A collection of old and antique radios and test equipment

I have been collecting old radios, electrical and electronic test equipment over many years. Three or four of the items shown and described on this site belonged to my father who was a Radio Ham. I now have a collection of over 100 radios, some of which I have bought at junk shops but many have been given to me by owners who had no further use for them but would like them cared for and remembered. There are also a lot of other interesting pieces of test equipment, telephones, calculators as well as the radios.

Many of the radios and pieces of test equipment are now working well but several are in need of attention. I have been able to locate schematic diagrams for many of them but for others I have had to resort to tracing out the circuits.

Please have a look at the color photos and descriptions, and help me with the identification or provide me with information about the radios and pieces of test equipment. As you will see several people have provided useful pieces of information concerning some of the items, if you have any suggestions or observations please let me know and I will update the pages appropriately.

I have a number of old electrical and electronic engineering books, one of which is a 3rd edition 1916 of "An Elementary Manual of Radiotelegraphy and Radiotelephony by J A Fleming who, more than 100 years ago produced the first Fleming valve. (see picture on right)

Some of my radios appeared in a BBC4 TV programme "Gagging for It: TV's Hunger for Radio" in October 2007. You can also see some on one of the Guardian web pages.
My Regency TR1G featured on a Channel 4 programme "Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets" in August 2011. It exceeded my expectations and came in at number 12.

I am interested in getting things working and unlike the websites of some other collectors you will be able to see what is inside many of the vintage and antique radios and pieces of test equipment.

The navigation system includes thumbnails which I hope are big enough to get a general impression of the various items in my collection. Please click on those that interest you for further information. This will bring you to a page with a more detailed description and sometimes showing the interior, schematic diagram, a price guide, historical information and links to other websites. Use your Browser Back button to go back and click on another thumbnail. You could use the Google search box on this page to find all the references on my site for a particular item. (type "cossor" to see what happens)

The items described and illustrated on these pages are not for sale.

Looking for something in particular?

This site was first created in February 2001 and was last updated and considerably extended on 17th December 2011 and a few more items have been added since. I am gradually adding new items and making minor changes. Please come back again.