I have a good friend who I like to visit in Ramsgate, we always have a great time together, this trip was no exception ! I enjoyed a brisk walk around harbour taking in the sites, its a spectular vista around Ramsgate harbour, I was lucky enough to see the RNLI boat arriving. I bought an interesting book from a charity shop, the price, £3.50, it was only a year old and looked as tho it hadn’t been read ! I enjoyed a few pints and my book in what is one of the most spectecular wetherspoons I know, being the ‘royal victoria pavaillion‘. Its has great views and the interior is great – as it was quite busy and I didnt want to just take random pictures of strangers on my blog, so i’ve limited it to my pint and book this time 🙂

My friend and I met up and headed our way to ‘this musuem is (not) obsolete‘ – its right near the town center and easy walk up. I knew of origins from the youtube channel, where the ‘furby organ’ was the most crazy thing I had ever seen, and a chance to see it in person was not to be missed ! (although its non functional, there is a mirad of other cool things to see there !)

There was an amazing range of synths, many of which could be played, and even listened to over headsets or on speakers – It had been a very long tim since I had touched synth, but it was great to fiddle with the knobs and filters making ever increasing crazy sounds.

So to tie this into the ham radio blog, there was a great amount of valves, test equipment and I found a whole box of ham radio magazines ! I

I grabed a couple of old editions of practical wireless, which i enjoyed flicking thru in the evening. It was great reading the kits and tutorials in there, a fantastic publication. What also suprised me is even then the cost of the hobby for commercial products was quite high – I could see why ‘homebrew’ QRP was a great thing to do !

The range of test equipment and telecoms section of the musuem was equally as impressive as the synths, it was great ‘playing’ with the rotatry encoders and switch board – it took me back to my youth with these old ‘dial’ and push buttons phones, watching the circuits energize.

There was even a news letter from the ‘british amateur radio teleprinter group’ – BARTG – from 1981. When I got home, I was really pleased to see its still going ! Check out the website here, it has alot of cool info about data modes on it !

There was even some classical computing in there, with air traffic control systems, a model PDP11/70 and a super computer which they in the process of restoring !

All in all for £7 entry, this was a great place to visit, the micro musuem is right next door as well, so easily an entire afternoon can be spent in these two places. Finally I will leave you with the highlight, maybe not ham radio, but the organ they rescued from a house then restored to play .mid files into it.. If your in/around Ramsgate, I can really recommend a visit to the ‘this museum is (not) obsolete).