I built my first
crystal set radio with my Dad when I was four years old. Working
nights in the basement of our little frame house in South
Minneapolis, we wound wire around a Quaker Oats box and used a
piece of pyrite for a crystal and a cat’s whisker for a
detector. In high school I became an amateur radio operator
and repaired radios in the basement
workshop to earn spending money. About that time I started
squirreling away radio tubes and parts. However, I didn’t begin
radio collecting in earnest until the late 1970s. From my boyhood
to the present, my special interest has been in very early
(pre-1920) wireless as well as tubes from the same era.
I have taught Pastoral
Theology and Pastoral Counseling at Brite Divinity School, Texas
Christian University, since 1979. One of the special rewards of
seminary teaching is the opportunity to take sabbaticals, or
research leaves—time off to study and write every seventh year.
I have had the good fortune to live in Cambridge, England during
three research leaves. While there I met several radio collectors
who have remained good friends ever since.
I also started collecting British crystal set radios and
developed an interest in early Marconi wireless radio receivers.
I am married to Karen Stone, an artist, author and Art
Specialist for the Fort Worth schools. We’ve been married for
forty years, and she is very patient and longsuffering with my
interest in early radio technology. I always try to have a few art
deco radios, like the Sparton radios pictured, which appeal to her
artistic sensitivities. We have one grown daughter, Christine, and
two granddaughters, Elizabeth and Caitlin. I have many interests
in addition to my job and conserving old radios, such as:
grandchildren (of course!), travel, books (reading and
collecting), fishing at our lake cottage, walking, baking bread
and pizza, eating, and jazz. Karen and I share a keen
interest in music, so I also build tube audio amplifiers for our
stereo system.
I am always looking for other radios, wireless and spark
sets, radio tubes, and tube amplifiers like those pictured here.
If you have something you want to go to a good home, or if you
just want some information on an old radio, please get in touch
with me. I will do my best to help or suggest where you can go for
help. I travel quite a bit and can’t read email every day, so
please be patient—I will respond to your request and try to help
as soon as I am able.
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