Collector dream of radio museum

İZMİR - Anatolia News Agency

Ferit Akalın has been collecting antique radios for long years and now has a wide collection of radios, each of which is still working thanks to him. AA photo

Ferit Akalın, a collector of antique radios, is seeking support to establish a radio museum in his native Hatay, İzmir.

“People send me their old radios for repair, and it always makes me very happy to repair a radio. Technology has developed, but even though today’s smaller devices for playing music are perfect, I miss the past. I want to open a museum in which to display my collection. I am waiting for serious proposals from local administrations,” Akalın said, speaking to Anatolia news agency at the warehouse where he stores his large collection of antique radios.

Akalın, 73, said that when he was a child, there was a radio in only one house in his neighborhood, where all the neighbors would gather to listen to the news, especially during World War II. Akalın grew up in the central province of Çankırı, where his father, a public servant, was posted.

‘Radio felt suffocated’

“The owner of the house was an old lady. We would listen to the radio together with all the residents of the neighborhood. One time the radio fell silent, due to a drop in voltage. The lady told us the
radio had stopped speaking because we were too crowded around it and it felt suffocated. She wouldn’t let us come to her house anymore. I was 10 or 11 years old at that time, and it made a great impression on me. Then I tried to learn about radio and researched all about it at the library,” Akalın said.

Akalın has been repairing radios for many years, and people from all over Turkey have asked him for help with their old radios. He made his first working radio using waste materials at age 15. “I have a passion for radio. I have repaired thousands of radios, and I have never seen a radio that I could not repair.”

Akalın’s collection includes nearly 200 radios, and he says he has listened to every one. “I have spent enough money to buy two houses on this passion of mine. Even though many antique lovers have wanted to buy my radios, I haven’t even thought of selling one. My children know my passion, and they always bring me radios from the countries they visit. The oldest radio I have is a crystal radio made in the U.S. in 1918. I don’t collect radios produced after 1960.”