Signaling and Telegraphy
This collection contains numerous highly valuable artifacts. It primarily includes telegraphs (Morse, Hughes, Baudot, Wheatstone systems, etc.) and their auxiliary devices (sounders, keys, relays, repeaters, switchboards, lightning arresters, etc.). Additionally, it features various teletype systems and related equipment.
One of the most significant exhibits is a telegraph set from the personal collection of Emperor and King of Bohemia Ferdinand V (1793–1875). It was likely manufactured and gifted to him on the occasion of constructing the telegraph line along the Ferdinand Railway from Vienna to Brno and Prague. After his death, Emperor Franz Joseph I donated it to the German Technical University in Prague, and in 1934, it was transferred to the National Technical Museum's collection.
The telegraph collection features the most important telegraph devices used in Czech territory, along with teletype machines and additional telegraph accessories.
Telephony
The telephony collection includes telephones from all systems used in Czech territory, ranging from their introduction to the present day. It also comprises manual switching devices, components of automatic exchanges, amplifiers, and samples of both outdoor and cable telephone lines.
The National Technical Museum's collection of telephones and accessories is extensive and highly valuable, especially regarding the oldest telephone models. It also includes several manual switchboards and related equipment. The evolution of classic telephones is documented up to the present day, making this one of the richest and best-managed subcollections in the field of wired telephony.
Notable exhibits include telecommunication devices collected by Czech actor Vlastimil Brodský, who was a lifelong telephone enthusiast, and a remarkable collection from the estate of composer Petr Hapka. In recent years, the collection has expanded to include GSM technology.
Radio Technology
One of the key subcollections, this category includes radio receivers for both communication and broadcasting purposes, spanning from the earliest models to the present.
The radio technology collection contains several early damped-wave telegraphy devices, including a spark transmitter built by Prof. Šimek in 1918 to communicate with Paris. It also features a significant collection of early radio telegraph and vacuum tube radio telephone devices, mostly of foreign origin.
The collection includes early radio receivers from France, England, and Germany, as well as Czechoslovak models. A large number of broadcasting and telecommunications receivers from the 1930s to the present, both foreign and domestic (especially post-war Tesla production), are also on display.
Among the most prestigious exhibits are some of the earliest products of iconic Czechoslovak brands such as Telektra, Telegrafia, J. V. Myslík Hyršovský Přelouč, Radieta, Radion, Radioslavia, and Urania.
A unique item is an eight-tube superheterodyne radio, gifted in 1924 by the Military Telegraph Workshops (VTD) to President Tomáš G. Masaryk as a New Year's present from the Czechoslovak Armed Forces.
The collection also includes broadcast transmitters used in Czech territory, including both foreign and domestic productions. Notable exhibits include:
- The first (partial) Kbely radio transmitter "Huth"
- The first Strašnice transmitter "SFR"
- The Western Electric transmitter, which played a crucial role in the liberation of Prague in 1945
A more recent acquisition is the prototype of the first Czechoslovak seven-transistor radio receiver, developed in 1956 by Ing. Rejmánek and Ing. Myslík at the A. S. Popov Research Institute.
Television and Image Transmission
The television technology collection includes models and original mechanical-optical image decomposition systems, such as the original Okolicsányi mirror screw. It also features an experimental television receiver with a Nipkow disc and Weiller wheel and pioneering TV transmission and reception equipment from Jaroslav Šafránek, a pioneer of television in Czechoslovakia and lecturer at the Faculty of Physics at Charles University. His estate contains the first electronic television receiver and incomplete television cameras (operating on a 241-line system) from 1939, left unfinished due to the German occupation.
The core of the collection consists of TV receivers from the 1950s to the 1970s, starting with:
- The Tesla 4001A prototype from Strašnice
- An experimental receiver with a round Delta-system color screen
- The last CRT televisions produced by Tesla Orava
One of the most significant exhibits, displayed in the "Television Studio" exhibit, is the first Czechoslovak television broadcasting system, MEVRO (1948).
The collection also includes a 1938 German-made "Fernseh" television receiver, representing early international television technology.
From the post-war period, the collection mainly features domestic TV receivers (Tesla), as well as Czechoslovak recording and broadcasting equipment. This section also includes various image transmission devices, covering mechanical image decomposition technologies, such as the Nipkow disc system.
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