PORT HUENEME : Antique Radios on Display at Library

Delton Johnson doesn’t know what triggered it, but 25 years ago, he developed a fascination with antique radios and their accessories.

The fruits of that fascination are on display this month at the Ray D. Prueter Library in Port Hueneme.

The exhibit on loan from the 61-year-old Johnson, a Santa Paula resident, includes five complete radios, 20 studio microphones, radio and telegraph parts, and salt and pepper shakers that resemble the RCA dog. The items date from before 1920.

“It includes the sets that were in operation when the first stations came on the air in 1921,” said Johnson. “I think you can look at the display and get a real sense of the history of radio, realizing that it hasn’t always been around.”

The collection’s oldest item, which Johnson said was manufactured between 1916 and 1918, is a transmitter from a World War I U.S. Army Signal Corps airplane.

“The radio sat right in front of the pilot, hinged to the aircraft,” Johnson said. “The pilot had a reel beside him, outside of the cockpit, which he used to crank the antenna out.”

Johnson said the transmitter trailed behind the plane.

“When the pilot got ready to land, he had to crank it back in,” he said. “Talk about crude.”

Johnson’s interest in radio may have been hereditary.

“My mother told me that as far as she knew, her parents (who lived in Omaha) were the first in their county to own a radio,” he said.