The Real Muck

 Little-known museum 

focused on electronics 

reopens in new home

Howard Griffin, sitting by the lunar camera he helped develop.

A geek-friendly museum that seems to fly under the radar held its grand reopening over the weekend in Baltimore County, a year after moving from its former home in Linthicum.

It's been around for four decades, and radar itself has always been a key part of the attraction for the National Electronics Museum. The brainchild of two employees of the former Westinghouse Defense and Electronic Systems Center, the nonprofit museum was created and operated with substantial support from the company that continued under eventual buyer Northrop Grumman. Many of the high-tech electronic devices on display were developed at Westinghouse.

Radar gizmos galore

Personally, I'm not much of a geek. But there was plenty that I found fascinating -- some of it seeming like grist for Jeopardy buffs. Like what does radar mean? (Answer: Radio Detection and Ranging).

The museum shares space with the nonprofit System Source Computer Museum created by System Source IT services company owner Bob Roswell at its Hunt Valley headquarters. His collection runs the gamut of computing devices from times well before the days of microchips... or any kind of chips, for that matter... and includes one of the first computers put together in the garage where corporate giant Apple was born.

It's hard to separate one museum from the other, as electronics and computers seem so intertwined. (There's also a video game museum housed in the building.)

In a back room during the opening, members of the museum-based Amateur Radio Club were busy on the airwaves operating its ham radio station (K3NEM) chatting with radio buffs across the planet and spreading word of the museum's reopening. A long work table was lined with vintage broadcasting and modern computer equipment now part of the station's operations. 

Ham radio operators at work.

My personal favorite part of the opening party was chatting with its most senior guest -- 90-year-old Howard Griffin, a Baltimorean who helped develop the Apollo 11 camera that beamed home to earth live television images of the first steps on the moon. One of several backup lunar cameras produced for the mission is displayed at the museum in a case alongside the special Emmy statuette awarded to Westinghouse for the technical achievement that enabled people across our planet to witness history. (Another backup lunar camera is displayed at the National Air and Space Museum.)

Howard, a Johns Hopkins-educated electrical engineer, said his role was in devising the thermal coating protecting the camera that was mounted on the lunar lander.

I asked about his view during the project of the likelihood the 1969 moon landing would entirely succeed -- especially setting down on the lunar surface, and the crew returning safety to earth.

"Very slim," he said.

The museum at 338 Clubhouse Road is operated by an executive director and volunteers, and for now open to visitors by appointment most Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Group tours also are available for scheduling. Admission is $15 for adults and $10 for students. And not a bad deal as a two-fer, since you get to see the computer museum on the same visit.