Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who writes:
I started to watch season 3 of “Stranger Things”.
In the first chapter, “Dustin” uses a “ham radio” rig to contact his new girlfriend and builts a strange Antenna in the top of a hill. She didn´t answer, but he listens a coded transmission in Russian.
Thank you for sharing, David! Stranger Things certainly has a number of interesting radio references!
The antenna has amateur radio operators on the floor laughing. It’s clear the prop-makers didn’t actually consult anyone with the faintest idea of antenna design to make their prop look plausible. It looks like it was made by buying three antenna kits, bolting the pieces together without looking at the instructions, then hanging random foil and a slinky off of it. It’s the engineering version of a medical drama where the doctors administer a hundred times the lethal dose of morphine to treat a heart attack, or a sports movie where the soccer players are throwing vollyballs through basketball hoops. Everything about it is fantastically ridiculous.