The Radio exhibit is part of the collection of installations we have done for the Workers' Flats at the Industry Museum in Horsens, Denmark.
For the 1950's floor, we modernised an old 50's radio to play the desired audio when the visitor tunes into the correct station. For this we had to embed a custom hall-effect based encoder into the original mechanical tuner dial of the radio in order to determine its position.
When the radio tuner is turned to one of the three pre-programmed stations, an audio clip plays. To achieve this, we used hall-effect proximity sensors mounted behind the front panel to determine the position of the tuner. If the tuner is on the wrong station, then static noise can be heard; simulating a typical analogue radio receiver. After a certain amount of time, the audio times out, and only starts playing again when the tuner knob is moved.
To detect the movement, we modified the internal tuner flywheel to act as a digital encoder using another hall-effect sensor. For audio playback, we used the original internal speakers which maintained the original character of the radio, driven by a brand new internally fitted amplifier.
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