The Northland Antique Radio Club

RADIO DAZE 2017 IN REVIEW

Surprisingly, despite the rain on Saturday's swap meet, there were very few complaints about Radio Daze 2017. In fact, I don't know of any complaints, and that's a strong testament to the quality of the auction, program, contest, hospitality room, museum sale, hotel, and comradery amongst collectors, considering that it started raining on and off about 7am, was colder and raining harder by 9am, and so much of the swap meet was rained out. However, in anticipation of the coming rain, sales were brisk from dawn until 7am and some nice radios changed hands.

But, the swap was only one part of the meet. Steve Raymer reports that sales were very good Friday morning at the Pavek Museum Garage Sale. They always offer some nice items and I suspect there was more than usual this year as they were moving things in preparation for remodeling.

We greatly appreciate everyone who volunteered their help with the auction.

It was especially busy inside the hotel on Saturday while it was raining outside. Luckily, the recent hotel renovations added some very nice areas where people congregated to visit, and of course the hospitality room was very popular. Lynn and Kim Wagar, Pam Orth, and Kip Wallace did a great job running the hospitality room and offered a nice selection of free snacks, coffee and soft drinks. Later in the morning they also offered a light $3 lunch of hot dogs, chips, cookies and soft drinks. Mary Farmer was handling registrations in the next room and everyone who registered this year got a free Northland Antique Radio Club ceramic mug thanks to the efforts of Kip Wallace. If you want another mug, they will be available for sale at the September Annual Meeting for $5.00



Every year I say what a good contest we had, and I'm saying it again this year. 25 people entered items in the contest this year - more than any year since 2003, and 54 items were entered - more than any year since 2005. Plus, one of the entries was most likely the rarest and most impressive item ever entered; a 40-tube Scott Quaranta. Wow!

Eric Zetterwall has been working on this Quaranta for many years, finding parts here and there, and fabricating some parts to exact specifications. He previously showed and demonstrated the radio to us at the 2010 Radio Workshop at the Pavek Museum, but has done much more work on it since then. The contest gave everyone the rare opportunity to see and hear this restored 40-tube Scott Quaranta with its three huge chromed chassis, an 18-inch Jensen theater speaker, two 12-inch Magnavox midrange speakers and a pair of Jensen "Q-Series" theater tweeter horns. Eric didn't bring the cabinets due to their size and weight. The Quaranta won the Best of Show trophy and we didn't even bother counting the People's Choice votes since a quick look made it obvious that just about all were for the Quaranta, so it won the People's Choice award too. Congratulations Eric!


Other especially interesting contest items included:
Dennis Peterson's First Radio County Fair in America, Owatonna, 1922 sign, and it won a blue ribbon.
Jim Reynold's Raytheon T-150 transistor radio was one of the very first transistor radios offered after the Regency TR-1 in the 1950s, and it won a blue ribbon.
Greg Farmer's Radiotrola Baby Grand in the Pre-1930s category was a National Airphone one-tube radio in a cabinet with space for batteries and headphones, and it won a blue ribbon.

The highlight of the afternoon program was 'The History of Broadcasting in Minnesota' which Steve Raymer from the Pavek Museum presented, and which included many very entertaining video clips from old-time television shows. J.B. Eckert, a long-time broadcaster in the Twin Cities area, also made an appearance during Steve's presentation and gave a very entertaining talk about some of his experiences and about radio premium give-away items.

The event wrapped up with giving away around 50 door prizes, thanks to the Kip Wallace family, Mary Farmer, and Tom Sargent. Also, a special thanks to everyone who helped with making Radio Daze possible, and especially to Jim Thompson and Kip Wallace who coordinated the entire event.

See you next May 18-19 at Radio Daze 2018!