Preservation

As part of its centennial celebration the Radio Club of America has entrusted its entire massive 100-year archives to AWA for preservation, indexing, and research access.

As part of its centennial celebration the Radio Club of America, the oldest radio club in America, has entrusted its entire massive 100-year archives to AWA for preservation, indexing, and research access.

Over the years AWA has acquired some of the most precious and historic “radio” equipment, artifacts and collections of research and ephemera imaginable: Equipment actually used by Marconi, Edison, and Armstrong; radio apparatus similar to the Titanic’s and actual equipment from other sinking ships; original Lodge, Armstrong and DeForest patents, drawings and equipment; important diaries, photographs, monographs describing momentous inventions. But even more powerful are the great human dramas (competition, theft, lawsuits, suicide, romance, failure and success) that formed radio’s historic journey.

AWA can also help people understand and appreciate the massive role that wireless communications plays in their everyday lives: television, AM/FM radio, ham radio, radar, GPS, cell phones, cordless telephone, remote controls, cordless computer peripherals, atomic watches, wireless networking at coffee shops, robotics, modern physics, national defense, space travel, even the search for life in the universe to populate a partial list.

No group is in a better position than AWA to “show and tell” the stories that illuminate and bring to life radio’s beginnings, ascent, and journey of magnificent contributions.