Vintage Radio Headlines Alterations and additions Murphy's Law Merry Christmas to all Site down time Replica radios - their place in collections National Radio & Phono Fest Domain blockages due to spam New books released Site maintenance Half-yearly site news Ebay to restrict payments to PayPal only Vintage Radio 4 E-mail issues and new site Network upgrade Happy New Year

Radio of the week Click on the image to see larger photo. Brand: AWA. Model: Radiola. Valves: 1R5, 1T4, 1S5, 3V4. Year of manufacture: 1947. Place of manufacture: Ashfield, NSW.

Vintage Radio News

Alterations and additions

A site member wrote to me the other day to tell me they could not view their e-mail address in their member profile. I am pleased to announce that this is now possible. Work on the member profile section has recommenced and over the next few weeks you will see more functions added.

As of today you will be able to see what e-mail address you have used to open your account with. At this time only you can see what your e-mail address is. It is not yet available to anyone else. Once I have finished adding the other planned functions to the member profile page you will be able to choose whether you want to make your e-mail address available (visible) to other members or not though the default setting will be private. Also, only members who are logged in will be able to view e-mail addresses on member profile pages. This is to stop spam robots harvesting them and then flooding your inbox with garbage.

You will also soon be able to update your account information. You will be able to change settings such as your password, e-mail address, home page, forum signature and biography. Please note that these features do take time to implement because the security of them has to be thoroughly tested before being rolled out.

Lastly, everyone's post count has been updated. I have spent quite some time this weekend manually adding up every member's post count. This was of course after I rolled out a new post counting script across the site - one which I know works at all times.

It's just about time for everyone to get back into collecting and restoring those radios. I am working on a black AWA R29 Radiolette. Unfortunately the cabinet is in very poor condition and it will require a Bakelite expert to get it back to as-new condition, when I get a few bob put aside. An alternative would be to dump the receiver but no chance - not these gems. As I already have a black model I am hoping to get this one restored and then sell or trade it for a walnut one.

Written at 17:22 on 4 January 2009 by Brad.
Comments: 0

Murphy's Law

Vintage Radio is back. There seems to have been a problem with the server through last week and with me being out of town for Christmas compounded the problem. I apologise for the downtime.

Whilst I am here, Happy New year to all.

I'll be back with some new articles in the next couple of weeks.

Written at 12:55 on 28 December 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 0

Merry Christmas to all

The sun will soon set on another year in our lifetimes however as this happens we enter a season that hopefully will be filled with immense joy for everyone. With this in mind I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and hope that despite forecast financial troubles ahead for 2009 that we all remain prosperous and indeed become more-so.

2009 will bring in some changes for me and a few of them not so small. I never thought I would have to say this but I will have to scale back on investment in new acquisitions for the time being, as far as radios go anyway. Unfortunately my place of residence is now very short of space due to it also being the home to well over 100 radios, including 14 consoles and two radiograms - and I only speak of the radios that I have right here. I have several more stashed elsewhere and falling home prices along with a very good chance that I will get to keep my job in 2009 and beyond may mean a perfect time to buy a place with much more room. We'll just have to see what opportunities come in the year ahead.

A cut back in expenditure may well mean that there is more time to spend working on this website and improving it even further. It is a difficult task due to the niche role this site plays and of course, I am open to ideas from members and visitors. If you think there is something vintage radio-related that should be here and currently isn't please say so by commenting in this thread. If you have a good idea and I have the ability to code it in then the chance of an idea coming to fruition is better than average.

In the mean time, I hope that everyone enjoys the Christmas break and that we all look forward to another year of collecting and/or restoring all those radios that still remain incarcerated under canvas covers and years of dust and grime.

Written at 20:33 on 6 December 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 0

Site down time

Today I will be installing a new database system on the host server for a new website that I am building. This means that there will be a small amount of downtime for Vintage Radio for a couple of minutes whilst the server is rebooted and all services restarted.

Please be reassured that Vintage Radio will be back.

Update: All the work described above is now completed. There will be no further disruptions.

Written at 14:48 on 27 September 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 0

Replica radios - their place in collections

Replica valve radios have been commonplace for a very long time now, typically about twenty years. They have been available for this length of time in department stores such as Big W, Harvey Norman and Grace Bros.

More often than not they take the shape of the gothic cathedral radios of the early 1930s and are equipped with AM and FM radio plus either a cassette or disc player on the side. At the bottom they sometimes have a gimmicky brass plate with names such as "Collector's Edition" which I, as a collector of valve radios, believe could not be further from the truth.

I have written an article about the recent wave of replica radios that have hit auction websites over the last two years or so. These are not the type we've seen in the shops but imitation Bakelite receiver cabinets with either genuine 1930s or 1940s valve chassis installed or a transistorised chassis imported from a production line in China.

As I mention in the article, whilst I can understand why people want to produce replica radios they certainly are not for me and I have made a pledge never to add one to my collection, for reasons I outline in the article.

What do you think? Do you feel the love for a cheaper copy or is only the genuine thing good enough? Please read the article and have your say in this thread.

Link: Replica radios.

Written at 10:59 on 31 August 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 0

National Radio & Phono Fest

The National Radio and Phono Fest will reconvene in Canberra on the 13th and 14th September 2008. For more information please visit the Historical Radio Society of Australia website.

As I have never been to this event before I am hoping to attend this year.

Written at 09:21 on 10 August 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 0

Domain blockages due to spam

Over the last view months this website has been the target of a number of spam attacks - big ones. Unfortunately it does look like the owners of the domains used most often are either unwilling or unable to exercise control over the problem. Therefore I need to take the step of blocking certain domains from my mail server. These domains include yahoo.com and gmail.com and may include others at a later stage if it becomes necessary.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused to those who use these e-mail services however my time taken to delete spam has been preventing me from doing other things such as replying to e-mail from real people and completing a number of projects planned for this, and other, websites I manage.

When signing up as a member of Vintage Radio I suggest that people avoid using Yahoo or Gmail e-mail addresses and use one from their ISP or another e-mail service provider. I guarantee that your e-mail address will never be used by this website to send spam and we'll never give your details to other people. For more information on this please see our Privacy Policy. Other members of this website that may be known to you should also be able to vouch for our promise.

Update: Please note that this only applies to the yahoo.com and gmail.com domains. Yahoo and Gmail domains on country code top level domains such as .com.au, co.uk, etc are not affected.

Written at 12:10 on 20 July 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 0

New books released

Recently I started purchasing some books put out by Steve Savell in Western Australia. These books contain pictures of many Australian radios, along with brief history snippets and a price list for each model. So far I have two of about ten that are planned, they being for Airzone and AWA radios respectively.

These make interesting reading and the pictures are great. If you would like to know more then you can e-mail Steve directly (savell.com@bigpond.com) or watch out for the books on Ebay.

The price includes postage to Australian locations.

Update: Please also note comments below relating to another book called Radio Days.

Written at 22:49 on 6 July 2008 by Brad.
Comments: 8