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I love websites like this—online museums which catalog relatively-mundane items. It reminds me that these "mundane" items actually have a lot of history, and I'

I love websites like this—online museums which catalog relatively-mundane items. It reminds me that these "mundane" items actually have a lot of history, and I'm sure a lot of interesting stories from those who worked on them.

Stratoscope 7y ago
Coincidentally, last night I learned about a similar website by a collector of antique radios, Radio Heaven: http://radioheaven.homestead.com/ http://radioheaven.homestead.com/ I was talking with Ron W4RON on ham radio and he mentioned that he collects old radios and told me about his site. I asked him if he had a Truetone radio and he said he had one from the 1930s. I went on to explain that in the 1970s I saw a Truetone radio at a neighbor's garage sale, and the printing on the back panel said: Equipped with Truetone Stratoscope Eliminates Aerial and Ground (The Stratoscope was a coil antenna on the inside of the cardboard back panel.) I thought the Truetone Stratoscope name was pretty cool, and I adopted it as my hippie nickname and later my online handle. I used to try to get Truetone but someone always beat me to it, so I started using Stratoscope. Ron said his Truetone radio didn't have a Stratoscope but he was familiar with it; it was something they added later. Here's a Truetone Stratoscope from another antique radio site: https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply/d2610_truetone_160_551837.jpg https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply... https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/western_au_d2610.html https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/western_au_d2610.html Back to Radio Heaven, Ron has a neat story of how he got started collecting radios and some wisdom he learned from his mom (edited for brevity): I went with my mother to a local flea market and there sitting on the tailgate of a pickup just inside the gate was...an Atwater Kent model 20. I remember the dealer had it priced at $15, I only had $10 so I asked my mom for $5 so I could buy the radio. She said "I'm not going to give you $5 to buy that old piece of junk, if you want it try to haggle him down to $10". Well, he took the $10 and I was hooked, not only on old radio, but haggling with dealers over their price.

Stratoscope 7y ago

Coincidentally, last night I learned about a similar website by a collector of antique radios, Radio Heaven: http://radioheaven.homestead.com/ http://radioheaven.homestead.com/ I was talking with Ron W4RON on ham radio and he mentioned that he collects old radios and told me about his site. I asked him if he had a Truetone radio and he said he had one from the 1930s. I went on to explain that in the 1970s I saw a Truetone radio at a neighbor's garage sale, and the printing on the back panel said: Equipped with Truetone Stratoscope Eliminates Aerial and Ground (The Stratoscope was a coil antenna on the inside of the cardboard back panel.) I thought the Truetone Stratoscope name was pretty cool, and I adopted it as my hippie nickname and later my online handle. I used to try to get Truetone but someone always beat me to it, so I started using Stratoscope. Ron said his Truetone radio didn't have a Stratoscope but he was familiar with it; it was something they added later. Here's a Truetone Stratoscope from another antique radio site: https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply/d2610_truetone_160_551837.jpg https://www.radiomuseum.org/images/radio/western_auto_supply... https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/western_au_d2610.html https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/western_au_d2610.html Back to Radio Heaven, Ron has a neat story of how he got started collecting radios and some wisdom he learned from his mom (edited for brevity): I went with my mother to a local flea market and there sitting on the tailgate of a pickup just inside the gate was...an Atwater Kent model 20. I remember the dealer had it priced at $15, I only had $10 so I asked my mom for $5 so I could buy the radio. She said "I'm not going to give you $5 to buy that old piece of junk, if you want it try to haggle him down to $10". Well, he took the $10 and I was hooked, not only on old radio, but haggling with dealers over their price.