[ARC5] after we're gone

[David Bock]

Yes Todd, the 8th Air Force museum north of Savannah in Pooler and south of
you down I 95 has asked me if I still had any of the equipment. They are
good people there but who knows what the future will bring?

Dave W8OHS

-----Original Message-----
From: Todd, KA1KAQ [mailto:ka1kaq at gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2010 6:42 PM
To: bock at marketcommander.com; Discussion of AN/ARC-5 military radio
equipment.
Cc: gewhite at crosslink.net; milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] after we're gone


On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 1:18 PM, David Bock <bock at marketcommander.com>
wrote:
> It is, indeed, a challange. The Henry Ford Museum sold most, if not all,
of
> the radio collection at auction some thirty years ago with a change in
> director. This included the Marconi Maggie.

Many good points, Dave. I remember the Ford auctions, mid-90s IIRC.
Antique Radio Classifieds ran listings of the results in a couple
issues. A lot of interesting and amazing stuff left the collection and
went into private hands. Seems there were some odd things going on
within some of the Ford foundations then, maybe it was related.

The shocker to me was seeing the Marconi company in London place all
of its Marconi collection up for auction back around 2000 I think.
Everything from original Marconi equipment, artifacts, and the records
and archives were slated to be sold. Fortunately there was such an
uproar from around the world that they opted to keep it intact and
donated it to a well-established museum north of London.

Some might remember the big drive headed up by Leo Meyerson of World
Radio Labs fame in the mid-late 1990s. to acquire a wide variety of
radio equipment for display in a local Omaha, NE museum (Western
Heritage, maybe?). People donated some incredible equipment "to Leo"
(or so they thought) for what sounded like a good cause. Early radio
pieces, 30s Collins transmitters, prototypes, sets owned by famous
people - it was a very impressive collection. Then a year or two after
the display started the museum changed directors, the display was
closed down and the gear was sold on ebay. Leo got more than a few
nastygrams and tried to point out to folks that he had no control over
it. He just headed it up since he had run his business from that area.
He did attempt to find a new home for the collection, but no one was
successful in working out a deal with the new director.

Hopefully we'll see some surge in interest again as we've seen with
actual accurate restorations of aircraft which include correct radio
gear. There's a Special Forces museum not far from me here in NC and
an Air Force museum south of here on I-95, both of which I need to
visit.

~ Todd,  KA1KAQ/4