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Official website of the Northland Antique Radio Club (NARC).
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The Northland Antique Radio ClubMark Your Calendar!October 26, 2024 - NARC Fall Indoor Swap Meet February 9, 2025 - NARC Workshop and Outdoor Swap Meet May 16-17, 2025 - NARC Radio Daze 2025 See Calendar of Events for details of NARC's upcoming and past events. Antique Radio Forum's Upcoming Radio Meet List UPCOMING EVENTSNARC FALL INDOOR SWAP MEETSaturday October 26, 2024(Open to the public 9:00 am to Noon)Hopkins High School 2400 Lindbergh Drive
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NARC Annual Meeting and Swap!Sunday September 8, 2024
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Our final outdoor swap meet of the year will be held in conjunction with the Northland Antique Radio Club's 2024 annual meeting on Sunday September 8 at the Comfort Inn Plymouth at 3000 Harbor Lane, in Plymouth, Minnesota.
This swap meet will be outside in the hotel parking lot in the same area as where the Radio Daze swap meet was in May. This is a FREE swap meet with no registration or admission fees! It starts when the first vendors arrive (probably around 9 a.m.) and will wrap up around 11:30 a.m., just prior to when the annual meeting begins in the hotel ballroom.
This is your chance to clear out some of those old radios and other vintage electronics, parts, and related items at no cost to you. Just put a price on your items and display them from your trunk, or maybe bring a table along to display them on. Just please don't pound any stakes into the asphalt for any reason.
The annual meeting will begin inside the ballroom promptly at 12 noon with Phillip Drexler providing the president's view on how things went over the last year. Jim Thompson will recap the May event and Greg Farmer will give a brief financial report and announce results of the election of club officers for the next year. If you have suggestions or questions about the club, this would be a great time to tell us your ideas! It is also a good opportunity to renew your annual membership dues if you haven't already done so.
Finally, as usual, since we all look forward to seeing what other collectors found over the summer, please bring along a radio that you've recently found and tell us about it!
Prizes will be awarded to the best Finds. This is always an enjoyable event with good participation.
See you there!
Remember, this event is FREE for all current and renewing members!
NARC Picnic!Sunday July 21, 2024
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Members and their families are all invited to come to the 2024 Northland Antique Radio Club summer picnic! This event will be held at the same location as in the past few years, rain or shine, in a large shelter with more than enough room for everyone.
As usual, the shelter is ours starting at 11:00 am, and we'll probably start eating around noon. It will be a potluck, so bring food to share, plus whatever you want to drink. There are electrical outlets if needed, two charcoal grills, and a water fountain. The club will provide paper plates, napkins, and plastic silverware, as usual!This will be a great opportunity to get to know some of the other members. After we finish eating, we'll have a show-and-tell, so if you have something you'd like to show the group, please bring it along! It doesn't even need to be radio related. Some of the most interesting things have been what others have collected that are NOT radios! It's always interesting to see what shows up and to see what our radio friends have that maybe we didn't know about.
Tony Schmidt Regional Park is located at 3500 Lake Johanna Boulevard in Arden Hills, Minnesota, right across the road from the Lake Johanna boat launch and just a short walk from the beach on Lake Johanna. An easy way to get there from I-694 is to go south on Snelling Avenue, then west on County Road E (Lake Johanna Blvd.), then right on the road directly across from the entrance to the boat launch. Our shelter is the first one you will see, directly ahead, and it has its own parking lot to the right of the road. It is a short walk up a tar path, past restrooms and a playground area, to the very scenic shelter we have reserved.
NOTE: Park rules prohibit selling things, so please don't bring anything to sell.
See you there!
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.
The weather was GREAT for the Saturday morning swap meet.
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.
4. Don Hauff presented the history of televisions, broken down into the mechanical, pre-war, post-war to 1950, early color sets, 1950's, 1960's, and 1970's eras of television, and mentioning many significant inventors and television improvements through the years. It was a well-organized presentation with slides showing many different vintage televisions, and he wrapped it up with a very humorous video showing a film that was made in 1931 that showed how scanning disc television works.
An interesting bit of history for those of us in the Twin Cities is that the first television broadcasting station in Minneapolis was W9XAT [X=eXperimental] which operated a 500 watt mechanical scanning-disc broadcast system for a few years beginning in 1933. It was owned by Dr. George Young who also owned radio station WDGY [W Dr. George Young].
Don recommended these two websites to anyone interested in vintage televisions:
www.earlytelevision.org
www.mztv.com
Show & Tell
A number of attendees brought radios to show. Guy started things off by showing his United American Bosch Magneto Company's model 505 radio that was made in 1935. So far he has only performed a preliminary test, bringing it up slowly with a Variac to prove the transformer is good, and now he plans to do a complete restoration.
Another collector had a nice 1962 ten transistor Realistic radio from Radio Shack that cost him a dollar at one of NARC's fall swap meets at St. Croix Lutheran HS some years ago. It is all original except he changed the 9-volt battery connector to the new standard style.
Larry explained how he restored an RCA Radiola III-A 1924 regenerative set from basket-case condition into a great looking and working set using solid-state tubes that he designed. This included replating metal parts, filling the panel lettering with white paint, replacing the battery cable, and replacing the unique capacitors that are in this set.
