Many thanks to SWling Post contributor, Mark Hirst, who writes:
Thomas,
My local charity shop received a donation recently in the form of a Grundig Elite Boy 500.
It’s in working order, although the volume control needed some Deoxit D5 to solve some bad scratching. Good cosmetic condition and works across all the bands.
Here’s a YouTube video I made of it in action:
Mark
By Don Moore
More of Don’s traveling DX stories can be found in his book Tales of a Vagabond DXer [SWLing Post affiliate link]. If you’ve already read his book and enjoyed it, do Don a favor and leave a review on Amazon.
I’m spending April and May wandering around northern Spain and northern Portugal. My goal is to visit places I haven’t been to before, but I also have to return to Salamanca. I had been there twice before, but Salamanca is the kind of place that draws a person back. I love to wander the back streets of the old city. I also wanted to find some things I hadn’t done before, and that’s how I came across the Museo del Comercio (Commerce Museum) in a modern neighborhood east of downtown. That may not sound very interesting, but I knew immediately that I would have to go. One of the two main permanent exhibits is a collection of old radios.
Most of the items on display came from the collection of Agustín De Castro. Agustín was born in Salamanca in 1928 and began building radios when he was eight years old. Here’s one of his early radios.
As a young man, he went into electronics and eventually operated his own radio store and radio repair business in Salamanca. He donated his vast collection to the city in 2002, and in 2006, it became part of the new Museo del Comercio, which was opened in Salamanca’s old underground brick water cistern.
I might only DX on modern SDRs these days, but I still love looking at old radios. Everything here is in excellent condition and is kept in glass display cases to keep it that way. Unfortunately, that does make it harder to get good photos without getting glare or reflections. But I think these came out pretty well.
Let’s start with a closer look at a few of the more usual pieces.
The Gram Model 157 was built in Spain in 1947. I liked this one for the fancy logo on the dial. Note that while the medium wave band at the top is marked in kilocycles, the shortwave band at the bottom still used meters.
The Fono model 140 was also made in Spain in 1945. Again, the dial used kilocycles for medium wave and meters for shortwave.
This 1940 RCA radio/phonograph is one of the few items that didn’t belong to Agustín De Castro. What caught my eye was the original station list inside.
The LAK Radio was a small set made in Spain in 1950. It’s also medium wave and shortwave, but now the shortwave dial has frequencies instead of wavelengths. Likewise, the 1960 Vanguard Atlas from Spain uses only kilocycles.
The next two sets will show that there were some rather unusual designs coming out of France. This first set is a Philips A-48-U made in France in 1942. The dial is on a panel that folds down when the radio is being used and then snaps back up when it’s not in use. I think the idea is to give the user a way to put the radio away without having to move it. Notice that the knobs are also mostly hidden. The tuning knob just barely sticks out from the front of the fold-down panel. Two other knobs are at the bottom of the speaker grill on either side.
I wish I could have gotten a better picture of the dial markings on this, but there was too much glare at other angles. The A-48-U was only produced in 1941-42 in Paris, which would have been under Nazi occupation at the time. Nevertheless, the dial still lists Daventry, London, and Droitwich, although it would have been illegal to listen to those British stations in occupied France. The dial also shows New York, Boston, and Moscow, but it’s possible the plates were made before the USA and USSR were part of the war. Continue reading
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Al, who writes:
Hello Thomas!
I’d like to pass along a radio spotting report; a Hallicrafters S-40B, or is it a S-77, in a Jeanne Mas video of her song “Johnny Johnny.”
It appears several times in the video, this may be the clearest, about :40 in.:
I have a S-40B tucked away in a closet so of course it caught my eye!
I stumbled upon it doing while doing research for this week’s “Birthday Radiogram” segment that airs during The Mighty KBC’s “The Giant Jukebox” music show with host Eric van Willegen. I’ve been producing the segment for a couple of years now. Kim Elliott of “Shortwave Radiogram” invited me to give it a try while he was away on family business.
I’d never heard of Jeanne Mas, a French pop singer from the ‘80s, but her birthday is this weekend. Her videos do have quite a few hits. For the moment, I’m going with Cindy Wilson of the B-52s for the segment this week. But we’ll see how things develop.
I thought your readers might enjoy this sighting…and the video <smile>
73 de WD4AH
-Al
Thank you for sharing this, Al!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Paul, who writes:
Hi Thomas, while watching this documentary from the BBC telling how people Northern Ireland survived the Blitz in World War 2. I spotted this glitch. The picture is from a scene when Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain declared war on Germany.
It will be noted that the radio’s dial has an FM band. FM broadcasting commenced in the UK in 1955.
Cheers
Paul
Christchurch,
New Zealand
You’ve a keen eye for detail, Paul. Thanks for sharing.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mark Hirst, who writes:
This gem arrived in the charity shop where I volunteer yesterday, a radio made in the USSR (Minsk) in around 1975.
It was in fantastic external condition, although after checking it out discovered that the band changing control on the right hand side had been disconnected.
I suspect something went wrong with the very mechanical way it switched frequencies (shown in the video below), which rotated individual circuit boards into play.
Somebody seems to have opened it up, set it permanently on VHF, and then disconnected the control to prevent any further changes.
It was evidently sold in the UK as it has BBC radio stations on the dial and I even found a UK service manual for it.
I was tempted for a while, but I’m learning these days that this sort of thing just ends up as clutter.
Hard to believe that only five years after this electro-mechanical radio was made, Sony would release the ICF-2001 !
