IARCHS Meeting Minutes 3/31/2018 Davenport, IA

Attending: Jerry Rappel, Dave Perkins, David Fitkin, Bruce Sorensen, Doug Spyrison, Bob Ward, Bob Thornton, Alexander Martin. 

Location: Jerry Rappel’s (WWØE) home, Davenport , IA

Minutes of the last meeting had been published on the club website, no corrections were offered.

Treasurer was unable to attend.

Auction Update: President Dave reported on the upcoming April 28th Radio Auction (details available elsewhere on the website). Direct mail advertising of over 200 postcards has gone out. Social media including our website, mailchimp notices to our members, multiple Facebook groups, and Craigslist is arranged. The auctioneer usually places the Cedar Rapids Gazette notices. Members are advised to obtain a lot number and send their photos to the auction coordinator early.  Club volunteer manpower is needed, please contact Dave Perkins or Craig Huseboe. News for next years auction: Craig Huseboe has asked to resign as auction coordinator (our thanks to Craig for many years of service) and this role needs to be filled. We will return to the 1st Saturday in May as auction day in 2019.

Old and New Business:

  • It was agreed club meeting details will go out by mailchimp email to the active membership list or by contacting the President. The date, time and city of the meeting will be posted publicly.
  • Due to the perceived difficulty of updating your own membership email address, you may submit those requests to the club president, secretary or webmaster.
  •   We are working on better  maintaining the Google calendar on the website.
  •   Members are reminded to send their photos of Iowa manufactured radios to David Fitkin to be used on our Iowa radio manufacturers web page.
  • We need more volunteers for our radio repair contact list as it is a frequent  request made to the club to get a radio repaired.
  • For sale/ classified ads can be placed on the website or our Facebook group.

Next meeting: June 30, 2018 Clear Lake, IA  Watch your mailchimp reminders for details.

Meeting adjourned and we enjoyed the usual pizza  for lunch. We toured Jerry’s vintage radio collection / ham radio room, which had many restored and operating vintage radios, mid 1930’s – 1950 era.

Amongst his collection was a 1940 RCA VICTOR RADIOS red neon sign, 1948 restored Sentinel 7″ (7JP4 – CRT) TV, model TV400, 3 – Wards, Airline restored film dial radio, a rare operating 1948 Robert Lawrence coin radio, a rare Stewart Warner “Smokerette” radio, and a Stewart Warner “Porto Baradio” – both circa 1948. Jerry demonstrated his 1919 Edison model C-19 phonograph, with the Edison record – “The Iowa Corn Song” from 1920. Jerry showed us several early Edison Diamond Disc records and explained the differences in the early record formats. He also has a large collection of unique 78 records, mainly pre 1925 era, including one of the first Berliner 7″ records from “1899″. On the project bench was a 1927 Trav-ler model – T-34746, AC/DC portable radio. Jerry worked about 30+ years in broadcast radio and TV, having spent 22 years at WQAD-TV in Moline. After the meeting, we drove to Moline to tour Bruce Sorensen’s terrific golden era console radio collection which appears in another post.

Respectfully submitted, Doug Spyrison, Club Secretary

Photo Credits Doug Spyrison and Dave Perkins