A National CVRS Zoom call took place on Sunday, October 24. The call lasted almost two hours and included a presentation on power transformers in vintage radios and ‘show and tell’ items. A summary of the call can be found here .
A National CVRS Zoom call took place on Sunday, October 24. The call lasted almost two hours and included a presentation on power transformers in vintage radios and ‘show and tell’ items. A summary of the call can be found here .
This is a final reminder of our CVRS National Zoom meeting scheduled to start TODAY! (10am Pacific on Sunday, October 20 2024). You can join either with video and sound on a computer/smartphone or with sound only by dialing-in on any phone using the numbers below.
The call is expected to last around 1.5 hours with a provisional agenda as follows:
- Welcome and Introductions – Gerry O’Hara/All
- Presentation on ‘Power Transformers in Vintage Radios’ – Shahied Gairy / Questions/Answers - All
- ‘Show and Tell’ (Howard Model 450A receiver and panadapter demo) – Gerry O’Hara / Questions/Answers - All
- General vintage radio ‘chit-chat’ – latest projects, tips and tricks, etc. - All
- Close
Zoom Call Details were provided in previous emails (October 9th and 19th).
Please Join us to make this a successful meeting!
The October 2024 issue of the CVRS Newsletter is available now for all members. Enjoy!
Please note that the time for the National Zoom Meeting on October 20 has been changed to 10:00 am Pacific. Please make a note in your calendar!
The widow of Gary Albach (Ann) has asked me to help her sell one of Gary’s restored Sparton radios – a Canadian Sparton Model 154B ‘Bluebird’. Gary was well-known for his attention to detail and fastidious workmanship in his restoration work. This beautiful art-deco radio is one of the ones featured in Gary’s article in the December 2017 and February 2018 issues of ‘Canadian Vintage Radios (accessible to members here.). Restoration 
work included re-chroming the metalwork and refurbishment of the electronics. Asking price of $2,000. Ann would prefer not to ship due to the possibility of damage to the mirror. If interested, please contact Gerry O’Hara in the first instance at or call/text on 604-671-6062.
Yes, the summer is almost over, and we are now starting to collect material for the ‘new season’ issues of ‘Canadian Vintage Radios’ (Newsletter), the first of which will be the Fall copy, due to be issued in mid-October . The Newsletter relies entirely on material submitted by our members, so I am appealing for any articles or suggestions for topics that you would like to be covered, etc. to be submitted to me over the next few weeks.
The CVRS primarily exists so like-minded folks can network and share their radio/vintage electronics knowledge and experiences with each other. Contributions to the Newsletter can therefore cover a wide range of topics, eg. tell folks about your latest acquisition(s), photos of your favorite radio(s) – and add a little ‘show and tell’ paragraph or two, repair/refurbishing/restoration tricks you have developed, share some vintage radio history that you are familiar with – local/national/technical/manufacturer(s), etc, or personal anecdotes from your experience with radios and vintage electronics over the years, etc.
We would greatly appreciate including your article in this upcoming edition or future editions. Any format can be made to work - from handwritten paper, emails, to a fully-illustrated article in Word or pdf format. You can send your draft contribution to myself at gerrycohara at gmail.com, or call me to discuss if you wish, on 604-671-6062.
Regards
Gerry O’Hara, CVRS President, Editor, ‘Canadian Vintage Radios’
Hi all,
Excluding our annual AGMs, its been over 2 years since the CVRS held a national Zoom call get-together. These calls were held successfully in the ‘Covid Years’, and the intention was to keep them up, say quarterly, but as you know, ‘time flies by’, and they have not happened! These calls were informal, lasting up to an hour and a half, and helped put faces to names, a chance to chat about our hobby with like-minded folks, encouraged networking, maybe a bit of ‘show and tell’, answers to questions, and even some ‘how to’ sessions, eg. capacitor stuffing, making repro parts, using test equipment, troubleshooting techniques, etc. Hopefully such calls would be of interest to you (and if you do not have access to Zoom, a regular phone can be used to join in the audio).
So, this is just a ‘heads-up’ email for a call sometime in the Fall, when the summer season is behind us and thoughts are once again drifting back to vintage radio (if they ever left that is!) - probably in early October. An invite with the call-in details will be sent out a month or so before the call - in the meantime, any feedback/suggestions would be most welcome (contact ).”
Regards,
Gerry.
The June 2024 edition of the newsletter is now available to all current members. You can view it at https://canadianvintageradio.com/resources/magazine/current-issue/
In 2011, the Member States of UNESCO proclaimed February 13 as ‘World Radio Day’ (WRD). This was subsequently adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2012 as a UN International Day. Fittingly, CBC Radio are celebrating WRD in 2024 by dedicating an edition of the ‘SPARK’ radio program to explore the magic behind one of the most important technological creations in history, the innovations it inspired and its enduring power in an increasingly digitized world. This episode will air across Canada on CBC Radio One on Sunday, February 11 at 1 p.m. ET and repeat on Tuesday, Feb. 13 at 11 p.m. It’s also available on the CBC ‘Listen’ app or anywhere you download your podcasts, or at this link. One segment of this program, (around 18.5 minutes in) has an interview with the CVRS President, Gerry O’Hara, and Bruce Winter, who are both Directors of the SPARC radio museum in Coquitlam, BC. The interview is focused on the SPARC Museum, and the preservation and restoration of vintage radios in Canada.