Inside my garage called Radio Heaven

[Radio Ron w4ron]

I've been taking some pictures for another group so I thought
I'd share them with the GJ forum.
This is inside the garage that's part of our house. More than 25
years ago we took down the garage door and built a wall in it's
place. We put furring strips and 3/4" foam on the floor and covered
it with 3/4" tongue and groove plywood. we then sheetrocked the
walls and built a small room enclosing a door to the outside, this
I how have a small work bench for small projects.
This room houses my collection of antique radios, speakers and
vintage vacuum tubes. As I add more and more photos to the thread
I'll be showing more photos of the collection. I have somewhere over
400 radios, more than 2500 items in all. My main interest lately
has migrated to vacuum tubes of which I have more than 600 tubes
on display. The first photos below are of my tube collection.

If you're interested in getting a preview of the collection you're
invited to visit my radio museum web pages at:
http://radioheaven.homestead.com/

I welcome any and all comments from my GJ friends.

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

Here are some close-ups of the tube shelves shown in the
previous post. These pix will show usually 2 or 3 shelves each.
If you see anything you'd like to see a closer photo of something
please let me know.

cheers

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

here are some more tube photos.

cheers

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

here's a few more and this is all for tonight.

The big red beacon in the last 2 pix is the last surviving beacon
from the top of WBT's center (B) tower. WBT's A and C towers were
knocked down by hurricane Hugo in 1989. This beacon was installed
in 1945 when the 3 towers were originally installed. It was replace with
a white strobe light in 1990 when the A & C towers were replaces.
This beacon had sat up there 450' high for 45 years. When I got it
from my good friend retired WBT chief engineer, I modified it to use
standard light bulbs instead of the two 650 watt bulbs it originally used.
My friend also gave me a small flasher module so I could make to flash
on and off.

cheers

 

[sbosecker]

W4RON,

Thanks for the sample!

Best regards,

Scott

 

[Jazz1]

Very cool. I have never see such an extensive collection of tubes and so much attention to display. Local collector here is our go to guy to keep the tube amps popping.

 

[Techie1961]

Such a great collection of neat old pieces. Thanks for sharing.

 

[magnusk750]

Very nice. Used to be a DXer in my youth, and also had a small collection of vintage radio sets. Still have my mom and dads 1964 Philips table receiver for sentimental reasons and a UK made General Electric BRT402 receiver used by the Swedish army.

 

[pepi]

Nice collection, some I have seen most I have not. And to think much of that is still with us and stuffed into our modern communication devices. Your home is like George Eastman's House, Edison would also be proud.

However, I am a much bigger fan of Nikola Tesla' ........

 

[wornoutoldman]

Awesome space and collection. You should charge admission!

 

[Corvette Cave]

Nice collection & display

 

[Crzydmnd72]

Very nice. Sure makes me miss my HammarLund SP600. Something about the warm glow of tubes that just isnt matched by a cold electronic radio

 

[getyoungk]

Wow, love your collection! I have a couple of old tube radios as well, I have never touched them and they still work great. As well, I have an older German made short wave radio, still fun to tune in around the world.

 

[Radio Ron w4ron]

Wow, love your collection! I have a couple of old tube radios as well, I have never touched them and they still work great. As well, I have an older German made short wave radio, still fun to tune in around the world.

If they've never been electrically restored I'd be VERY careful playing
them for a long period of time, like more than an hour.
The old filter caps are going to die, not just but when. And when they
do it could burn up the radio before you could get it unplugged.

If you're not up to it, it should be fairly easy to find someone who can
simply replace the caps, that way you can enjoy listening to them
for a long time and not worry about letting the "magic smoke"
out of them

cheers

 

[Kevin54]

Wow, thanks for posting that up. I knew you had a collection but nothing to that extent. Pretty cool!!!!

 

[demolitionman]

Wow. Those are a lot cooler than some splattering aspirin 2879's I had back when I played pirate radio hehehe. Beautiful collection you have, nice touch in the display design. Very museum-Esque.

 

[1/2 Cup]

Just one awesome collection and by all means check out the web site.

Regards

 

[GTPaul]

Ron

Great to run into you on this forum. I have sort of changed directions from contesting but still have a passion.

Thank you for sharing.

Paul Hellenberg
K4JA

 

[Bears Fan]

Wow! very cool collection, I can remember as a very young boy going into the local drug store and they had a tube testing machine in there, you just went in and plugged the tube into the matching socket on the tester to see if it was good or bad