Dynatron Radio Ltd

Dynatron Radio Ltd was the trade name used by H.Hacker & Sons for their wireless products. The firm started trading in 1927 and operated independently until being bought by Ekco in 1955. The rights to the Dynatron name are currently held by Roberts Radio. Dynatron was also a successful business with making record players; most of them were made in the sixties and the average man would have to save about three weeks wages to buy one.

The Hacker brothers, Ron and Arthur, shared a strong interest in radio, and started a company producing high quality radiograms and wireless receivers at the ages of just 19 and 17 respectively. As they were too young to become directors of a company, the firm was set up using their father's name, Harry Hacker, in 1927.

The firm began in a room above the family grocery shop in Maidenhead High Street, and the first product emerged in 1928; the Dynatron U53 radiogram. A factory was built in the large rear garden of the family house "Little Gables" in Ray Lea Road in Maidenhead, measuring just 50 by 25 feet initially, but extended several times. In 1936, the company name was changed to Dynatron Radio Ltd.

The Hacker brothers always pursued the highest possible technical quality, and released designs incorporating many valves at a time when their competitors concentrated on reducing the number of valves in their products. For many years, they persisted with TRF principle, only adopting superhet designs after some 10 years of development.

During the Second World War, Dynatron contributed to the war effort on a not for profit basis, expanding the work force from around 70 employees to 160. The operation continued from the family home and expanded into a requisitioned factory, amounting to around 15,000 square feet of space. They produced airborne guidance systems such as Gee for the RAF, and after the war, Ron Hacker was awarded the M.B.E., though this was accepted with some reluctance as he felt that his brother also deserved the recognition.

After the war, austerity measures and component shortages caused the company significant difficulties. The Dynatron range had always been aimed at the top of the market, but achieving this in post-war times was always going to be problematic. In 1954, an offer from Ekco was accepted, and control was handed over in 1955. At the time, there were 150 employees, and a new factory in St. Peter's Road had just been built. The Hacker brothers were retained as joint Managing Directors, and the company was successful; by 1959 there were 250 employees.

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