I think we should close categories which are not delivering a certain number of posts especially since this forum is a bit difficult to navigate, they turn into dead ends.
I think we should incorporate vntage TV, telephones, Telegraph. vintage ham radios. Personally I think we could have a topic for anything old with a cord hanging out of it, that would include things like vintage toasters, vacuum cleaners,theater equipment, guitar amps, PA equipment, intercoms, etc. It could all be kept under one topic to avoid having a bunch of unused topics. We want to keep the post count up and we don’t want people going into sections of the site where there has been no activity as it steers people away.
I don’t think we should include tube amps. While I find them interesting, they are the demise of many radios. The audio tubes in the average TRF (for example 45’s) exceed the average price of the radio itself in many cases. We don’t need to encourage hacking up radios for this sort of purpose even though many radio lovers find the idea of using their audio tubes for this purpose interesting. myself included. The problem is that many of the tubes we need to keep old radios working are becoming bought up for the audio amp hobby. ( from what I have seen this is often means they get sent to Japan where there seems to be a huge interest with some people who have deep pockets.)
The purpose of the society was meant to be centered around the preservation of antique radio. There are other forums centered around audio amps, including building new ones.
Perhaps hashing this out would bring some awareness to the subject and I would not expect everyone to agree with my viewpoint. It is a double edged sword for sure. do we also support things like pulling the chassis to put a modern radio in the cabinet?, or to make the cabinet into a storage cabinet and ditch the chassis, or making a TV into a fish bowl or replacing the guts of the TV with computer parts? Painting radios funky new colors to make them sell? there are also sites for steampunking and this often destroys antiques. It is not restoration.
Phil