GRANTS PASS — Vintage car owners take note: Barry Dalton is among a dying breed of people who repair original radios for cars built before the 1970s.

Look in Hemmings Motor News, and you’ll find close to 50 businesses nationwide advertising they restore or repair old car radios. Most just do conversions, replacing old innards with modern stereo FM components, Dalton says.

While many old-car owners prefer listening to favorite stations on high-tech equipment as they tool around town, “If it’s a real valuable car, I advise against it,” Dalton says, pointing out that anything not original on a collectible car devalues it.

Barry Dalton is the “Antique Radio Doctor.” He moved his one-man operation from his home to a nondescript building in Grants Pass 14 months ago.

Don’t look for a sign out front.

“I’ve always been real low profile,” admits Dalton, who moved from Los Angeles in the late 1980s, then began specializing in car radios about 18 years ago.

Repairing old car radios wasn’t among Dalton’s original career choices. He sort of fell into it when he realized he couldn’t make a living at his first love: collecting and repairing antique radios and vintage TVs.

In his lobby, on display for customers to enjoy, are the gems of Dalton’s collection of early radios in large wooden cabinets and TVs with tiny screens produced in the late 1940s.

But Dalton found few folks were willing to pay shipping fees to send him heavy furniture.

It wasn’t until a friend invited him to a car parts show in Portland that the light bulb went on.

“It dawned on me that I could repair car radios,” Dalton says. “Most are small, you can put them in a 14-inch box and carry them to the post office.” Car radio customers, it seems, are happy to pay shipping and repair costs.

As a youngster, Dalton repaired electronic equipment as a hobby. He also collected old TV sets and radios, riding around his neighborhood on a bike. He’d pick up old sets from trash bins, then balance them on his handlebars as he rode home.

Among his collection is the first TV sold for less than $100 — a 1947 Pilot with a 3-inch tube that cost $99.95. The first TVs sold commercially by RCA in 1946 went for about $500. Dalton figures they would cost close to $5,000 in today’s inflated dollars.