How Vintage Radio Sets are Sparking Interest for Short Wave City Museum in Bengaluru

You might have heard the radio in your city playing in your car or on the phone, but have you ever thought of a radio museum? Well, if not, get ready to learn about the new hotspot in Bengaluru! The city has a space called Short Wave City Museum for art and heritage lovers who are deeply interested in radio culture.

It is the creation of Uday Kalburgi, a 56-year-old telecom consultant and radio enthusiast who has established a museum on the ground floor of his house in Bengaluru. The museum is open to the public and showcases the rich tapestry of radio.

The museum houses a wide range of antique radio sets, once a popular medium of information and entertainment. Around 150 functional radio sets from across the world have been kept here for public viewing, and they can be turned in on shortwave. Along with the radio sets, there is a lab where the techie studies the components of old radios, aiming to restore them to their original condition.

The long-time interest leading to the museum

It was Uday's interest towards radio that helped him set this up. He was nine when he developed a crystal radio and represented Karnataka at the National Science Exhibition in 1980. Reportedly, he also met Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and President Neelam Sanjiva Reddy at that time.

It was in the 1980s, when Mr. Kalburgi was studying electronics and communication engineering in Hubballi, he started collecting old radio sets and restoring them. This was the time that coincided with the advent of the TV era, and the popularity of radio in Indian homes started declining.

Radios also took the place in the attics and repair workshops while, worse, also started vanishing. A lot of radio sets started reaching the scrap dealers. As per a report, Mr. Kalburgi had mentioned the time when Prakash Hangal, who was a renowned radio mechanic in Hubballi and also the younger brother of music doyen Gangubai Hangal, had sent two truckloads of old radios to a scrap dealer in Mumbai.

As he was a frequent visitor at scrap markets who would often bargain for old and discarded pieces, he also found the longing to keep the radios alive by buying them.

Back to the present, Padmanabha Varma, the scion of the erstwhile princely family of Travancore, regularly visits his museum. He even approached Mr. Kalburgi to restore at least five of the 20 vintage radios that he had in his palace in Thiruvananthapuram. According to reports, he also gifted Uday one Pilot-G774B, which was made in the US in 1936.

The museum’s masterpieces

The other collections include a Philips-2802 manufactured in Holland in 1928, which reached Uday from a Bengaluru resident who had himself got it as part of an ancestral bequest. He also received a made-in-Germany Graetz Super, an HMV-656 (having a rosewood body), and a 1958 model Mullard MAS-231, which were both manufactured in Britain from scrap dealers in Pune.

On the other hand, he also received a Salvador de Luxe 2575 from a TV anchor, who kept it in the museum because she could not afford restoration charges. All the above-mentioned sets are now part of the museum's collection.

However, the museum boasts the largest radio set in the collection, a 27 kg Phillips BX-998. It was purchased for Rs. 9,000 in 1955, while Mr. Kalburgi paid Rs. 12,000.

Another radio, which was lying in the junkyard of a member of an erstwhile royal family in Pune, made its way to the museum. It was Philips-B7X45A manufactured in 1969 in Holland. Of all, there is only one transistor, Grundig Export Boy 204, which was manufactured in Germany. It was handed over to Mr. Kalburgi a few years ago by Ribero, former general manager of Southern Railway.

The museum also has Eton Red Cross-300, which was manufactured in France in the year 2000 and was used by North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in Europe.  It even comes with a siren, mobile charger and a flashlight.

While the restoration is still a secondary job for Mr. Kalburgi, he also spends at least five to six hours every day in the museum and his lab. People have even paid him as much as Rs. 17,000 to have their radios restored, and a few have left them at the lab.

Amidst all of this, Mr. Kalburgi sits with various vintage pieces that get people at his doorstep to revisit the bygone times.