Radio Daze 2024 Report

The NARC Board of Directors recently reviewed this year's May 17th-18th Radio Daze event at the Comfort Inn in Plymouth, Minnesota with our Radio Daze Chairmen and the others who organize and work at the event, and everyone agreed that Radio Daze 24 was once again a resounding success! An auction full of interesting items of all sorts, a swap meet with great weather and a strong turnout, a contest with some rarely seen entries, and a very interesting program by WCCO's Mike Max made it an unforgettable event that resulted in many compliments from attendees.

The auction on Friday evening was held in the Comfort Inn Plymouth's ball room, as usual, and all the tables around the room, plus those in the adjoining room, were filled with consignments. 97 bid numbers were assigned and 216 lots of radios and related items crossed the auction block, including 30 lots that had been donated to the club. The auction crew did an outstanding job again with Frank Rasada as auctioneer.

Some of the nicer items were; Philco Predicta TV, Hallicrafters Super Skyrider S16, Zenith T600 Transoceanic, Atwater Kent Kiel Table radio model 60, Zenith 12A58, EH Scott Warrington cabinet, Bulova model 100 pink clock radio, Philco model 45 'Butterfly' radio, 1958 Zenith B835E AM/FM HiFi radio, two 7-inch Airline TVs, Zenith B600 Transoceanic, Harman Kardon Citation III-X Tuner, Philco 49-506 flying wedge radio, Zenith 5S127, Sleeper Scout type 60 battery set, box full of Radio Record and assorted magazines, Emerson AX-217 radio, RCA R28P cathedral, Aeriola Sr. battery set, Firestone Airchief S7398-3 radio, 1948 Sentinel 400TV television, Crosley 11-119U radio, Sansui SP2500 speakers, Precision Tube Tester, a box full of early radio catalogs and brochures, RCA Radiola III battery set, Eveready Radio Batteries sign, Federal 61, Fisher 800B, and a nice Zenith sign.

Forty-seven seller spaces in the hotel parking lot were filled with a wide assortment of radio equipment and related things. Lots of buyers showed up and sales were good!

The hospitality crew provided a nice selection of coffee, pop, water, donuts, muffins, and snacks in the Hospitality room. Registration and seller spaces were both up from last year.

We congratulate Kip Wallace for his amazing British-made World War I Marconi Mark III Shortwave Tuner, shown here. It was entered in the contest's crystal set category, and with 44 entries in the contest his won the Best of Show award. We also congratulate Matt Hyman for his 1939 RCA World's Fair radio that he entered along with a nice display of accompanying items from the 1939 World's Fair, in the contest's '1930's and Newer Tube Radios' category and won the People's Choice award.

The highlight of the afternoon program was a talk by WCCO Television's Sports Director, Mike Max. Mike told us about how he got into the profession with WCCO Television back in 1986, how he advanced after his coverage of the 1987 Twins World Series, how he got on the Midwest Sports channel and WCCO Radio, and how he is so grateful for the interesting job he has. To him, it is interesting because of the people, not necessarily the sports, and how being able to work with his good friend Sid Hartman taught him how valuable networking is. Mike went on to talk about how things have changed in the business with so many options available now other than radio and TV broadcasting - live sporting events are doing great, but other venues can be seen anytime on-demand. He took questions and we heard about his ground-breaking coverage of the George Floyd riots - he had volunteered to go out on the street to find out what the people's concerns were and what the rioting was all about because he wanted to be there to tell the story to the viewers. We also heard about the Timberwolves and some of his favorite interviews with John Wooden at age 97, Brett Favre, his friend Bud Grant, and three times with Michael Jordan. It was an excellent program that captivated everyone for over an hour.

The event ended with the ever-popular door prize drawing, thanks again to Kip Wallace for his excellent selection of door prizes to give away.

Next year's Radio Daze event is already scheduled at the Comfort Inn Plymouth for May 16-17, 2025. Put it on your calendar today!

Sunday February 11, 2024

NARC Workshop Review

This year's mild winter weather on February 11th helped boost attendance at the outdoor swap meet that precedes NARC's annual workshop each year. One year, many years ago the weather was so cold that there was only one swap meet seller, but this year there was a decent turnout! Some nice things changed hands, including some free items that had been donated to the club.

The workshop started at noon in the hotel's main ballroom with around 35 members attending. Bill Fanum had his sound system set up and we also made good use of the club's digital projector. Phillip Drexler announced that there would soon be a final give-away of radios from former NARC member John Staubus' estate (this actually happened February 17-18) and Jim Thompson gave a brief update on the Radio Daze 2024 event coming up.

Thanks to Gary Ball who organized the workshop, there was an interesting group of four topics and presenters for this year's workshop.

1. Larry Tell explained how he restored his early 1930s Hickok 510X tube tester, including replacing the bad original analog meter with a new LCD meter of his own design. The restoration began with all new capacitors, many new resistors, and replacing the type 83 and 6H6 tubes with solid state equivalents. He designed the 5-inch LCD meter to fit within the original black meter case and to display a moving 'needle' on the LED screen, similar to the original meter. This was quite an involved process! He used Quadcept to create a schematic diagram of the LCD meter circuitry that he designed, used Altium to design the printed circuit board, had JLCPBC make the circuit board and mount some of the high density surface mount parts, and then Larry soldered the remaining parts onto the board. When completed, the tube tester operates as it should, but the meter is more accurate, is easier to read, is not affected by electrostatic charges, and has no failure-prone bearings as compared to the original meter.

2. Jim Reynolds enjoys listening to Internet radio where he can hear stations from all over the world. He talked about various radios that can receive Internet Radio directly, and about apps that can receive Internet Radio on cell phones. Some apps are totally free while others require a subscription. He mentioned that Simple Radio, TuneIn, Jango, Receiver, and Pandora are just a few of the apps that can be installed on a cell phone to receive thousands of internet radio stations from all over the world. [Ed. Note: If you haven't tried Internet radio, you're missing out! I use Radio Garden on my phone.]

3. Matt Hyman demonstrated how to repair a stripped wood screw hole by putting Elmer's Wood Glue on the screw threads, then screw it in, let it dry to the wood, and then you can unscrew the screw and screw it back in. The glue has filled the voids so the screw can be screwed in tight again.

Show & Tell

It was gratifying to hear about all the items that came from John Staubus' estate sale, and how members of the club are enjoying them!
Prizes were given to the participants.

Thanks to everyone who helped with this event!

2022 Picnic Recap

It was a perfect day for the July 31st NARC picnic at the Tony Schmidt Regional Park picnic shelter near Lake Johanna in Arden Hills, Minnesota. The potluck lunch offered a great assortment of food and it was fun to see and visit with the collectors again.

As we all finished eating, Phillip updated us about changes with the Pavek Museum policies and also the search for a new facility where we can hold the annual Fall indoor swap meet.

The picnic was very enjoyable and will be held again next year, hopefully at this same location.