Mark
Manual:
https://archive.org/download/Trader_ASTRAD_B205/b205_text.pdf
Radio Museum:
https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/minsk_radi_astrad_f8_tr17_b205f8tr17.html#
YouTube – Astrad “Mikado” F8-TR17-B205:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osDxKNdun98
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor Mark Hirst, who shares the following guest post:
Hechi is a mascot for the Seoul Metropolitan Government
by Mark Hirst
I recently spent a very memorable week in Seoul, motivated to travel there by Hallyu or the Korean Wave, a cultural phenomena exemplified by the TV show Squid Game, animated movie K-Pop Demon Hunters, boy band BTS, and girl group Blackpink.
While I can credit Netflix and its huge library of Korean TV and film content for introducing me to K-drama, it was KBS World Radio and its Weekend Playlist programme on shortwave that led me to K-pop.
Early on in my holiday planning, I discovered that KBS has a public exhibition called KBS ON located in their headquarters building. Later during the trip, radio would appear unplanned in one of the other museums I hoped to explore.
Travelling to Seoul of course was a unique radio listening opportunity to hear and record stations that would otherwise require a Web SDR or internet streaming. Armed with a relatively recent copy of WRTH, I was able to compile a list of radio stations with the intention of making some short audio and video recordings.
What follows is a description of my experiences at KBS ON, some historical references to radio at the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, and notes about the radio stations I was able to hear during my stay.
All photos are my own.
The Korean Broadcasting System or KBS is the national broadcaster of Korea, providing radio, TV, and internet based content to its national audience. KBS World is the outward facing arm of the organisation providing similar services to an international audience.
The headquarter buildings of KBS are located in Yeouido, an area of Seoul that also hosts Korea’s National Assembly Building. Technically a river island, Yeouido is bordered by the Han River, offering spectacular views of central Seoul and a skyline familiar to K-drama fans everywhere.
The main KBS building is a short walk from Yeouido station on Line 5 and Line 9 of the Seoul metro system. Your route takes you through Yeouido Park where you can see a preserved Douglas C-47 cargo plane dating from the Korean War.
The main building sits along side several other KBS related areas including the KBS Hall and KBS Art Hall. Even to the untrained eye, it’s obvious that the facility is communications related with a prominent red and white antenna tower on the main building, with red scaffolding on an adjacent block housing another tower and communication dishes.
Other notable locations at the site include a roadway and building entrance where K-pop idol groups arrive every Friday to record Music Bank, a programme that showcases the latest hits of the music genre. This photo opportunity is so popular with fans that it has a dedicated playlist on the KBS World English YouTube channel.
The KBS ON Mural featuring the mascot Kong
The KBS ON exhibition is part of a range of locations promoted by the official visitor guide to Seoul, details of which can be found here.
Accessing the exhibition is through distinctive blue bordered doors into a large reception area. The exhibition proper then begins at the top of a short flight of stairs.
Although all sections of the tour are in Korean, section overviews are also provided in other languages. QR codes link to audio commentaries to provide the remaining explanations for non-Korean visitors.
The audio commentary supports the following languages:
The tour proceeds through a series of linked sections and topics which are described below.
This section is comprised of information panels outlining the origins of KBS. Originally known as the Gyeongseong Broadcasting Station (callsign JODK) beginning in 1927, the name KBS emerges in 1945 following the liberation of Korea from Japan. KBS was established as a public broadcaster in 1973.
Through a series of large screens, this section describes the various channels KBS provides including terrestrial TV, international radio, cable, and Digital Multimedia Broadcasting, a radio transmission technology developed in South Korea.
As a public broadcaster, this section highlights the current affairs and educational output of KBS.
This interactive section demonstrates the familiar ‘blue screen’ or chroma key technology used in news and weather forecasts. Visitors are encouraged to present their own Korean weather forecast!
The visitor is treated to a display of props and magnificent costumes from Korean period dramas, with panels and displays highlighting the role of KBS in driving growth in the K-drama industry.
Props and Costumes
Supported by large screens, this area showcases a range of local programming including talent and variety shows.
While the shows in the previous sections will be unfamiliar to most, Music Bank is more well known to overseas fans of K-pop. This high profile programme features live performances every Friday evening from the big names of the genre with a lottery system for fans to attend recordings.
This section demonstrates AI based technology developed by KBS to allow a single fixed camera to track individual members of an idol group simultaneously as they sing and dance on stage. Previously, these so-called ‘fancam’ shots required a separate camera for each performer incurring extra costs and logistics problems.
Examples of Vertigo in action are shown on large screens, featuring performances by girl groups STAYC and Illit.
Visitors can step on to a virtual stage adjacent to the displays where a single camera will automatically track your face and body without physically moving. Continue reading
On Saturday, September 20, 2025, the Asheville Radio Museum held its fifth annual Radio Flea Market and Open House—and I attended with camera in hand.
As a proud member and volunteer at the museum, it’s always a treat to see the community come together around radios of every shape and size. The flea market is completely free for both attendees and vendors, and the turnout this year was fantastic. I enjoyed catching up with friends and meeting some new faces—including a number of readers from both the SWLing Post and QRPer.com!
While this sale often highlights antique and vintage radios, it’s by no means limited to them. You’ll find modern gear mixed in as well, as you’ll see in the photo gallery below.
I didn’t take photos of the museum itself during this visit, but I plan to share a full tour in the near future. In the meantime, if you’re in western North Carolina, the Asheville Radio Museum is open most Saturdays and is located on the campus of Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College. [Click here for directions.]
(Click each image to enlarge.)
