Radio Museum, a Radio Catalogue and Radio Museum for 72,000

Radiomuseum.org is a virtual Radio Museum maintained and kept growing by radio collectors and radio fans from around the world.

It currently comprises approximately 72,000 different radio models, and includes much relevant radio data, some 28,000 radio schematics, 23,000 radio pictures and 17,000 collectors prices. Members of Radio Museum have free access to all radio schematics which can be printed out immediately.

Membership at Radio Museum is free (since 2004  a one time fee of 20 $).
The idea of a virtual Radio Museum originates with a passionate radio collector and successful publisher of radio books who became its founder and still provides all required funds to operate this unique venture. Based on these resources and the enthusiastic support in the form of radio material uploads by members, Radio Museum can afford not to allow any advertising  -  radio related or otherwise  -  on their Web site www.radiomuseum.org .

Radio Museum's success is to a great extent based on custom-made software, specifically designed to accommodate as much data on each radio model covered as is conceivably available. Finding information on any given radio model is facilitated by the various ways provided to retrieve such information: It can be done by entering the radio model name and/or radio model number. Other search tools include search by the radio's manufacturer, by model year and even by the type of tubes/valves used on any given radio model. To make this possible, all information in this virtual radio catalogue had to be clearly structured. To that end, it relies heavily on the published, by radio collectors highly regarded tome "Radio Catalogue"  -  title of the original German version is "Radiokatalog"  -  compiled and published by the initiator of the Radiomuseum.org (RMorg).  

51,000 Radio Pictures and schematics
In November 2003, Radio Museum contained about 31,000 radio pictures including the schematics. In June 2004 - thanks to the members RMorg is displaying 51,000 radio pictures including 28,000 schematics. But The bulk of this information is on radios of German manufacture, with the most complete documentation from the earliest days of radio history to the years 1974/75. There is also good coverage of radios made in Austria and Switzerland during that time period.

Many radios produced in other countries, predominantly those from France, Italy, the UK  and USA have already been recorded, however, not in sufficient numbers to consider them a comprehensive catalogue - except perhaps for the USA with >38,000 models. There is much to be done in this area and radiomuseum.org is looking for new members who are willing to become active in helping to build up a veritable catalogue comprising most, if not all radios produced in those countries.

Radio Museum has recently completed a catalogue for Philips radios made in Holland (The Netherlands). Thanks to Frans J.J. Driesens (his book: «Opkomst van de Nederlandse Radio-Industrie») the RMorg displays most complete the radios from the Netherlands up to 1930 with about 500 pictures.

How to obtain membership
And how can a serious radio collector or just plain radio lover indicate his or her interest in participating in this truly rewarding undertaking "Virtual Radio Museum"? Quite easy! Click the appropriate link on radiomuseum.org's search page underneath the language flags.

http://www.radiomuseum.org/dsp_anmeldungskosten.cfm

The language flags can be clicked to choose from five languages provided. Once you applied for the free membership, Radio Museum will ask you by separate e-mail about items collected, radio books known / read and other relevant information. An officer of Radio Museum will evaluate your answer with a view to determine your true motives for wanting to join.

This may sound arbitrary but is justified if you consider that by becoming a member, you gain unrestricted access to a huge database painstakingly put together by the founder of Radio Museum and its active members. Without any doubt, you could also benefit from ongoing Forum discussions which cover all aspects of the world of radios and by the same token you would be encouraged to start your own Forum thread. So, look at it this way: Once a member, you too would want your contributions protected rather than having them commercially exploited or in other ways abused.

Not only a virtual radio museum
It goes without saying that an ambitious project such as the Virtual Radio Museum just cannot be limited to actual radio signal receivers only. There are simply too many items interrelated with them. Therefore, accessories, components and related equipment such as loudspeakers, antennas, tape recorders, wire recorders, record players, TVs, microphones, valves/tubes, test equipment and many more items can also be found at Radio Museum.

Any serious radio collector will be curious to find out more about the manufacturer of his or her particular set(s). Radio Museum has a section that deals with the history of many of the more famous but also of the less well known makers of wireless equipment. In another section, members find valuable information on repairs and on restoring an old set to its previous glory. Moreover, members are given the opportunity to build up their own homepage within Radio Museum by loading up pictures of their own collection to the respective model page.

