My Grandfather (Vincent Mielen) was in the cable tv business when it first took off. After serving time in the navy, he eventually opened a cable tv shop on the island. He was always interested in the latest technology, and over the years he became a great collector of things.
When my grandfather passed away he left behind a lot of stuff that none of us really had any idea what it was. Natsuko and I inherited the item pictured above. It's a cable TV antenna that used to be attached to the top of the Princess Marguerite Ferry which ran between Vancouver Island and Seattle. My grandfather had done some work on the ferry installing cable and we can only assume this was the old antenna that he replaced with a newer one.
Natsuko and I quickly realized we had no idea what to do with the Antenna, so it's been sitting in our garage ever since. A few weeks ago I decided to do a bit of research about the antenna and unfortunately I didn't find out very much about it. I contacted a few local museums including the Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum thought the antenna was an important piece of history, so they put me in contact with SPARC.
SPARC is the lower mainland antique radio museum. Read all about them HERE. We got in contact with SPARC and they were more than happy to add the Antenna to their collection. The only problem was Natsuko and I would have to drop it off ourselves. It turns out that SPARC is located on the grounds of Riverview hospital. I'd heard all about Riverview Hospital, but we'd never actually been out there before.
Riverview hospital turned out to be a very spooky place. Most of the buildings appear to be condemned and they're all definitely haunted (more about that another time, as we're already planning to go back and explore Riverview this summer).
SPARC is located high up the hill behind Riverview hospital. The building it's in is well hidden and unless you knew what you were looking for, you'd probably miss it. They're only open on Sundays between 10am-4pm unless you call and book a private viewing.
Once inside we were welcomed by Bruce and Jack, who took Natsuko and I on an incredibly detailed tour of the entire building. We saw some of the most rare and expensive antique radios in the world (The Spartan Blue Bird), as well as some of the most historically intersting radios (A Nazi Radio that blocked out British Broadcasts). There is literally thousands of antiques to look at inside the museum, and some of them date back as far as 1914.
Check out all the photos and video from our tour HERE.
We highly recommend that the next time you're out in Coquitlam, go check out SPARC. And when you're there, look for the old Princess Marguerite Cable Antenna pictured above. It's now been added to their collection.
your pal,
Beadle
1 comment:
ha, can picture you walking around riverview with all those stitches in your head. lol. you probably scared the ghosts away.
Once I had to spend a long night in one of those buildings doing "photo double" work on Dark Angel. All we had were a couple work lights and a heater to cuddle up around. it was a feaky experience.
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