With the upcoming end of the fiscal year, it is now time to renew your Rockwell Collins Museum Club Membership Dues. We are passionate about preserving the legacy of Art Collins, maintaining the artifacts that already exist in our Museum and working to restore these important innovations for generations in the future (such as the team’s work on FIFI - the B-29 Bomber that came to Cedar Rapids). Our membership dues remain at $15 so please renew your membership by sending your check to Dick Siefers, Treasurer, Rockwell Collins, 400 Collins Road N.E., Mail-Stop 124-318 or plan to attend our next regular membership meeting on October 24th where we will either be having a movie night watching historic footage that has been converted to DVD or listening to a member of the Kinze Innovation Center talk about their museum journey.
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Please watch for an invite and hope to see you there. Please help us grow our membership by bringing some friends that may be interested in joining in our journey!
Becky Woodward,
Rockwell Collins Museum Club Secretary
We have begun an effort to capture all of those interesting company-related stories that you’ve been telling each other - but haven’t written down yet.
Terry Lamb has stepped up and entered the first one. Thanks Terry!
Click the link at the bottom of this story to find the stories page. If you wish, you can get started on your story by selecting "0n-line" or "Down-load a Form".
If you choose on-line, you will be able to review and re-edit your input.
Remember, your story will be reviewed by our editor before it will appear in the collection. Read Stories
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Send mail-in contributions to:
Cheryl Tillman
Rockwell Collins, Inc.
MS 131-100
400 Collins Road NE
Cedar Rapids, IA 52498
Museum Open to Public
by: Lawrence Robinson
posted: March 12, 2012
In an experiment, the company is opening the museum to limited public tours.
The tours will be offered from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesdays, and will leave promptly from the south entrance of building 120. Arrangements can be made by calling Lawrence Robinson at 295-1698.
Because of security requirements a passport or driver’s license is needed to provide identification.
Public Inquiry
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: January 28, 2012
The Rockwell Collins Museum is always looking for interesting artifacts to add to its collection.
Is your basement presently harboring a mysterious piece of electronics, perhaps an engineering model of an early product? Did a family member ask you to store a black box saying, "Keep this - someday it may be of interest to a Museum?" If so, contact our Museum Curator, Lawrence Robinson with a description of your treasure. Send an email here.
Collins Radio Company Records
by: Ghis Devlaminck
posted: November 10, 2011
Many of the early Collins Radio Company records are stored at the University of Iowa Special Collections & University Archives.
August 1st, 1971 A contract to build a new TACAN for the U.S. Air Force was awarded. By 1979 the 10,000th AN/ARN-118(V) was shipped.
August 25th, 1937 Arthur Collins applies for a patent for the automatic tuning system apparatus (Autotune®).
Vintage Collins ART-13 on the B-29
FIFI gets Radios
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: March 7, 2014
Read all about the restored radio operator’s station on the only flying B-29 bomber. Museum Club members and Amateur Radio Club members, both in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Richardson, Texas, contributed their expertise and time towards a fully-operational, historically-accurate, war time communications station.
We have been adding to our collection of Collins Column Issues. Rod Blocksome has scanned 1947 thru 1957. We are processing and uploading them as time permits.
take a look
A Bit of Collins History in Amanosa
by: Rod Blocksome
posted: December 18, 2013
You might find this 1957 "Eurovision" film about "Small Town, U.S.A. - Anamosa, Iowa" interesting.
There is a short segment about the Collins facility in Anamosa - about ten minutes into the film. The film was produced by the United States Information Service.
Hi all, in case you missed the November 14th meeting, attached is a summary.
Thank you, for supporting the museum, our Club, and providing funding for our important projects.
Our next meeting is tentatively planned for Thursday, January 23. We hope to see you then and bring a friend!
Happy Holidays from your FY14 Museum Club officers,
Cheryl Tillman, president
Juan Segal, vice-president
Becky Woodward, Secretary
Dick Siefers, Treasurer
Presented by Jim Shanklin who separated his presentation into three eras: Arthur’s family and background, pre WWII Amateur Radio equipment and business development, and the post WWII products.
