Electronics Museum Boasts Radar, Other Gear That Helped Win Wars

BALTIMORE —  Robert L. Dwight, creator, curator and director of the Historical Electronics Museum Inc., walks amid an incredible collection of electronic equipment, predominantly radar, and says, “This is the least-known museum there is.”

If so, that should change. A visitor comes away from it wanting to tell the world to hurry up and visit this small spot where the history of radar and of other military and commercial electronic equipment is displayed with detailed and understandable information.

The tour guides, particularly Dwight, are Westinghouse retirees who very likely designed or worked on the items displayed.

The museum in the Baltimore suburb of Linthicum houses electronic equipment developed by Westinghouse, Boeing, RCA, Hughes, GE, Raytheon and Texas Instruments.

Visitors can see the U.S. Army’s long-range radar, the SCR-270 (Signal Corps Radar-270), built in the 1940s by Westinghouse-Baltimore. It tracked the 350 Japanese airplanes headed for Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

The 270 was in continuous action in World War II and it was also used in moon-bounce experiments. Parts of that radar and a workable model are on display at the museum.

“I have a great desire to find an original one,” Dwight said.

A lunar TV camera like the one used to photograph man’s first giant leap for mankind is displayed along with an award given to the Westinghouse development team by the National Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Outside, in front of the museum, is a large trailer-like truck with what appears to be a TV scanner on top. It is the SCR-584 radar, possibly the only one in existence. In World War II, the 584 played a major role against the V-1 buzz-bomb assault on England. The 584 was capable of automatically tracking a target out to 40 miles and would feed its calculations to a mechanical anti-aircraft gun control.

Recently, the SCR-584 was sought by the public television program “Nova” for a segment on defense and radar during wartime, to be aired in November. “When asked if it worked, I told them it was in mint condition, but I wasn’t telling them the truth,” Dwight said. “Then they asked if we’d ship it to the MIT Radiation Laboratory in Boston where the unit was originally designed and where the film would be made. Well, our volunteers worked around the clock.”

The volunteers included Westinghouse retirees and museum volunteers Harold Watson, Heru Walmsley, Ernie Farkus and Warren Cooper, who headed the group responsible for returning the radar to working order.

Then the 18,000-pound unit was loaded on a flatbed truck bound for Boston. The 584 was designed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and 735 of them were built at the Westinghouse plant in Landsdowne, Md.

Dwight’s idea to begin the preservation of electronic equipment came to him suddenly in 1973 at a Westinghouse family day.

Dwight was standing next to an old airborne radar unit, the AERO 13, when a man told his wife and two sons about his role in designing part of the radar 20 years ago.

“His excitement and pride in telling his family about it gave me a sudden knowledge that we should try to get back some of this electronic hardware we had built and to preserve it for history,” Dwight recalled.

From 1973 to 1980 when the museum was established--it officially opened in 1983--Bob Dwight and four co-workers, Cooper, Chester T. Kelley, Eugene P. Krach and Jack K. Sun, collected and stored and planned.

“We reached a point where we had a warehouse full of equipment and no place to put it. Then Westinghouse gave us this space.

“We also have another 5,000 square feet of storage space that houses exhibits, which we rotate. The Smithsonian displays only 5% of what they have,” he pointed out.

Dwight began working at Westinghouse in 1954 as a mechanical engineer in the airborne defense center, which he says has grown from 500 people to 17,000. He retired in 1984 and spends most of his days as a museum volunteer. He and his wife, Alice, live on Gibson Island.

If the radar is out there, Dwight will find it. However, when he first began collecting, “we discovered that no matter how obsolete, the military equipment belongs to Uncle Sam first, then all of the states have a crack at it; then nonprofit organizations, fully qualified under the Internal Revenue Service, have third choice.”

“Now, as a museum, we have much success, particularly with the Navy, in getting calls asking if we want this or that. When we discover something is available someplace, we go after it. Private donations have come in, plus the interrelations between museums is marvelous.

“We have loans from about five museums and we have loans out, such as the extra AWACS antenna we lent the Baltimore Museum of Industry,” he explained.

Dwight says people can’t believe that AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) is out of date, although some are being built. That radar provides an instant overview of more than a 300-mile radius and allows surveillance of all high- and low-flying aircraft. A maritime mode detects moving and stationary surface ships.

The museum has 24 volunteers and a paid staff that consists of a half-time secretary, Affie Poulos. Its board has not sought volunteers or grants yet but is planning to, Dwight says.

“Westinghouse funds us, modestly, but we have not established fund-raising programs, nor do we charge admission or have a museum store. This will come slowly, but we do welcome any funding or volunteer assistance,” he says.

The museum is in Airport Square III Building, at 920 Elkridge Landing Road in Linthicum near the Baltimore Washington International airport. It is is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekdays except holidays. Extended hours for research in the library or for tour groups are available by appointment.