Radio Day by the Bay is quickly transforming into a flagship event for the California Historical Radio Society (CHRS), which hosted its 22nd iteration of the annual event on Saturday, July 18.
The all-day celebration helps fund CHRS programs, including educational camps and scholarships. The event featured live music, food, merchants, a vintage radio auction, ham radio demonstrations, and a live radio play, “The Thin Man: The Case of the Goofy Groom,” which included Alameda PostCast host Scott Piehler as the Groom. There was a special presentation about the newly restored Golden Star Radio Sign in Oakland, which was a major project recently completed by CHRS. And of course, guests could learn all about the history of radio, meet their favorite Bay Area broadcasters, and tour the radio museum for free.
“Radio Day by the Bay 2026 was an extraordinary celebration of broadcasting history, community, and innovation, bringing together radio enthusiasts, broadcasters, collectors, families, and first-time visitors for an unforgettable day at CHRS,” said CHRS Executive Director Rachel Lee.
Although Radio Day has been around for over two decades, it has grown significantly over the last couple of years. Initially a niche event, Radio Day primarily revolved around the vintage radio auction and its collectors.
“Vintage radios specifically are infinitely repairable,” Lee explained. “If you are a tinkerer or at all engineer-minded, the ability to do that is fun.”
Seth Arp, a radio tinkerer who has been working on them since he was about 8 years old, was a volunteer at Radio Day. He discovered CHRS some 15 years ago, and has been involved with the organization ever since. He reminisced on how much the festival has grown over the years.
“It’s changed dramatically,” Arp said. “It used to be the auction, and the back yard [of the CHRS building] was always filled to the brim with stuff. Tons and tons and tons of radio parts, like overflowing almost into the parking lot. And that was what it was, people that were just into this hobby could come in and buy stuff.”
Since then, Radio Day has expanded to become a much larger local community event, free to the public, that could appeal to almost anyone. The recent additions of food trucks and a kid’s alley are evidence of this shift. This year, Radio Day was also extended by an additional hour to accommodate more live entertainment, which included acts such as Don Neely’s Rhythm Aces, the School of Rock Alameda Show Band, and Top Shelf Classics.
The number of attendees has increased significantly since at least 2023, when 250 people came to the event. That number doubled in 2024, and again in 2025. This year, an estimated 1,200 people attended.
That dramatic growth was no accident; it was the result of CHRS’s concerted effort to market the event. CHRS’s participation in Alameda’s 4th of July parade, handing out flyers, and developing relationships with local radio stations were some of the strategies that helped Radio Day grow into a much larger event in Alameda.
“This really wasn’t marketed before I came here,” Lee said. “ The people who came to this event were our members. But I really feel like CHRS is such a community-oriented organization, that I wanted to expand it. I think a lot of people, at first glance, would consider it a very niche type of hobby. But I think once you come to the event, you realize that it’s everybody’s event.”
Radio Day sponsor Nathan Rudnick, a lifelong radio enthusiast who moved to Alameda before he learned about the existence of the radio museum, commented, “The museum wasn’t always a museum. It used to be a club, Radio Society Club. And now we’re a museum, and we’re open to the public, and we want everyone to come.”
In addition, Rudnik expressed hope that events like Radio Day encourage younger people to explore radio and the programs at CHRS. “I’m one of the younger people involved,” he said, “but we’d love to have more kids around.”
That sentiment reflects the fact that, for many, the heart of Radio Day is celebrating and committing to preserving history, not just of an important and influential technology, but to the people connected with it.
“There’s people here [CHRS] that have a lifetime of experience,” Arp said. “I feel like it’s our responsibility to learn as much as we can from those folks, because they have been on this planet longer than any of us, and they know this stuff frontwards and backwards. And if it weren’t for these people, I would not learn how to do it.”
The CHRS Vintage Radio Museum, located at 2152 Central Avenue, is a nonprofit that promotes the research, restoration, preservation, publication and presentation of early radio and broadcasting. The next Radio Day by the Bay is planned for July 17, 2027.
Vicky Nguyen is a contributing writer for the Alameda Post. Contact her via [email protected]. Her writing is collected at AlamedaPost.com/Vicky-Nguyen.
