Recently, there was an interesting discussion on the Internet mailing group known as BOATANCHORS. Its 800+ members are devoted to the preservation of vacuum tube equipment affectionately called Boatanchors. Someone started a thread called 'Confessions' in which they admitted to dismembering or trashing radios which have now become scarce or valuable. Other personal confessions surfaced. Some of the stories were humorous and others were sad. Jim Condon AD4YM, exposed the ultimate radio hacker during a recent trip to Italy.
"The man who cannibalized the very first boatanchor was -- Guglielmo Marconi! In October of 1995, I visited Villa Grifoni, the house near Bologna from which Marconi made his first radio transmission in 1895 - a distance of over one mile. Marconi's house is being converted to a radio museum. My guide, an EE professor from the University of Bologna, explained that none of the oldest radios displayed were original, but had to be rebuilt from Marconi's drawings because 'Marconi was too good of an engineer to leave them alone. As soon as he built and used a radio, he tore it apart to make a better one'.
This museum itself is funded by a private foundation and very few locals know about it. Apparently, Italians don't think that anything that is 'only' 100 years old can have much historical significance.
For those of you who have trashed boatanchors, say one hundred
'Hail Marconis' and sin no more.