Tag Archives: The Captain

Rafael spots a Tecsun S-2000 in “The Captain”

Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Rafael Rodríguez R., who writes:

Greetings from Colombia!

In a Chinese film called “The Captain” (2019) or in its Spanish title “Terror in the Air” that recreates the situations experienced in 2018 by Sichuan Airlines flight 3U8633, when on their trip from Chongqing to Lhasa, they lost pressure due to a broken windshield on the passenger side.

In a scene where an aviation fan finds out about the situation of the plane, a Tecsun model S-2000 appears; which inherited the design and technology of the Grundig Satellit 750, and has also been produced under the Eton brand. It can be seen that the radio is tuned to the 11465 kHz frequency and although it is not a frequency assigned to air mobile traffic, it is very close to a range established for this purpose.

The film also shows what appear to be actual air traffic control centers in China and shows the deployment of airport emergency services in China under the administration of the CAAC.

 

A little error in the scene is that the radio does not have an external antenna connected, only the telescopic antenna is extended.

Thank you for sharing this, Rafael! Sounds like a great film, especially for us aviation geeks. 

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Echo Charlie (EC) Pirate Radio

SX-99-Dial

Many thanks to SWLing Post reader, “The Captain,” who recently sent a message regarding “EC Pirates”–an aspect of the pirate radio/free-bander scene I’ve never covered here on the Post. I asked him to explain a bit more about EC Pirates:

“Echo Charlie [Pirates] are a bit like amateur radio operators in that they don’t play music, they talk all around the world mostly around the 45 metre band using the calling frequency 6,670 kHz, but they do have other band plans too, usually just under the amateur radio band plans. They are pirates as they are not licensed for those bands: freebanders if you like.

Here is the band plan they follow:

86/85m 3430-3500 kHz
calling 3470 LSB

45m 6530-6700 kHz
calling 6670 LSB

29m 10400 kHz USB

21m 13900-14000 kHz
calling 13970 USB

21m South America
Calling 13555 kHz USB

16m 18010-18050 kHz
calling 18030 USB

14m 20900-20980 kHz
calling 20930 USB

EC started many years ago after World War II [when surplus] military equipment was up for sale. Guys bought the units up and used them on AM mode but slowly switched over to SSB over time. No one is really sure why its called Echo Charlie but they think its because this old equipment had EC on the casing or something like that. I’m still reading up on the history of it all.”

“The Captain” has also created an online forum for EC Pirates and various radio topics. It requires (free) registration to post and read: http://ecpradioforum.forumotion.com/

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