Our Treasures: Valve radio reveals history of NZ radio company

The little Bell Skymaster Colt 5 valve radio was sold over 160,000 times. Photo / Supplied

The Whangārei Museum at Kiwi North holds a large collection of vintage radios, featuring many different styles and materials.

The collection originally belonged to B. H. Rowlings, who donated them to the museum.

The little Bell Skymaster Colt 5 valve radio, in its cream bakelite case with a louvred section on the front, caught my eye and it has an interesting history (1992/64/01).

It was manufactured by the Bell Radio and Television Company in 1953 and became a very popular model.

The company was started in 1947 by two returned servicemen, O'Brien and Stewart, who went into business together with the idea of making hearing aids.

The Bell Skymaster Colt 5 valve radio was manufactured in 1953. Photo / Supplied

They soon abandoned the hearing aids idea and branched out into the more portable mantel radios that could run on both mains or batteries.

The partners could not have foreseen how well the Colt was received by the public.

This model was available until the 1970s, retailing initially at 13 pounds, nine shillings and six pence. By 1962, over 160,000 had been sold.

About this time Alan Bell joined the company, bringing new and creative ideas; however, Japanese transistor technology was waiting in the wings and the sale of valve radios began to decline.

The original partners left the company and Bell became the sole driver of the way forward.

The Bell Company then began to branch out into radiograms, with solid oak cabinets.

There was a fashion in the late 60s and '70s for these radiogram cabinets to be converted into drinks cabinets.

There was a resurgence of interest in the Colt radio and a transistorised version was released in 1973 and remained in production until the closure in 1980 of the plant in Dominion Rd, Mt Eden.

The model initially retailed at 13 pounds, nine shillings and sixpence. Photo / Supplied

Sales of both the Colt and the radiogram soared in the meantime and the Bell Company opened a factory in Christchurch.

The company was also responsible for the early introduction in 1957 of experimental television transmission, using the British 405 line system.

This had been Bell's plan all along to get into the television field.

The government of the day decided that the 625-line system was more desirable so the Bell Company ceased transmission. It returned again in 1960 using the 625-line system and began broadcasting from the Dominion Rd factory on Sunday nights.

The advent of colour TV, a more competitive market, and the passing of Bell, who had been the driving force, saw the company close down in 1980.

Radio waves were first identified and studied by German physicist Heinrich Hertz in 1886.

By 1895-6 transmitters and receivers were being developed by the Italian, Guglielmo Marconi, and radio began to be used commercially around 1900.

New Zealand's first radio broadcast began on November 1, 1921, how far and fast has radio technology progressed in the past 100 years.

Digital transmission began in the 1990s and the innovation goes on. We owe a debt to people like O'Brien, Stewart and Bell, whose vision and expertise led to communication pathways being developed in New Zealand.