Tom found a few things at an antique shop, including an RCA cigarette case, some phonograph needle packets, a phonograph reproducer, and record box with records in it, all possibly from former NARC member Jerry Madson's estate.
Another collector brought a battery powered Motorola radio telephone that he found at one of the Staubus sales and someone identified it as a post-World War II model.
William bought a Hallicrafters Sky Buddy at the Staubus sale and after cleaning it up replaced the speaker and some capacitors so it works well now.
Another collector had a nice 1962 ten transistor Realistic radio from Radio Shack that cost him a dollar at one of NARC's fall swap meets at St. Croix Lutheran HS some years ago. It is all original except he changed the 9-volt battery connector to the new standard style.
Another collector also got some radios at the Staubus sale, including this nice looking 1937 Fairbanks-Morse model 5A radio that he refinished and made a new plastic dial cover for.
Don showed a Geiger counter that he recently found at a sale along with a tube tester and other test equipment.
Bill was at a Staubus sale and picked up a 1940's coin-operated Ro-La Coin hotel radio that was made in Minneapolis by Robert Lawrence [Ro-La] Electronics Corporation. So far, he's found a key to open the back cover but hasn't worked on the electronics yet. The instructions on the front indicate it is from the Dacotah Hotel, mostly likely the one in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
Matt recently purchased a very interesting 'Melody Cruiser' radio that looks like a sailing ship. He was amazed it was still there on the last day of an estate sale and so he got it for half price! It was made by Majestic during the later 1930s.
Pat showed the 1927 Neutrowound battery set that he had purchased at a Staubus sale, along with the correct Neutrowound speaker that he found elsewhere. He also had bought a couple Hammarlund sets at the same sale and told us how he later picked up a Model 53 Teletype machine there for someone on a ham radio forum who was looking for one.
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 NARC Fall Swap Meet Recap
The new location at Hopkins High School proved to be the perfect place for the October 22, 2022 Fall indoor swap meet! The area (one of the lunchrooms) had plenty of space, it was relatively easy for the sellers to move their items from their cars to the area, and there were plenty of windows so the lighting was good. A huge thanks to Phillip Drexler for all the work he did searching for a new location and then working with the Hopkins High School people to reserve the room for us. Phillip has already spoken with them about using their facilities again in 2023.
The previous two Indoor Fall Swap Meet events were cancelled due to Covid-19, so this was the first since 2019 and there was a good crowd of eager buyers and sellers. Nearly all the tables sold out to sellers and they generally reported that sales were good. I saw many nice radios from all eras, some good early battery sets, ham radios, transistor radios, some good audio equipment, tables full of radio parts and literature, many fully restored radios and also many that needed restoring. There was something for everyone!
A huge thanks also goes to Jeff for taking photos and to Mary for handling the registration table, signing up four new members, and collecting dues from many others who renewed their memberships for the next year. The total number of paid memberships for the 2022-23 club year is now up to 188.
As usual, this was a great occasion for socializing and it looked like everyone was having a good time. The meet wrapped up shortly after the door prize drawing at noon, and by 1 pm the room was empty.
NARC 2022 Annual Meeting Recap
September 18, 2022 was a beautiful day for the NARC Annual Meeting swap meet at the Comfort Inn in Plymouth, Minnesota, and although attendance was down compared to previous years, quite a few items changed hands at bargain prices.
The meeting started off in the hotel with NARC President Phillip Drexler explaining and answering questions about the club's unfortunate and unexpected changed relationship with the Pavek Museum. The museum's mission statement has changed somewhat and there are now rental fees for holding our events there that are higher than what NARC can afford. Another problem is that the museum will no longer allow swap meets in their parking lot. So, suddenly we had to find a new location for the September annual meeting! Jim Thompson negotiated with the Comfort Inn in Plymouth, Minnesota, where we have held Radio Daze for many years, and they were happy to rent their ballroom to us for the meeting at a reasonable cost, and as noted elsewhere in this newsletter, they are also our annual radio workshop event's new location.
Next, Jim Thompson reported that everything went well with the 2022 RadioDaze event this year. We had a great program, contest, auction, and swap meet, all with no issues. Next year's meet has been scheduled with the hotel for May 19-20, 2023 and room rates are locked in at $99 per night. Greg Farmer provided election results, with all who ran for an office being elected for the upcoming club year, including Bill Fanum as the new vice-president, replacing Alan Jesperson who had held that office for many years. Greg also provided a brief financial update and reported that membership at the end of the current year was down about 40 since last year.
The meeting wrapped up with a nice Show & Tell with quite a few members showing interesting items from their collections and with prizes awarded to the six favorites. Some of these were an unusual Victor Lumiere pleated paper cone speaker in excellent condition, a 1957 Zenith Royal 750 with a gold grill, a U.S. Radio & Television model 24 cathedral radio, a 1957 Chevy retro radio, an AM/FM radio in a cooler case, an ATR DC/AC inverter that was purchased at Ax-Man Surplus, that converts 32 VDC to 110 VAC and that was manufactured by the American Television & Radio Company in St. Paul Minnesota, an Erla AC/DC radio with a wood cabinet, and a box full of transistor radios that were all the same but had different brand names on them.
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.
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NARC MEMBERS!
Check out NARC's online list of members having email addresses or websites. This list now contains about 70 members and their interests! |
Last Updated Monday, 16-Sep-2024 00:07:43 CDT
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The Northland Antique Radio Club