Tune in: Museum displaysrare collection of radios

A radio enthusiast has set up a one-of- a-kind museum with 180 vintage sets, 150 of them 'singing'

A radio enthusiast has established a museum of vintage radios in Basaveshwara Nagar. It is the only museum of its kind in India, he reckons.

Called the Short Wave Radio Museum, it displays 150 working vintage radios.

Uday Kalburgi, electronics and telecommunications engineer who worked at Alcatel-Lucent in Bengaluru till 2016, has scoured markets and junkyards across India for four decades to put together this collection.

He spent his schooling years in Gadag, and owes his love of radios to a domestic help working at his grandparents’ house in Ballari. The domestic help offered to teach Uday how to assemble radio sets.

“He was always in need of money/ During the 1970s, I used to collect Rs 10-15 from my parents and grandfather and give it to him. He would teach me to make a Crystal radio,” says Uday.

A Crystal radio came to life when some diodes and a headset were soldered.

Uday listened to Akashvani Dharwad everyday. “I made a Crystal radio when I was in the fourth standard, and since then, I have been experimenting with radio components,” he says.

Of the 180 radios the 56-year-old engineer has collected over the decades, 110 are restored and on display at the museum. With the advent of television in 1981, radio lost its charm in India, and prized sets were either discarded or stashed away on the loft, he says.

The rarest set on display is a Philips 2802, made in Holland in 1928.

“It has external coils for changing the band-switch,” he explains. Other rare models are the Westinghouse M108, made in the USA, from 1942, and the HMV 656 from 1930-31.

Many of the radios at the museum have historical significance. “The 1938 Graetz radio that I received from a friend in Paris would have announced the death of Hitler,” he says. The pre-1947 sets would have announced India getting Independence and also the death of Gandhi and Nehru. “My HMV 656 radio was used by the British army before Independence,” he says.

The rare Philips BX998A radio weighs about 27 kg and cost nearly Rs 9,000 in 1955.

When Uday tries to restore a radio, he tries to remain faithful to the original design.

“We try to get primary valves, components, speakers, and even the speaker grill cloth from the USA, Holland, UK, and Australia,” he says.

It takes time and effort to restore sets from the 1940s, but when they sing, the experience is pure joy, he says.

Uday gets tips and tricks from the experts on a radio museum forum online. “My mentor Pandu Rajan also guides me on technical aspects,” he says.

Uday opened the museum in February to mark World Radio Day.

“Since then, many people have visited it. I get at least two congratulatory calls a day,” he says. Uday gets appreciation messages from across India, and sometimes from fellow enthusiasts in the US and Dubai.

Thousands of radio stations thrived in the 1950s, but most have now moved to virtual platforms, he says.

“Frequency modulated (FM) radios are popular and they cover shorter areas, but AM radios have become rare,” he says.

Young engineers and technicians are well versed with TV and mobile servicing, but they know little about radios. “Through this museum, I hope to educate them about beautiful radios that ruled from the 1930s to the 1970s,” he says.

*Uday Kalburgi can be contacted on 98450 43014. Visitors by prior appointment.