Meet Ron Ramirez, Philco collector and historian, and owner of this website.

Ron Ramirez (self-portrait from December 2009)

Since 1974, at age 14, I have been interested in antique radios. James A. Fred's "Antique Radio Corner," a regular column in the old Elementary Electronics magazine, served as my introduction to the hobby. I graduated from National Radio Institute (NRI) in 1984 with a diploma in Radio-TV Servicing. (Unfortunately, NRI, which had been around since the early days of radio, went out of business in 2002.) I immediately put my new diploma to work as a sideline business, repairing televisions and radios when I was not on the air, working at the local radio station as an on-air personality, producer and technician. Unfortunately, the inner workings of televisions soon became miniaturized to the point that they could no longer be serviced profitably, and I gave up this sideline - for awhile.

Subscribing to Antique Radio Classified in 1987, I decided that I, too, could write articles - and did so for a number of years. These articles became a sort of training ground for what was to come next.

In 1990, I decided to move away from the 1920s battery sets I had been collecting, in order to concentrate my collecting activities on Philco radios exclusively. The word soon spread, and whenever I attended a radio swap meet, I was often greeted with "Here comes Mister Philco!" The name stuck, and as you now know, the title was not self-anointed.

Soon becoming frustrated at the lack of information available on Philco at the time, I decided to write a book on Philco. It was a monumental task, and through the help of many fellow collectors, without whose help the book would not have been possible, it became a reality in 1993.

With the initial sales of the Philco book, I re-entered the realm of electronic service - only this time, it was servicing antique radios as a sideline business. It became a full-time venture for awhile, before I rejoined the workforce and decided to go back to servicing radios part-time. I stopped restoring radios again in 2009, at which time I entered college. My major was Information Technology. I finished college in August 2011, and am now employed full-time as a website developer/designer.

I maintain a modest collection of Philco radios, along with a large library of Philco paper material which has proven invaluable in my research. This website is the product of a great deal of work studying and researching the subject of Philco and its prinicpals, some of whose stories might otherwise had been forgotten by history.

I have been designing my own web pages since 1997. I have previously maintained websites for Chevytrucks.org, West-Techservices.com, and Thevoiceofmusic.com, and recently built a site for Diamond T Rubber Products.

In 2008 and early 2009, I wrote a monthly opinion column in the Evansville Courier & Press newspaper.

In addition to the Philcos, I also have a small collection of Aladdin kerosene lamps, a little bit of breweriana (some signs, prints and bottles), and a few lithographs from the Victorian era.

I haved lived in a few different parts of the country throughout my life. Born in Kansas City, Missouri, my parents and I moved to Kentucky when I was 12. I finished growing up there and stayed in the Commonwealth until 2002 when I moved to Indiana. After a short stay in Newburgh and several years in Evansville, I am now living in Ferdinand, Indiana.

About This Website

This website is an outgrowth of a small web page started by me in 1997, hosted on a local ISP and having relatively little information on Philco.

Before long, I found myself assuming duties running another specialty website, Chevytrucks.org. I moved my Philco site there, where it remained until Labor Day 2000 when it moved to its own website with its own domain name - Philcoradio.com. The Chevytrucks.org site is now under the capable direction of Wayne Osborne.

Since 2000, Philcoradio.com has grown exponentially. Now, with a comprehensive history of Philco and a huge online gallery showing Philco home radios made between 1928 and 1960, Philcoradio.com truly is the Internet's leading Philco resource.

In early 2011, I completely rebuilt this website to modern XHTML and CSS standards with the help of Adobe Dreamweaver CS5. Every page on this site now has a consistent look. In addition, I have added many pages to this site with more Philco information than ever before.

You can keep up with the latest updates to this website by following me on Facebook or by reading my blog, Ron's Random Ramblings.

Thanks for visiting and supporting this website!