Sunday, Sept. 23, 2012, 1 a.m. — Just finished watching the 1954 film “Highway Dragnet,” staring Richard Conte and Joan Bennett. He’s accused of killing a woman while he’s passing through Vegas. Without giving you the entire plot, there’s a scene when he’s “on the lam” from the cops, and they cut to the police station where the detective takes a tip by telephone. In the background is the radio desk, pictured here at right, equipped with some fairly nice Hallicrafters gear, including an SX-42 receiver (bottom), circa 1946; on top of that sits an SX-43 receiver. A nice R-42 speaker sits on top of the stack. The R-42 was the matching speaker for the SX-42, and featured an 8-inch speaker.
It appears there’s a microphone hooked to the SX-42 … I guess its not uncommon in movies and TV to use receivers for whatever they need.
My kids think I’m just plan crazy … every movie we watch together on TV I end up pointing out interesting electronics — particularly if its ham radio related. And ham radio shows up in the darnedest places. My son enjoys gaming, and goes to LAN parties, where they network a bunch of PCs and play multiplayer games. Battlefield 2 is a favorite, and at the last LAN party we attended, I had to comment on a WWII mod we were playing. In the communications tent at the desert base, their virtual gear included a Collins 75A-1 receiver! I think I wound up getting shot because I kept going back to the comms tent to see what other gear I could identify. A Silent Key friend of mine called it “hamitis.” If there’s such a malady, then I’m certainly a carrier of the disease, hi!
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