John Ellsworth explaining how a switchboard operator used to connect calls
A group of our members recently traveled to the Vintage Radio & Communications museum of Connecticut. We were given a full tour by John Ellsworth, the museum’s director. The museum has a wide-ranging collection of equipment dating back to the late 1800s up through the 1970s. John provided immense knowledge of the history of each piece including how it was used and stories of how the piece was acquired & restored.
Atwater Kent Model 2 Receiver from 1922
The museum is broken into chronological groups that trace the history of wired and wireless communications as well as computers. There is a demonstration of a spark gap transmitter (luckily not hooked up to an antenna) that one can try to send Morse code with. They also have a wonderful collection of early receivers including an Atwater Kent Model 2 from 1922. All these early receivers were in kit form, and I’m told were rather expensive for the average consumer to purchase. John also demonstrated an early Tesla coil including doing his best Darth Vader impersonation with a fluorescent tube.
Early RCA color TVs
The museum also follows the history of television including some very rare and early color TVs like the RCA Model 5 prototype & the RCA 21CT55 from 1954. The museums 21CT55 is thought to be the earliest known one of its kind in existence. More details on this rare piece including how they acquired it can be found at this link including a YouTube video https://www.vrcmct.org/exhibits-collections.
The W1VCM club station
The museum also has many old ham radio transceivers and a working club station W1VCM with satellite capability. The club station is available for visiting hams to operate if they have a copy of their license with them. In the backroom of the museum are racks of old AM broadcast transmitters from WTIC & WPOP. Everyone in our group enjoyed the walk back into communications history. For some of our younger members the walk back was farther than others! Jim N8VIM shot about 4 hrs of video so I’m looking forward to seeing it in one form or another on our YouTube channel. If you enjoy communications history like I do, you’ll also enjoy a tour of this eclectic museum. For more information on the museum please see their website https://www.vrcmct.org/