This
Museum is staggeringly good. It contains approximately 1300 wireless receivers, copious display cabinets of components and wireless associated artifacts, a “mock up” of a period shop, a valve laboratory and fully functional wireless construction workshops.
This is a radio and TV Tardis, a time-machine taking you back into the past. The founder Gerry transformed his childhood home into the British Vintage Wireless and Television Museum.
I spent 3 hours there and could have easily spent longer. No only does it have many rare and are exhibits, many of them work. It was a very educational visit and one of the best audio related visits I have had in my life. I did not know about what was involved in the use of batteries in early audio, the lack of standards in the supply of electricity, voltage varied considerably, and in some parts of streets the supply was AC and in others DC. Much of the early wiring wasn't that resistant to damp either, as materials such as broad range of plastics that we take for granted weren't available.
Landmark Powerstation BatterseaWe might forget is the ingenuity and immerse work involved delivering a large scale power grid for the first time, a outstanding achievement like the railway network.
What foresight in setting up this Museum... Being impressed is an understatement, this museum is a wonder, a marvel of audio and tv over time.
The museum gives you an appreciation of the wonders and challenges of past technology.
The autobiography of the museum's founder is a cracker of a read.
Click the following link to see a brief overview of the museum:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1312946/Radio-Ga-Ga-Collector-fills-house-1-200-radio-sets-spanning-100-years.htmlI
Click here for the museum website:
http://bvwm.org.uk/
If more people were really able to properly listen to vocal reproduced by the HMV radio that was playing at the museum that would prompt at least some of them to say, hey that’s so natural and real? I didn’t know a radio could sound like that!! This has happened even people who aren’t into hi fi have had that reaction when they heard that radio, the guide who took us around told us so. When you have that revelation then that takes them to the question 'why does it sound so different to the radios I usually hear'? This is a good question are any game to answer it?
See the following for a short video:
http://s276.photobucket.com/user/kevvywevvywoo/media/vintage/Movie.mp4.htmlI encourage you to consider joining the support group, I will.
The British Wireless Society is also worth a visit:
http://www.bvws.org.uk/
