WHAT'S YOUR INTEREST?
Hear the exciting story of how invisible radio waves were first theorized, then proven in the lab, then used to contact ships at sea and even send messages across the ocean! Try your hand at Morse code (dots and dashes use to send messages). See a replica of the first radio wave detector and how it works. Learn about the huge impact of radio in the 1920s on rural western North Carolina.
See more than 50 transmitters and receivers, beginning with an early 1900 spark gap transmitter for Morse code. See a working ham station and learn how hams can work through the internet and even contact the international space station! And, we can explain how YOU can become a ham, joining more than 700,000 hams worldwide.
Try your hand at tuning a hundred-year-old "crystal" radio, or an early battery-operated farm radio (not easy... three dials to tune in a radio station)). Listen to famous old radio broadcasts such as the wreck of the Hindenburg blimp, President Rosevelt declaring WW II, or funny old radio comedy shows. Learn about WWNC, the area's first radio station (still broadcasting today).