Sonic Hearth

The Antique Radio Club brings back the good old days of home radio.

By: Susan Van Dongen
   We have the Internet, virtual reality, laptops, combination cell phones and digital cameras, CDs, DVDs and PDAs. We have devices to entertain the eyes, ears and maybe one or two other senses as well.
   It wasn’t so long ago, however, that we loved a much more humble technology. In the early part of the 20th century, radio fired the imagination and was a sonic window to the world. In fact, the radio was often a family’s most prized possession.
   "During the ’20s, it was said that the purchase of a radio came after the roof over your head and food on the table," says Ray Chase, a member of the New Jersey Antique Radio Club. "If you had a radio, you could invite all your friends to come have a party and listen, just like when television first came out. They were expensive, but quite a few families used long-term credit deals and were buying them for 50 cents a month."
   NJARC and the Cranbury Historical and Preservation Society have put together A History of Home Radio, a special public exhibit at the Cranbury Museum on Park Place in Cranbury, which runs through May 31. The show boasts an array of vintage radios and advertising and broadcasting accessories spanning the history of radio from the early 1920s up to the "transistor era" of the ’60s.
   The men of the NJARC — and it is mostly men — who keep the memories of old radio alive have been together for about 10 years. Like Mr. Chase, they love their history, but also are frequently electronics experts who enjoy tinkering with an old vacuum-tube radio forgotten in somebody’s attic, encrusted with layers of dust, that hasn’t uttered a sound in 50 years.
   "We started out as just a group of people who got together, who were interested in antique radios," Mr. Chase says. "We were centered around Freehold but we now cover all of New Jersey. The club has grown to about 200 members, with a variety of activities. We meet once a month, right now at the Sarnoff Library in Princeton."
   Mr. Chase walks through one of the Cranbury Museum’s sunlit rooms, filled with an elegant display of radios from the very earliest days of their existence. The oldest pieces look more like someone’s junior high school science experiment.
   "Crystal sets didn’t require any power at all," he says. "They just relied on the energy in the air, so they were called ‘wireless.’ These were often homemade by the boys in the family. In fact, in the beginning most were handmade because manufactured radios were quite expensive."
   Mr. Chase notes that widespread broadcasting didn’t start until around 1920, although radio in its primitive forms had existed since 1900. "The first decade of popular radio was pretty chaotic in terms of the growth of broadcasting, technology and the number of manufacturers who jumped into it."
   He points to an early "breadboard" radio, so-called because it was built on a plank of wood, much like a bread or cutting board found in the typical kitchen. Early radios that weren’t wireless were powered by batteries, since the technology to plug into a direct current hadn’t been perfected. Also, very few had speakers, so you listened through headphones. If a radio came with "loud speakers," these were elaborate horn-shaped speakers, the kind you’d see attached to a gramophone. The club also has one of these on display at the museum, along with sundry wax cylinders — the CDs of that era.
   "This is a three-dialer, because to tune in a station you had to work all three dials," says Mr. Chase, indicating another early radio. "Funny thing, God gave us two hands, but these people came out with a three-dial radio."
   Nearby are a couple of console models made by the Atwater Kent company of Philadelphia, the largest manufacturer of radios in the 1920s and ’30s. One of the more handsome examples in a specialty hardwood cabinet sold for more than $200 back in 1928, quite a bit of money in that day.
   The exquisite piece of furniture is from Mr. Chase’s private collection and was in surprisingly good condition when he purchased it at an auction.
   "This one was playable when I found it," he says. There’s also a plethora of art deco and moderne table-top models from the 1930s. One of the most attractive of these has a glowing golden casement with a face shaped like a musical lyre.
   "It’s actually called a ‘lyre’ model," Mr. Chase says. "It’s also a ‘catalin’ radio, made from catalin plastic which is very collectible today. It required a more expensive process than most plastics so it was used for top-of-the-line table radios. It’s thicker than most plastics and gets a very nicely aged patina, with a rich coloration."
   Even in the depths of the Depression, certain radios became sought-after objets d’art, crafted by famous designers like Norman Bel Geddes and Walter Dorwin Teague. Many of the radios bear familiar names of current electronics manufacturers like Philco, RCA of Camden, Zenith and Emerson, but also bygone names like Crosley, Ozarka, Dumont and DeWald.
   There are also special battery-powered "farm radios" on display, designed, literally, for farmers who did not yet have electricity but needed to listen to updates on livestock pricing, as well as weather reports. Later, when the situation in Europe deteriorated, people needed to know what was going on overseas and short wave radios became popular. The exhibit has several of these as well.
   In addition to the machinery, there’s also sheet music for radio-themed songs of bygone days, with titles like "Loud Speakin’ Papa, You’d Better Speak Easy to Me." The museum also features numerous children’s radio games, how-to booklets for amateur (ham) operators and pamphlets for boys listening in for news of German submarines or other suspicious transmissions.
   Our state has numerous special connections to the wireless. Mr. Chase is very interested in one of the most direct links to the birth of radio, which still exists in Belmar, Wall Township. Guglielmo Marconi — the "Father of Radio" — did some of his early trans-oceanic experiments from New Jersey. He built a receiving station on the Shark River in Belmar, as well as a transmitting station just a few miles from New Brunswick, along the Raritan River. Some of the Belmar Marconi facilities still exist today and are in the process of being renovated for use by radio and communications historians and enthusiasts. (See www.infoage.org)
   Mr. Chase is a retired electronics engineer and aficionado of radio history who owns a special collection of military radios from World War II. Other NJARC members are technicians, who love to fix the broken-down boxes, as well as teach others to do so.
   Some NJARC members join because they love the old radio music and comedy shows. Still others are interested in the design aspect. In addition, a handful actually worked in broadcasting. One thing they have in common, though — they all get excited when they stumble on a "diamond in the rough."
   "Our members find radios at auctions, garage sales and antique stores," Mr. Chase says. "Sometimes they’re handed down from family members. Really nice pieces are still coming out of attics. If you saw them before we got to them, they looked like they were ready for the trash. They may need some work, but we almost always get them going again."
A History of Home Radio is on view at the Cranbury Museum, 4 Park Place, Cranbury, through May 31. Museum hours: Sun. 1-4 p.m. or by appointment. Free admission. For information, call (609) 395-0420. The New Jersey Antique Radio Club meets at the Sarnoff Library, 201 Washington Road, Princeton, the second Friday of the month at 7 p.m. For information, call (732) 446-2427. On the Web: www.njarc.org