About Jeremy

-About Me

    Restoring these mighty relics has been a passion of mine for nearly a decade. The radio that sparked my first interest was a large Philco console in my parent's basement in the mid 90's. I was amazed by the glass tubes in the back and the numerous knobs and pushbuttons. Once the word got out, everyone had an "old radio" that they needed to dispose of, so who else to give it to than me. Lacking the necessary knowledge and resources, my interest in radio died down until one night in late 2000. While surfing the internet I came across a few vintage radio pages online. I then realized that I wasn't alone and there were others out there attracted to this old stuff. A whole new world was opened up for me.

    Time to jump ahead a few years....Now with gained experience, several years of college/technical school; radio restoration is my mainstream hobby. The radios deemed un-repairable or not worth the time by most collectors have been the most appealing projects. Nothing can beat the sense of achievement after completely rebuilding a basketcase radio into original functioning condition. I currently maintain a collection of roughly 50 radios at any given moment. While there is a little bit of everything in my collection, I primarily focus on pre-war radios from the 1930's. I am by no means a professional at electronics or woodworking, but I have learned quite a bit from my mistakes over the years.

    I began my career in electricity in 2003 when I went to work for Star Electric Inc., an industrial / commercial electrical contractor. While working at Star, I attended Ivy Tech Community College and graduated with my A.A.S. in 2008, with a major in industrial electricity. With the economic downturn that was starting in 2008, I realized that it was imperative to my career that I must pursue an even higher education, so I applied and was (surprisingly) accepted in the electrical engineering program at Purdue University. Now a senior at Purdue, I am currently working as an engineering intern for a company that specializes in railroad signaling and interlocking controls. After my graduation from Purdue within the upcoming year, I plan on staying in the railroad signaling industry.

El Yunque Rainforest, Puerto Rico, 2008

Savagely dismantling a stereo. 1991, Age 5. Reviving an old interest. 2002

Besides antique radios, I am also involved with ham radio. First licensed in 2004, I currently hold a general class license with the call KC9GIC. Other interests include fishing <-Click for a small photo gallery ->, digital photography, and traveling to many flea markets and antique malls.

           -My Radio Room and Workbench
   Few people have ever had a chance to hang out in my radio room. It's my own sort of nirvana, a place to escape the rest of the world to years past. My radio room and workbench started out as a small corner of my basement, piled high with accumulated junk. Below: My workbench and radio room in 2002.

Like living things that grow and evolve over time, so did my radio room and workbench. Over time I slowly crept out of my small corner and took over half of the dungeon. Below: My radio room in December 2008.

I had to save the photos of my workbench for last. Didn't want to scare you off just yet! It's not really as messy as some, but it could use a good reorganization. My original bench that I built in 2001 is still there, but heavily modified and expanded to include wire racks. I keep all of my parts organized in small parts drawers. The large cabinets house my tubes and larger radio parts. At any given time I maintain a vast assortment of thousands of parts, but somehow I still end up not having what I need. Below: my workbench and parts storage.

-Radio Library

I am also a avid collector of radio/electronics books and manuals. I currently maintain a collection of over 360 examples. In addition to my radio books, I have a decent sized collection of Military manuals, specifically those published by the U.S. War Department during WWII. A few documents from my collection are available on my Downloads page. Below: A large portion of my library.

-About "Jeremy's Antique Radios"

Over the years my collecting interest have varied from everything to a few select styles. In late 2004 the decision was made to sell off undesirable radios. I wanted to be able to show my collection to others and maintain a virtual gallery of my past and present radios, so this webpage came to life. Mozilla/Sea Monkey composer was used to write the html, and various other programs were used to edit photos and upload files. The older photos on here were taken with my badly outdated Polaroid PDC-640 camera. The 640 was replaced with a much more advanced Canon S1-IS, and the current camera used is a Canon EOS 350 Digital Rebel DSLR.

When I originally planned this webpage, I followed closely to the K.I.S.S. rule, or Keep It Simple Stupid. While I use a high speed connection, many of the people who have viewed my pages are still on dial up. Thus I try to keep graphics to a minimum and images within a reasonable size. Everything on here is presented so that it is straight to the point, easy to navigate, and should load in a timely manner on any connection. My web design skills are very limited, but overall I think my page has been fairly successful.

-How to Contact Me

You can find out how to email me on my Contact page. Thanks for visiting, and make sure to check out some of the other helpful places on my Links page.