record or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.news-record.com. Copyright (c) 2009, News and Record, Greensboro, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

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