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We have seen so many great receivers and other equipment appear in movies, it’s surprising that this one may have slipped by our Radios in Movies radar.
In Apocalypse Now, the classic 1979 epic war film produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Captain Willard (Martin Sheen) is briefed in a hotel room in Saigon about Colonel Kurtz (played by Marlon Brando), the renegade Special Forces officer who is accused of murder and presumed insane. The scene includes Harrison Ford (by the time the movie came he had become a big star with Star Wars) who tells Sheen that Kurtz is to be “terminated”.
But as we’re reminded in a post on the Collins Collectors Facebook page, a famous radio is sitting on a file cabinet in this scene — identified in the collector group as a KWM-2A.
It’s another reminder of how many great examples of amateur radio and other equipment have played roles in great movies!
The explosions/detonations of HT radios targeting the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon continue to make headlines, with latest reports digging into the origins of the units and containing reaction from ICOM. This story is one of those rare occasions when the radio manufacturing industry is thrust into the spotlight.
“The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers may have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that’s not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say.”
The Reuters report also noted:
“For Icom, one problem is that it stopped making the IC-V82 model in question a decade ago, around the time it started introducing holographic stickers as a protection against counterfeit products, the company said. The company has long warned about imitation products, especially of its older models. In fact, more than 7% of firms in Japan reported business losses from counterfeit products in 2020, according to the latest available report by the Japan Patent Office, with around a third of cases linked to China. Icom has urged that customers only use its official distributor network to ensure they are buying genuine products.”
This earlier Reuters report was published in The Jerusalem Post.
Another report, which quotes Ray Novak, ICOM U.S. representative, appeared in The Washington Post. It said ICOM was “[investigating the allegations, but early signs pointed to the walkie-talkies being counterfeit]”. ICOM had issued three statements on its website as of mid-September 20th.
FastRadioBurst 23 here with news of what the Imaginary Stations crew are up to. This Sunday coming on 22nd September 2024 there’s another episode of Skybird Radio International via the services of Shortwave Gold.
The show which features an across the board selection from around this musical globe of ours will be broadcast at 0900/1300 hrs UTC on 6160 kHz and then at 2000 UTC on 6160 kHz and 3975 kHz. Expect all sorts in a international musical mix up including the above musical gem.
Next Wednesday 25th September 2024 at 0200 UTC on 9395 kHz via WRMI there’s an episode of Radio Ace. If you love all things radio-related you’ll Radio Ace!
We now have a Patreon page for our regular listeners here. Monthly memberships are available for exclusive audio and zines.
For more information on all our shows, please send to [email protected] and check out our old shows at our Mixcloud page here.
Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Frank SWL (F14368), who writes:
I’ve written three articles about the next contest project in January 2025, a list of our sponsors for 2024, and a list of listeners who worked this contest 2024. Check them out here:
Clear channel BCB stations – My Introduction to the world of DXing
by Dan Greenall
Sometime in the mid 1960’s, I acquired a Japanese made AM only transistor radio similar to the one pictured.
I was entering my teenage years and living in southern Ontario, Canada in relative proximity to the U.S. border, and was immediately fascinated that I could receive American stations from places such as Buffalo and Rochester NY as well as Detroit MI with amazing clarity.
Before long, I discovered that signals from much further afield would begin to come through at dusk and throughout the night time hours. Although I was unaware at the time, many of these would be from so-called “clear channel” stations, those operating on frequencies with the highest level of protection from interference from other stations.
In addition, many of these stations ran a full 50 kw of power. Signals from the Atlantic seaboard to the Midwest could often be heard at near local strength if I turned my radio to just the right angle. At this point, I was beginning to learn about the directional properties of the built-in ferrite rod antenna. It gave me great pleasure to be able to listen to their local ads, newscasts, or a far away sporting event from the comfort of my home.
I recall listening regularly to WOWO in Fort Wayne IN on 1190 for their play by play announcements of the Fort Wayne Komets hockey games. Then there was a station identifying as WFAA in Dallas. That was back when they shared 820 kHz with WBAP whose famous cowbell you can hear in one of the audio clips below.
By the end of 1969, a friend of mine had encouraged me to try shortwave, and I “borrowed” my parents Philips kitchen radio for a few months, but that is another story. I wonder how many others got “hooked” in this manner?
A few brief recordings of clear channel stations that I made in the early 1970’s are presented here. Many, but not all, of the stations heard in the last two links are from clear channel stations. Reception for these recordings was made using a Realistic DX150A or a Hallicrafters S-52 receiver hooked up to an outdoor long wire antenna.
KFI Circa 1971:
WOAI Circa 1973
KSTP Circa 1970s:
Vintage AM Radio Airchecks 1973:
Vintage AM Radio Airchecks 1973 Part 2:
As a sidebar, the National Radio Club has put out a number of books showing the daytime/nighttime directional antenna patterns of AM broadcasting stations in the USA and Canada.
I gave up my copy from 1973 a number of years ago, but you can find this one and others online. I found this very useful.
For example, it is easy to see why I was more likely to hear WBT Charlotte NC on 1110 kHz from my listening post in southern Ontario, Canada, rather than KFAB Omaha, NE.
The links below will take you to the 1973, 1975 and 2018 versions of these books.
