Member John Dilks displayed a portion of his collection last winter at the Atlantic County Library. The exhibit, titled: "Radios Our Grandparents Listened To", proved to be very popular. Featured are: radio tubes, a horn speaker, battery powered sets from as early as 1921 through table-top radios of the 1950's. Dilks is holding his oldest piece, a "Loose Coupler" manufactured by the Signal Co. in 1912. The loose coupler along with a variable condenser, a detector and a pair of ear phones was the radio receiver of the time. Signals heard on this type of set were Morse-code transmissions from ships, land stations and radio amateurs. (Photo: Jeff Dilks)

The tall speaker in the center is an RCA model 1325 from the early 1920's. To it's left is another RCA speaker, a model 103 from the middle 1920's. This has a flower-design-tapistry cover over the speaker cone. To the right of center is an Atwater-Kent speaker from the mid-to-late 1920's. On the extreme left is a "John Rider's Perpetual Trouble Shooters Manual". This book, one of 23, contains schematic diagrams for many of the old radios in my collection. Front-center is an early "Shure Brothers" microphone. This is the type used by many early broadcast stations. In front ot the tall speaker is a 1920's Morse Code key. This particular key was owned and used on board a ship by a "Wireless" operator. Another, straight, key is to it's right. Also included are several vacuum tubes form the same era. On the right is an early technical book from 1920.