Antique radio

An antique radio is a radio receiving set that is collectible because of its age and rarity. Although there is no precise criterion for a radio being antique, typically a 50-year-old or World War II vacuum tube set, and a pre-1960 transistor set.

Types of antique radio

Morse receivers

The first radio receivers used a coherer and sounding board, and were only able to receive CW continuous wave (CW) transmissions, encoded with Morse code (wireless telegraphy). Later wireless telephony|transmission and reception of speech became possible, although Morse code transmission continued in use until the 1990s.

All the following sections concern speech-capable radio, or wireless telephony.

Early home-made sets

The idea of radio as entertainment took off in 1920, with the opening of the first stations established specifically for broadcast to the public such as KDKA in Pittsburgh and WWJ in Detroit. More stations opened in cities across North America in the following years and radio ownership steadily gained in popularity. Radio sets from before 1920 are rarities, and are probably military artifacts. Sets made prior to approximately 1924 were usually made on wooden breadboards, in small cupboard style cabinets, or sometimes on an open sheet metal chassis. Homemade sets remained a strong sector of radio production until the early 1930s. Until then there were more homemade sets in use than commercial sets.