Orkney Wireless Museum

A cheerfully eccentric museum near the harbour documenting wireless communications from the earliest crystal sets to World War Two military radio. The collection was assembled by Jim MacDonald, a South Ronaldsay electrician, starting in 1983, and expanded after his death into a proper archive of domestic and military wireless equipment.

Orkney was strategically critical during both world wars because of the naval base at Scapa Flow, and much of the wartime material — U-boat radios, spy suitcase sets, tank communications equipment — reflects that. There is also a working 1912 crystal set, an improbable variety of vintage hearing aids, and photographs documenting the construction of the Churchill Barriers. It is the kind of museum that rewards browsing slowly.

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