Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Ron Chester (W6AZ), who notes that the new Godzilla film contains a number of boat anchors.
What I think is so funny is how they’ve altered the logging/fine tune dial of the Hammarlund SP-600 to look like signal strength meter! For someone who has owned an SP-600, this is a little strange to say the least!
https://youtu.be/DXrQiN0ei5s
HCJB, 1987 (click to enlarge)
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Doug Evans, who shares the following radio memory:
I have been an SWL on and off for the past 30+ years, listening from New York, North Dakota, Texas, Korea, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and now from Denver and loving my Tecsun PL-660. Back in the 80’s and early 90’s the SWL waves were full of awesome. It was huge fun to dial up Radio Saigon or Radio Pyongyang and listen to their opinions, in return the USA fired back with Rush Limbaugh on WRNO
Through my early years in SWLing I would always find HCJB in Quito Ecuador “The Voice of the Andes” I loved their shows especially “DX Party Line” but I’d settle for the other programming, “HAM Radio Today”, “The Music of the Andes”, “Tips For Real Living”… I always had a SW radio and a longwire where ever we went and especially on camping trips, and HCJB could always be found.
Job changes caused me to box up my radios for several years, but around 2010 I broke out the radios and found that HCJB was nowhere to be found. The hobby lost a lot of it’s attraction because of that. Not long after that my future wife asked me to drive with her from our home in Denver down to Colorado Springs to visit her relative, her mother’s cousin Tommy. She said he was a missionary in South America and handed me a book he wrote. In the preface he mentioned radio station HCJB.
Her mother’s cousin Tommy lived near the HCJB work headquarters in Colorado springs and I asked him about HCJB, he told me he was an engineer there for over 30 years and spent the afternoon telling me glory days of the largest radio stations on earth, and eventually having to take down the huge antenna farm to make room for the Quito airport. I wish I had taken notes, and I wish I had a chance to meet with him again, but like HCJB Tommy is no longer with us.
What an amazing coincidence it was to meet one of the men who kept HCJB on the air.
What a coincidence indeed! Thanks for sharing your memory, Douglas!
Post readers: Do you have a radio memory you’d like to share? Please contact me with your story!
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Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Nad, who writes:
I bought an HRD-737 a few weeks ago off AliExpress. Was going to write a review but now feel there is no point because it has so many major and minor problems beyond those already reported.
Decided to take mine apart. The photo is attached.
Click to enlarge.
It appears to me that the HRD-737 could be the first attempt at an SDR-based pocket sized receiver. Wondering if you or someone the experts at SWLing Post can offer any insight in this regard. Identifying marks on the ICs have been removed. The metal can in the middle could be a wideband programable oscillator of some kind?
Thank you for sharing, Nad!
Readers: can you shed some light on the HDR-737 receiver design based on this internal photo? Please comment!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, David Iurescia (LW4DAF), who writes:
[Here’s] an interesting article about former RCI transmitter site (Sackville):
Former RCI transmitter site – slow transformation
By Marc MontgomeryThe former RCI transmitter site near Sackville New Brunswick, sold to a First Nations group, is now in the process of being absorbed into native reserve land and some as yet undetermined use.
During the Second World War as Canada was working towards creating a shortwave service, an ideal site for the transmission of radio signals was found in New Brunswick. Located on the Tantramar marshes, it was ideal ground for propagation of signals from the complex array of antenna wires and towers.
The service was ended over six decades later as a result of severe budget cuts in 2012. The site was later purchased by Mi’kmaq First Nations in 2017 and plans are slowly taking shape to transform the 90 acre site into reserve land. That process involves consultations with neighbouring municipalities, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the New Brunswick provincial government and other indigenous communities. It’s expected to take two years, during which time the Mi’kmaq will decide the use for the land, whether cultural or economic or a combination.[…]
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Robert Yowell, who writes:
I walked into an awesome store today in Manhattan which specializes in vintage radios and ephemera. He had these two small lucite paperweights which I bought – one from KDKA the other from WOWO – two historic AM stations. The WOWO one contains a piece of the “world famous fire escape” [see above] which was from the original studio building on Washington Blvd in Ft Wayne Indiana.
The other lucite is a mystery that I hope your readers might help with. It was issued in 1995 for the 75th anniversary of KDKA. It appears to be a silver disc sandwiched with something orange colored in the center. Could it be from the transmitter site? I have attached photos here.
Thanks so much for maintaining such a great Blog site for SWL and other radio listeners ! I hope someone out there can help with my question – thank you!
A few hours later, Robert wrote this follow-up message:
Thomas – I just found the answer to my question. I now own a piece of the original KDKA transmitter tower!
What a great piece of history you have there, Robert. Both WOWO and KDKA are legendary! Thanks for sharing!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Cap Tux, who spotted two ham radio rigs in IO. Cap notes:
ICOM IC-740, Yaesu FT-901DM and Shortwave make an appearance in Netflix Sci-Fi film IO:
Mentions “transmitting on frequency 9043kHz and listening on frequency 9560kHz daily, that’s the 31m band”.
Thanks for sharing, Cap! I’ll add this post to our ever growing archive of radios in film!
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Balázs Kovács, who shares the following radio sightings and notes:
The Priest’s rig from the last episode of “The Walking Dead“
A Yaesu in “Jurassic World – Fallen Kingdom“
Some emergency/weather radios in the “The Darkest Minds“
The Last Ship S05E01
After a cyber attack a backup comm solution for the US Navy.
Night of the Living Dead (1968/1990)
In the original a radio broadcast was the first information source, in the remake only a small one was used at the end.
Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016)
In a remote shack.
+1: The “Álmodozások kora” (Age of Illusions (US) / The Age of Daydreaming (Int)) was the first (Hungarian) feature film of the director István Szabó (winner of an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1981 (Mephisto), English language films: Meeting Venus (1991), Sunshine (1999), Taking Sides (2001), the Oscar nominated Being Julia (2004) and The Door (2012)) in 1965 about a group of young electrical engineers. Two scenes from it about the radios, unfortunately I found the hungarian speaking version only online, but I think maybe it can be still interesting: https://ok.ru/video/
228250552961
- 33:58-35: A custom rig receiving 4 european stations (Paris, London, Rome, Prague) on different speakers at the same time
- 1:05:43-1:07:20: “How radio works” animation
- (and there was a short scene also where they talk about the The Pioneer Railway and how they learned the morse code there)
I found another (splited) version of the movie now with english subtitles, the new links and timings:
https://ok.ru/video/904027376280
33:58-35:28: A custom rig receiving 4 European stations (Paris, London, Rome, Prague) on different speakers at the same timehttps://ok.ru/video/904028097176
20:00-21:39 “How radio works” animationThe same actor (András Bálint) 13 years later have a short ham radio scene (new year greetings in english) in another movie (BUÉK, 1978). I checked the callsign from the wall (HA5FA) and probably it was already a real one, belongs to Jen? Matzon, active member of the radio amateur community (DXCC Honor Roll, etc.) now a Silent Key.
Wow! Many thanks for sharing all of these radio spots, Balazs! Funny thing is I remember so well those shots from Night of the Living Dead even though I likely watched it 40 years ago! I guess I never forget a Zenith!
Of course, I’ll add this post to our ever growing archive of radios in film!
