We visited the Western Historic Radio Museum in Virginia City, Nevada on September 25, 2009.  Henry and Sharon Rogers were outstanding hosts, and generously gave us their time and attention to explain the many historic radio sets and radio memorabilia in their museum.  Henry has an encyclopedic knowledge of radio history, including the business side of the early radio patent disputes.

Henry opened up one of his Grebe Synchrophase receivers and thoroughly demonstrated the critical components to test in order to get an old set up and running.  I will have to bring my inoperable Synchrophase with me next time.

Virginia City itself is a delightful town full of late 19th Century gold and silver mining history.  The Mark Twain Museum is worth seeing, where he worked on writing for the local newspaper during the gold and silver mining boom times.  Twain’s book Roughing It covers this period.  Also on display is the first telephone switchboard operated in Nevada, one of many reminders of how far telecommunications and networking devices have come in the past 125 years.