‘I just get this big kick out of when it comes back to life’
You fix and sell old radios. How long have you had this hobby?
I technically bought my first vintage radio when I was 16 and I’m 50 so that many years.
How many radios do you have in your house?
In my main collection I think the last count was about 257. The whole basement’s full and then a few are scattered throughout the rest of the house as well. And then I have a garage full of miscellaneous parts pieces and projects to be.
Where do you find your radios?
Used to find them at garage sales estate sales that kind of thing. Every weekend we’d go and hit every garage sale in the city. You’d always pick up a couple. In the last few years you could go to 100 garage sales before you find one radio. They’re getting really hard to come by. They’ve been so picked over now that we’re reaching the end of the resource I would say. A lot of the good stuff that’s out there is tied up in collections. The last few years I find my radios on eBay or when we go on road trips. Antique shops junk shops wherever.
Do you have a favourite radio to listen to?
I have one in the living room that I listen to quite a bit a 1941 Philco. It’s a big huge floor model. I actually have a little transmitter set up that I plug into my computer and I get XM radio through the computer and can receive it on any one of my radios throughout the house. I just turn it on and I get ’40s big band music right there. It works because it suits the radio and it sounds right.
Does a tube radio have better sound than newer radios?
A lot of people argue “yes” and I’m one of those people for sure. If you listen to a modern solid-state radio after a few hours it gets irritating. It kind of bothers you. I can’t describe the real feeling but with a vacuum tube it doesn’t. It’s an analog device and your ears are analog devices. So it works better with your ear.
What local stations do you listen to?
The only AM one left that plays music really is Classic Country 1060. So I listen to it 90 per cent of the time. The other one is CBC. When they have their music specials I listen because they have some really good stuff.
Most of the radios you work with are just AM then?
The majority yeah. On a good evening with good reception I get reception all over North America. Nebraska California Texas — just with a standard tabletop radio.
How can you pick up stations from so far away?
When these radios were in — when they were the thing — the transmitter technology wasn’t what it is today. They couldn’t put out a million watts like a transmitter can today; they were low power. So the receivers had to be really good to receive the signals at any distance.
AM stations come through clearer when it’s dark right?
Oh yes. The best time is in the wintertime when it’s really cold and clear. There are all kinds of technical reasons but it’s something to do with the upper atmosphere. The AM signal goes up and reflects off the upper atmosphere and comes down wherever. And if you happen to be in the wherever spot you get reception from around the world basically. You’ll be sitting there listening to it and it’s just as loud and clear as any one of the local stations and 10 minutes later it’s gone because the atmosphere changes and it just fades away. It’s really neat.
Do you have a favourite radio memory from childhood?
One Christmas I got this Radio Shack kit that you could build a whole bunch of different things on and I built a radio. That was probably the first thing that got me interested in electronics. I had the radio on there on all the time.
What’s your favourite part of fixing old radios?
I just get this big kick out of when it comes back to life. A person will bring a radio in and it’s totally dead doesn’t even make a peep and the look on their face when they come back to pick it up and we turn it on — man it’s just unbelievable.
I always sit there and wonder what it was like for the people who bought that radio when it was new. ‘You can get a voice out of the air. How is that possible?’ I just imagine how exciting that must have been. Or you get a radio from during the war period — listening to the Second World War news that just must have been something. We just take it for granted today because it’s in your car it’s in your kitchen and it’s everywhere. You don’t even think twice about it and at one time it was an absolute miracle.
What’s the most expensive radio you’ve worked with or sold?
I have one in my collection right now that sells for about $3000 on eBay. It’s what they call an Addison Model 5. It’s a table radio made of an early plastic and it’s bright red and yellow.
What’s your day job? Is it related to radio?
Not terribly no. I’m a material purchaser for an oilfield service company. I used to work in a trade in the oilfield but I have arthritis in my knees and the cold weather just doesn’t agree with me much anymore.
Have you ever been on the radio?
When I was a kid I think was the only time. I grew up in Westville Massachusetts. We were in Scouts and we were doing a bottle drive or something or other — I can’t even remember — and the local radio station gave us a minute or something to plead our case. I remember being scared to death.