As of November 2003, some 1.700 collectors and radio lovers from fifty countries have joined Radio Museum.org. They are an active group as borne out by rather lively Forum discussions. And, perhaps even more importantly, their ongoing efforts are the reason for the steadily expanding radio catalogue on Radio Museum. Their interest is fuelled by the common hobby as much as by the knowledge that for any conceivable radio problem they can count on a solution from within the membership. Language is no hindrance; communication is possible in five different languages. 

 

To thank the Author because you find the post helpful or well done.

Hello Mr. Erb,

ever since I passed the test to be accepted as a member of radiomuseum.org, and thereby gained access to the huge amount of information compiled by you and others, I marvelled at the work and dedication that went into this unique undertaking: Virtual Radio Museum.

Allow me then to take this opportunity to not only congratulate you for having this terrific idea, but to also express my admiration and respect for the efforts and resources you have put into making the virtual radio museum a reality.

I assume that your above article is an attempt to further expand into the English speaking radio collector and radio fan community. Though it will, at least in the beginning, mean even more demands on your time, I believe it's a timely and well thought out push in the right direction. There is a vast number of serious collectors outside the German speaking collector groups. These people too, will benefit from what "radiomuseum.org" has to offer and, at least as important, hold the potential for valuable contributions.

For my part, I happily confirm that I found the virtual radio museum a treasure trove of information. Not being terribly knowledgeable in all matters of radio technology, I nevertheless benefit tremendously as a passive user of the Forum. Last but not least, I had the pleasure of getting in contact with individual members who, without an exception, were always pleasant and very helpful.

Let me add then to my sincere "thanks" my pledge to spread the word about "radiomuseum.org" in my part of the (radio) world.

Best wishes,

Alfred Zeeb

To thank the Author because you find the post helpful or well done.

Hi Ernst,

While browsing the Forum I came across your remarks on the phenomenal growth of "radiomuseum.org" in a fairly short time. As a member, I understand and agree with your appeal for more active participation from members outside central Europe. I concur with Alfred above that there is still a large untapped resource of information on North American tube radios, which would support the phenomenal growth being achieved by this site. My country Canada, in particular, made a strong contribution to the development of tube radios in the 20s, 30s and 40s.

It was understood when I joined radiomuseum.org that this cannot be a one-way street for information flow, out of the site to the members. It can only grow by active participation and I realize that I have been negligent with my own contributions since joining a few months ago. To take a small first step, which will add a few new names to the list of manufacturers, I will be taking pictures of my Canadian-made radios for upload. The first one will be my 1931 MINAKI, made by American Bosch for Northern Electric in Montreal, Quebec.

Meanwhile, let me join all those who congratulate you on having the marvelous idea of starting a Virtual Radio Museum. I'm happy to be one of its members and will continue to promote membership in the site at every opportunity.

Best wishes,

Dan Ostler

To thank the Author because you find the post helpful or well done.

Greetings Fred,

I agree with your comments about the Radiomuseum and encourage all members, and potential members, to participate to the greatest extent possible. All those who join the Radiomuseum "family" realize the benefits of this very ambitious undertaking of Ernst Erb.

I admit that personally I have been negligent in not uploading pictures of my radios, but I do plan to get to it very soon.

Cheers

Dan Ostler

 

To thank the Author because you find the post helpful or well done.

Dear members

For somebody who did only once an upload (or more), UACS was a "paper tiger" because one could download 15 000 times the uploads done !

Now we want to shift to a real balance of 1 to 300.

We do that over several weeks for not getting too many complaints from persons being warned by the UACS.

In the German thread I included in post 1 an Excel which shows the new situation once having changed slowly to the "targeted situation". This Excel allows to "play around" with UACS points, using the row D. It is partly in English but maybe somebody can adapt it fully?

Please remind:

1)
Without UACS we would not stand where we are.
We would not have the best information basis for antique radios in the world.

2)
The Q factor of 450 would mean that somebody can download for ever twice the amount with the same upload behavior.
Having  a Q of 100 one could download for ever 9 times the amount having the same behavior - for ever ...  and with a Q of 1 it would be 900 times ...
So forget the Q if you do some minimum in return. At the moment Roy Johnson has scanned and prepared thousands of tube data sheets from Mullard. We are looking for persons who would give us a hand for uploading only - a simple process where no knowledge is needed. Pleas use the contact form if you like to help (also for getting UACS points ;-).

3)
Please do not discuss pros and contras of UACS here.
If you like to start something about UACS you would have to use the Excel first and tell us how long you could go on downloading - and you should have done some uploading before. That is essential.

To thank the Author because you find the post helpful or well done.