Photo-of-the-Week #169 – Alert: Don't Waste Your Time! Antique Wireless Museum, Bloomfield, New York, July 6, 2014

I don't usually use pictures of places like this as Photos-of-the-Week, but for the Antique Wireless Museum, I'm making an exception. This place REALLY ticked me off. I discovered the place on my way through New York State to a new location. I checked it out and found out it was not open the day I was passing through the area. That annoyed me, but didn't really make me angry. There was a similar museum in Connecticut near Bradley International Airport that wasn't open very many hours, either. Basically, the place pictured above was only open for a couple hours on Tuesdays and for three hours each on Saturdays and Sundays. Now, THAT is NOT convenient for the public. It should have been my first hint.

I passed by and figured that's two out of two museums on this trip that I had a really personal and somewhat passionate interest in that I couldn't enjoy. Okay! Deal with it. But, I was several miles away and had planned to go in a different direction be about 100 miles away by Sunday, July 6^th. However, I was really drawn to see this museum. So, I went on the Web site and it pretty much convinced me I would stay an extra day where I was and then back track to the museum on Sunday to enjoy their displays and hopefully see some things I hadn't seen before and learn something new. After all, isn't that what specialty museums are all about?

So, Sunday July 6^th arrived. I took my time in the morning and then headed back to the little village of Bloomfield, NY (a place I had never been before this trip). I arrived around noon in Bloomfield and found a shady spot in the little village, parked and entertained myself until about 1:40 PM when I drove the approximately five minute drive to the museum arriving at 1:45 PM. I was the only car in the parking lot. About seven minutes before the museum was scheduled to open another car pulled up. It was someone from the group that operated the museum. He was there to pick up some paperwork to take home and process. We chatted and he filled me in about the museum and 2:00 PM arrived and passed. Time continued, 2:05, 2:10, 2:15 and no one showed up to open the museum. The guy I was talking to didn't have a key so he couldn't even get in to get what he needed.

Finally, at 2:15 PM the guy I was talking to called the director of the museum at his home and asked who was coming and when the museum would be opened. He was informed the museum was closed for the 4^th of July holiday weekend (this was two days past the holiday) and no one was coming and it would not be opened. By this time a couple other cars had stopped and we then notified them the place was closed. Now, here is why this place should be avoided – first, it's run, obviously, by rank amateurs, actually, most of them were probably local amateur radio operators. Second, they had a very nice Web site with the hours, inconvenient as they were (only open about 8 hours for an entire week) prominently posted. But, was there a notice that the place would be closed this weekend for a holiday that shouldn't have had anything to do with operating the museum during their stated hours two days after the holiday? Absolutely NOT! Was there a sign on the door indicating the place would be closed this weekend. Absolutely NOT! In fact, It cost me time and a bunch of extra gas to return to this place for absolutely no reason. Yes! I was very pissed off, to be frank about it.

So, later that day I wrote a very terse email to the director, an amateur radio operator, whose email was listed on the Web site. It bounced back. In other words, this guy either didn't care enough to have a working email address on the site OR he saw it and bounced it himself preferring not to deal with the public. The museum is a qualified 501c3 non-profit organization. Obviously, they did the least possible to comply with the requirements of being a 501c3. In fact, they found some wealthy benefactor to put a pile of money into the organization for a big fact tax deduction, I'm sure. They own four buildings. From what I could see through the front door, there actually is a very nice display inside, however, it's only a small part of the collection of gear they have that's been donated to them for tax deductions. They had even just received a truck load of equipment from a no long operating Voice of America facility in California, at taxpayers' expense, I'm sure.

So, what this place is, as far as I can tell, is an expensive hobby for a bunch of local amateur radio operators (and I've been and still am an amateur radio operator for 55 years) that is using non-profit tax status to have lots of toys to play with and probably even sell off at a profit under their disguise as a tax deductible non-profit. While I really have extremely negative feelings about the IRS and I'm also not a huge fan of non-profits because they are used quite often to profit those who operate them, I have a mind to report them to the IRS and suggest they investigate the museum . I'll think about that. So, far, of course, I've not been able to make contact with them. I'll try again and suggest they read this blog post. So, to all my ham radio and wireless enthusiasts who read this blog

DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME TO GO TO THIS PLACE. IT VERY WELL MAY JUST BE ANOTHER NON-PROFIT SCAM FOR PERSONAL PROFIT.