Wrong radio

[NQ6U]

The XYL and I were watching the movie Amelia on TV last night. It's about Amelia Earhart, and not a bad movie at all. There was one scene, however, that would drive any ham who's familiar with old test equipment crazy. It was near the end of the film, when some radio men aboard a U.S. Navy ship are trying to contact Earhart's plane and one operator is twisting with a knob while saying "I can't contact her!"

My reaction was "Well, maybe if you were were using a radio instead of fiddling around with a signal generator you'd have better luck."

[KG4CGC]

I knew it! People ask me all the time, why some old radio doesn't work and when I figure out through the description what it is ... sig gen!

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

That is the trouble with trying to do period equipment.
Marine radios as a rule did not live long and disposal is sometimes throwing it overboard.
I have quite a few old radios from the pre-SSB era that were removed and left to rot.

[kc7jty]

Transmitting without depressing the PTT or talking into the back of the microphoney is another Hollywood trick.

[w2amr]

I watch highway patrol every morning when I'm on the tredmill. One day last week Dan Mathews was aboard the police chopper, and Everytime he listened to the dispatcher on the radio he held the microphone up to his ear.

[n2ize]

I watch highway patrol every morning when I'm on the tredmill. One day last week Dan Mathews was aboard the police chopper, and Everytime he listened to the dispatcher on the radio he held the microphone up to his ear.

Speaker mic maybe ? Most of the time you wear a headset in a helicopter so you can hear what is being said over the background noise.

[n2ize]

The XYL and I were watching the movie Amelia on TV last night. It's about Amelia Earhart, and not a bad movie at all. There was one scene, however, that would drive any ham who's familiar with old test equipment crazy. It was near the end of the film, when some radio men aboard a U.S. Navy ship are trying to contact Earhart's plane and one operator is twisting with a knob while saying "I can't contact her!"

My reaction was "Well, maybe if you were were using a radio instead of fiddling around with a signal generator you'd have better luck."

Hollywood screws up stuff like this often. They'll often show someone trying to "tune someone in" by haphazardly twisting dials and flicking switches as opposed to the real way of doing it. Either they don't know or they feel audiences will respond better to dramatic twisting of dials.

[W3WN]

Remember, we're talking about an industry that thinks highly charged ionization layers due to solar activity permits someone to talk to someone else through time... on an SB-301 receiver and a busted up Yagi.

You're not supposed to pay attention to the little details like that.

[N7RJD]

Remember, we're talking about an industry that thinks highly charged ionization layers due to solar activity permits someone to talk to someone else through time... on an SB-301 receiver and a busted up Yagi.

At least they finally got one right.

[KC2UGV]

Hollywood screws up stuff like this often. They'll often show someone trying to "tune someone in" by haphazardly twisting dials and flicking switches as opposed to the real way of doing it. Either they don't know or they feel audiences will respond better to dramatic twisting of dials.

Everyone likes knobs...