A friend of the Museum came across this curio, and thought it should have a place at SPARC. It is an old record cleaner, carrying the “Nipper” logo. Notice that the company name is The Gramophone Company — it does not say RCA Victor, or even Victor. It is much older than we first thought,… Read the full article
Guides on the Air – February 21st
On February 21st, several Lower Mainland troops of Girl Guides will be visiting the Coquitlam Amateur Radio Club facilities, where they will be communicating with other guide troops around the world for an annual event- This event is always held as close to February 22, as possible. After the radio contacts, the girls will be… Read the full article
Chisholm Industries Limited
Authors: Gerald Taylor & Gerry O’Hara – 2008 A Local Vancouver Manufacturer of Radio Products and Black & White Televisions 1933 – 1964 For three decades in the middle of the 20th century, Chisholm Industries Ltd. manufactured radios, Hi-Fi sets, TVs and assorted electronic equipment in the Vancouver, British Columbia region on the west coast… Read the full article
Remembering Jack Watson
Pictured here on the cover of Senior Living Magazine, in February 2008, Jack greets you, holding a broadcast transcription. Jack’s passion was for the golden days of radio broadcasting – its music, history, and the wealth of entertainment it brought into our homes. His weekly contribution to the SPARC Museum will be missed by all… Read the full article
Annual Treefest on the Riverview Grounds
Treefest is put on by the Riverview Horticultural Society in the Fall. The Riverview Hospital land is home to a huge variety of tree types, making a yearly festival of conducted tree tours, and other horticultural displays and talks, a well-attended occasion. Interestingly, our Museum building is also in the Riverview grounds. The Treefest organizers… Read the full article
The 2010 Conference of the Western Association of Broadcast Engineers (WABE)
SPARC has an excellent collection of vintage broadcast equipment, mostly donated by Vancouver area radio stations. It’s the gear that brings radio programs to your homes, cars, and MP3-FM players. This year we received a generous invitation from the host WABE organization to set up a display of our items on their exhibition floor, at… Read the full article
The Langley Area Mostly British Motoring Club’s Car Show
“The British are coming”! Cars and music, that is. This is an annual show held at Fort Langley – this year on April 25th, 2010. SPARC had two tents – a radio display area, and the remote broadcast table. To be in tune with the many wonderful antique British cars, we featured “British Invasion” music,… Read the full article
A Peek into the Short-Wave Collection
For those of you who are hams or SWL (Short-Wave Listener) addicts, the items in the shortwave section are always being added to and reorganized. Existing display items are being electrically restored as nearly as possible to the original factory-operating performance, so that radios of different vintages can be compared. This will allow us to… Read the full article
Coquitlam’s Fair in the Square 2008
At Mackin House during ‘Fair in the Square’ – Places des Arts in the Maillardville area of Coquitlam The SPARC Museum has participated several times at the annual Fair In The Square event – over the July long weekend. We have some of our nice old radios from our collection on show. To support the… Read the full article
Maple Ridge Museum – Mayors’ Heritage Day
The Maple Ridge Museum hosted us on August 4th, 2007. That event was the Mayors’ Heritage day, held in the Memorial Peace Park. We were located on the Bandstand. As you can see, we had a good sampling of our radios, and an ambitious broadcast operation playing the music.