Friday, July 14, 2017 — Back again with one of my sightings of radio equipment in classic science fiction movies.
A movie I hadn’t seen in years — “When Worlds Collide” of 1951 — was playing a couple nights ago on cable, and in a scene that happens after worldwide earthquakes caused by the gravity of the approaching planet, radio communications are used to call for assistance.
In the scene at the scientist”s lab, you hear someone calling for help from an emergency camp seeking medical supplies, etc. A cut to a close-up of the desk showed a Hallicrafters S-40A receiver at a desk. I own a variety of Hallicrafters receivers but I never owned an S-40A.
The S-40A lacks a product detector, so it probably isn’t the top receiver you would want for SSB reception; with that said, there are some YouTube videos of some great sounding SSB reception. Of course, with SSB reception, the key thing the S-40A has is a great bandspread.
It reminded me of one of the issues that led me to take the SX-130 out of my library shack in the first place — the RF noise that I eventually learned was being generated by my PC sitting next to the radio. And the truth is now that I’m writing this entry on my Acer laptop rather than my desktop PC just so I can listen to 75 meter roundtables while I write. The RF hash covers nearly every signal on 75/80 meters.
The S-40A was followed by the S-40B, which was a less attractive version of the same radio (in my opinion). One thing I miss in my little corner of the library is a classic radio. Now, the PROII is in a way a “classic”, but when I think “classic” I think something bigger. I still have a Hallicrafters SX-101 up in the attic, though the bookcase I’m using for ham equipment sure wouldn’t support its size or heft!
73 es CUL de KY4Z … SK …. dit dit ….