Welcome

Thank you for paying a visit - I hope you will find something among the various pages of items and articles to interest you.

The website is a work-in-progress and gradually evolving - as such not all of the options shown may be complete.

About Me

My name is Robert Darwent - located in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, UK - and I have been fascinated by all-things "radio" for just about as long as I can remember.

Around the age of eight I came across the Ladybird book: "Making a Transistor Radio" by the Rev. George C. Dobbs, G3RJV. After a few tries I had a working radio - even if it didn't look like one!

I quickly progressed on to constructing ever more complex designs and realised I had been bitten by the radio bug - I was well and truly hooked by the hobby.

To hear a station for the first time on a collection of electronic bits and pieces that you have literally thrown together is something that is hard to describe - even now I still find it quite astonishing.

Medium Wave DXing

Those first radios were medium wave band only and consequently I became very familiar with that segment of the airwaves.

Even now many years and many receivers later, it still remains my favourite band and the main focus of the hobby for me - Transatlantic Medium Wave DXing.

Amateur Radio

In my early teens I also became interested in Amateur Radio and joined the Radio Society of Great Britain as RS90529.

Eventually in 1992 I passed the Radio Amateurs Exam and the 12 wpm morse test - gaining my G0UHF callsign.

I rarely choose to transmit however, again preferring the listening aspect and always secondary to my broadcast band efforts.

Vintage Radio

In 1984 I had my first taste of Vintage Radio when I acquired a GEC BC5445

but like Amateur Radio it too was secondary - basically only a diversion.

It wasn't until 2005 that a purchase on impulse of a Bush TR82C

led me to take up this side of the hobby in a much more serious way.

Since that time my vintage radio collection has grown to around a couple of hundred sets, with my main interests being;

Bakelite radios from the 1930s & 40s - especially the "round" models and other pre-1950 sets produced by the E.K. Cole Ltd. (Ekco) factory at Southend-on-Sea.

Portable radios - largely pre-1960 battery valve types, with 1950s VHF valve portables and the models that form the Bush MB60/TR82 series being particular niche interests of mine.

A related aspect that I also enjoy is the creation of graphic artworks for the production of authentic looking reproduction radio dials and batteries.

In 2008 I became a member of the British Vintage Wireless Society and a couple of years later began submitting some of my restoration work as written articles for their magazine - The BVWS Bulletin - several having now appeared in print.

My fourth offering won the society's Geoffrey Dixon-Nuttall Award for 2011 - given by the committee for the best article featured during the year.

In recent years my medium wave listening activities have once again took precedent and although vintage radio restorations have had less time devoted to them as a result - I am still quite active in this area.

Contact Details

If you wish to contact me - hovering with the mouse pointer over my name in the site copyright notice at the foot of each page should reveal my email address in the bottom left corner of your browser.

Quick Links
Waves In The Air

"Waves In The Air" of course refers to radio waves and the myriad of signals they carry - hence my choice as an apt title for a radio hobbists website.

That choice was heavily influenced by the music track of the same name released by Swedish pop duo Adolphson-Falk in 1983.

It was often used as the outro theme to the weekly programme Sweden Calling DXers initially presented by Arne Skoog and later George Wood on the English service of Radio Sweden International.

The tune stirs nostalgic memories of listening on a Tuesday to the programme via the 1179 kHz Hörby transmitter.

Back then Radio Sweden was just one of many stations offering an English service.

This website pays homage to all such international broadcasters once filling the airwaves - now sadly all but gone.