Brian Lackie has been a collector of early radio paraphernalia since his early working days. He became interested in radio when he was in high school in the 1950s, although he wasn’t able to pursue this interest until after he had finished his schooling. A correspondence course run by the Australian Radio College in Sydney helped Brian gain his amateur radio operator’s ticket (VK2DLM) in 1970.

This view shows some of Brian's early horn and cone speakers. They date from around 1924 for the horn speakers to around 1928 for the moving-iron balanced-armature type cone speakers.

He became a builder after leaving school and did radio service in his spare time. He often worked in the country, particularly in farming areas. He was often offered an old radio or two and remembers once being given five Atwater Kent receivers.

Collectors were considered a bit odd in those days. However, he accepted these offerings and gradually the lower floor of his home became filled with multitudinous old radios – obsolete, unloved and faulty; radios that others didn’t want.

At that stage, Brian didn’t have any particular direction in his collection; he just collected because he liked old radios and felt he needed to save and preserve these pieces of our history. He believed that he was the only one with this interest and as collectors of old radios were considered "a bit odd", he didn’t advertise his interest widely. Then he went to an amateur radio field day and met another collector, Lou Albert of Newcastle. Lou invited Brian to come and see his collection and having seen it, Brian was hooked.

He has enthusiastically collected, restored and retained any item of radio history he could obtain since that day. But like most collectors, he didn’t display his "treasures" to advantage. Sets were stacked everywhere, on top of each other, jammed tight – there was no room to even walk around the sets. As well as radios, he collected publications, leaflets, servicing equipment, components, valves, electronic novelties and advertising signs – in fact, anything that appeared to have anything to do with our radio heritage.