Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Bruce Fisher, who adds the following to our growing archive of radios in film. Bruce writes:
Here are three shots from the first few minutes of the 1962 James Bond
film “Dr. No”:
The second shot is a close up of the radio in the first shot. (These appear at about 4:30)
I suppose the last shot is from the BBC Monitoring Station? (about 5:30).
Thanks for sharing these screen shots, Bruce!
That looks like a K.W. Vanguard amateur transmitter in the first two photos, of course, but I can’t determine what the receiver is on the right. Can someone identify?
Can anyone identify the AM radio in the background of the hotel room?
In “Our Man Flint”, a Drake unit appears a few times. I was thinking it would be the SW-4 since we see them receiving, but from a search, it’s a TR-3 or 4 transceiver.
Michael
I think the receiver is an Eddystone 888 based on the edge of the dial markings and control locations. It is an amateur band only receiver of the correct vintage and was often paired with the Vanguard by amateurs then.
I noticed the Racals some years back.
What’s odd is that a room full of Racal receivers shows up in oe of the Pierce Brosnan’s Bond films, “The World is Not Enough”.
They make sense in 1962, they were just a few years old, but I’m not sure where they’d find a room full of them in 1999. Maybe it’s special effects , though it’s not the same room as in Dr. No. I also thought the room was in Russia in the later film, which makes the Racals even less correct.
In some of the WEB Griffin books, set in WII, there is mention of Zenith Transoceanic radios. Actually, there is mention of other specific radios in the books, correct enough that the author may have had radio experience.
Michael
I thought the transmitter looks like a Geloso.
The VFO is Geloso but the transmitter is KW.
Here is an interesting .pdf , sorry about the quality.
http://www.vmarsmanuals.co.uk/archive/2104_KW_Vanguard_Sales_sheet.pdf
The receiver on the right is an Eddystone.
Which model? Well I’m “hunting” now ..!
But here’s a useful link http://www.eddystoneusergroup.org.uk
And guess what less than a week ago Javier, LU6EJE posted pictures of his restoration project an Eddystone 680X. Think we’ve found it.
Google ‘Eddystone 680X’. Good hunting.!
73 de Kris, G8AUU, SO6AUU/9
It is certainly an Eddystone receiver. Which one I can’t say without doing some research. What I can say is it is not an s640, but must be from the same era as it has the same type of switches and knobs as that model (I used to own one many years ago, before I was licensed). There are of course the racks of Racal RA17’s in the bottom pic. Superb receivers, I had one of those too. I didn’t have a Vanguard, but I did start off my HF career using a KW Viceroy transmitter, which is similar. Love seeing radios in film and on TV. We had an Icom 756pro and ancillary devices being used in an advert on national TV a few months back – great view of it and a Vibroplex key on top of it.
Thanks, Sean!