Permanent Record - a quest to rout out and preserve a glimpse from the past

[k4kyv]

I stumbled onto this story by accident.  While unrelated to vintage radio or radio history, I find it pertinent, considering our recent discussions about the value of preserving historical artefacts, the ethics of throwing out stuff that would be someone else's treasure and whether or not taking without permission items set out for the dump, constitutes theft.  I also see a corresponding relation to the current thread on Radio Row photos.

Fascinating and delightful.

http://www.slate.com/id/2301449/entry/2301450/

[K5WLF]

Neat story, Don. Great look back at a slice of life in the early part of the last century.

Sure would be fascinating to run across records of folks involved in early amateur radio, broadcasting or tech schools. It would make a wonderful addition to the history of our hobby.

ldb
K5WLF

[k4kyv]

Roger, N4IBF (SK) picked up a photo album from the wife of Bob Parmentier, who had been the chief technician at ARRL headquarters during the 1930s. Roger, who worked at the state museum in Nashville, had always been adamant about preserving history and insisted that while one is alive, one should make sure that whoever eventually looks after one's estate is provided with information about the value of one's belongings, particularly things pertaining to something like radio, that would likely be completely unfamiliar to the average member of the public. But when he fell ill, he never followed through, and a lot of his stuff was severely damaged from moisture before his station and its contents were finally sold off. I glanced through that photo album once, and it was full of clear pictures of ham stations from the 1920s and maybe early 30s.  Unfortunately, there was no documentation with any of the photos.  I suspect those were photos sent to League Headquarters for publication in QST, which were never returned after publication. Roger always kept the album in a special place to keep it from getting damaged, which is why as many times as I visited him, I never had the opportunity to examine the photos in detail. After his passing, his daughter and I searched the place thoroughly and never found a trace of that photo album.

[K9PNP]

Sounds familiar, Don.  When one of the OTs died years ago, the hams in our little town never did find out what happened to his AM/CW station.  Also his numerous military rigs he mostly got from Army MARS, his collection of part and running spares, QSL card collection, his notes and logbooks.  As a relatively new ham, I used to sit and talk to him. A very humble man. He was part of a lot of things in the post-war electronics industry.  Much history gone.

[Opcom]

How many people upon getting a hand built piece of gear from an estate try to find out more about the builder and dig back in history about him and the rig?

Same for rare old commerical or military units, about the rigs, how and where used, comments from the still-living OM (OMs?) that loved or hated them?

How to preserve that information "forever"? web sites come and go. Prelinger/internet archives?

Even if the info is obscure and possibly uninteresting to most folks, if it is there it can be searched for and found and that is a real value, even if it is only destined to be a part of someone's research paper or essay.