Wireless & Electricity

Active amateur radio station located on the first floor of the Massie building. The radio at the top left is a Swedish marine emergency quenched gap spark transmitter. In Scandanavia these spark rigs were legal into the nineteen sixties.

This museum preserves the original 1907 Massie coastal wireless station which was moved from Point Judith, Rhode Island. This station is the oldest surviving, originally equipped wireless station anywhere. The wireless collection shows the span of electric communication from early experiments with electricity to telegraphy to radio to TV. Displays in the Wireless Building are drawn from the collection.

In addition, the wireless library contains publications, primarily from 1880 to 1930, related to the history of wireless communication.