Vintage Radios
Jane Doe

If you are the type of person who is interested in old objects, history, and electronics, you might be interested in collecting vintage radio. Radio is a part of American household, like TV and computer. It is a source of information and entertainment for most people. You can listen to news stories and songs from different genre by just turning on the radio. Some say that TV is so much better than the radio, especially the young generation but this is not exactly true. TV and radio are completely different and each has its own share of advantages.

Collecting vintage radio is a pastime that requires you to do research not only about radio as an electronic object but also as an object that played an important part of history. It is a tool used by people during WWII to gather information about what is happening all around the world. You can review the following paragraphs to learn more about vintage radio.

The earliest versions of radio were in laboratories, used in experiments. As the technology improved, the radio became available to the public. There are three basic types of radio released to the general public and they are as follows.

Crystal radios, developed in the 1920s, are inexpensive. These radios use a thin wire antenna to receive signals; they have no external power source. You can even make your own crystal radio at home. Today, Boy Scouts still use this type of radio just to show young children how radio technology works.

Vacuum tube radios have much better reception and audio than do crystal radios. This type of radio came out in the early 1930s. It remains in use, today

The Transistor radio is the third type of vintage radio. It is more compact, has better shock absorption and uses less power than are its earlier cousins.

You need to know which brands of vintage radio to look for if you want to start a vintage radio collection. Although there are hundreds of companies that made vintage radios, only a few of these produced high quality sets. Many of the brands use cheap quality materials or have very common design and style that makes them almost worthless. Even if you are not a radio collector, you have probably heard some of these brands like Phillips, Panasonic, Philco, Zenith, Motorola, RCA, GE, Westinghouse, Emerson, and Addison. These are the big brands in vintage radio. There are also less known brands whose vintage radios are considered as collectible simply because they are extremely rare and only a few have them.

The type of radio you should collect depends on your preference. For instance, if you love to assemble radio and other objects with small parts, you should go for the crystal radio that you can easily build at home. If you want better sound quality, you can choose either a tube or transistor radio.