Lawrence and Rod have uncovered a couple of marketing photo collections used by Bill Barkley back in the 30’s. They were transferred from Ben Stearns before he passed away last August.
Included is an album by cartoonist Tom Mullin and a collection of ’Persons of the Month’ from the 40’s.
enjoy!
History CoP Presentation for February
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: February 11, 2013
Echo Hill and Feather Ridge, presented by: Dave Hodgin, Jim Shanklin, and Rod Blocksome.
Presented by Jim Shanklin - who was there to witness the day-to-day management of this huge Collins Radio Co. project.
Jim’s presentation is loaded with detail about almost every box, test rack, and antenna we produced for the programs. Even today, we are proud to say, "Every voice from space was transmitted through a Collins Radio."
The last flying Boeing B-29 WWII bomber was welcomed back to Cedar Rapids for several days in July. Many tours were flown over the city - much to the enjoyment to those who heard and spotted this magnificent aircraft overhead.
This historic flight was in unison with the restoration of the entire operational ART-13 Collins vintage radio suite provided by Rockwell Collins Amateur Radio Clubs and other volunteers.
Many thanks to the Commemorative Air Force for bringing "FIFI" to Cedar Rapids.
The First Ten Years
A YouTube Video by: Gary Halverson
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: July 10, 2012
A 22-minute overview of the first ten years of Collins Radio. Introduces Art Collins, the radio landscape of the late 1920’s and early 1930?’s, then overviews 5 pre-war Collins transmitters.
Produced by WA9MZU (now K6GLH) in 1998 for the Collins Collectors Association Convention in Dallas as part of J.B. Jenkins’, W5EU, presentation on the early history of Collins Radio.
Rockwell Collins Museum Curator, Lawrence Robinson presented part one of his slide show on the "Fabulous Fifties". In this installment, he introduced to the CoP’s 135+ attendees, a dozen or so of the company’s most innovative employees and several of their ground-breaking creations. He brought with him a number of artifacts from the Museum.
Retired employee, James Shanklin, made an excellent presentation on his father’s carrier here at Rockwell Collins as the Lead Antenna Engineer. John Pack Shanklin joined the Collins Radio Co. in 1947 and worked here until his untimely death in 1956.
Follow our BLOG as we transcend from: ’Unit-Received’ to ’Torn-Into-A-Million-Pieces’ to ’Put-All-Back-Together-Again’.
read the blog
VOLUNTEER PROJECT
Friends of the Beechcraft StarShip
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: October 27, 2012
One of our Museum Club’s artifact restoration projects is the Beechcraft StarShip Avionics Hot Mock-up.
We have recovered, and have in our back room, the original StarShip Avionics - Laboratory Hot Mock-up.
Anyone interested in helping get this worthy project rolling, please contact our Museum Curator, Lawrence Robinson.
Contact him by email.
ART-13 Autototune® Demo
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: July 1, 2012
Rockwell Collins Museum Club member, Julius Yoder, has recently donated an ART-13 Autotune® demonstration unit to the Museum. This unit is a fully operational lower section of the famous ART-13 transmitter. The WWII-era product, built by the Collins Radio Co., featured a state-of-the-art (at the time) 10-channel five-station automatic re-tuning system.
This wonderful addition to the Museum will make it very easy for us Tour Guides to describe the operation of the ART-13. Thanks Julius!
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While serving in the Air Force, Julius performed maintenance on the ART-13, including the mechanisms in the demonstration unit. As an Amateur Radio Operator, he has been collecting ART-13 spare parts and notes that, "Someday he wishes to put one of these little babes back on the air."
Julius was also responsible for rebuilding, among other components, the fully functional radio operator?s station for "FIFI" - the last flying B-29 bomber.
VOLUNTEER PROJECT
Indexing Collins Column Magazines
by: Larry Tjaden
posted: January 27, 2012
Museum Club member, Rod Blocksome is spearheading a project to catalog all of the the people’s names mentioned in every one of the first 45 issues of Collins Column. The task at hand is to transcribe every name and page number from an assigned issue into an Excel Spreadsheet that he has prepared. When completed, a viewer will be able to search for any person’s name mentioned in the collection. If you are interested in joining Rod with this project, send him an email. We could use your help - there are still lots of issues left...
