Vintage Radio Film W3RQZ

[WA3VJB]

Get through the first 4 minutes or so, and you'll get an amazing dose of vintage AM in a film with sound track from the Phil-Mont Amateur Radio club, club call W3RQZ.

The premise is the emergency preparedness of the club members, and their actual deployment during 1955's Hurricane Diane disaster.  It looks like someone paired some audio recordings with some silent motion picture footage, but any overdubbing is well done thanks to a lot of back-of-the-head station shots while folks are "operating," in the story frame about the emergency.

PLENTY of actual off-the-air recordings, most of it 10M AM, see Johnson xmtrs (Viking and a Viking Mobile), what looks like a 129X or an SP-200 receiver, a 75A3, Gonset mobile, and more. The vintage of the cars and radios makes it look like some of the scene-setters in the film were shot in the early to mid 1950s, although the notes say the film itself was produced in 1959.  There's some great film of the floodwaters that has to be authentic, including a vintage USAF twin-rotor helicopter, zounds !!!  (looks like an H-21)

Not a shred of slopbucket is heard, anywhere, in the 20 minute film.

Thanks to Ed VA3ES, for posting this to the AM Reflector email list.
>Kudos to Rick W9WS who posted this to another list today.
>73,  Bob W9RAN



http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2943570522939177086&hl=en
In 1955, The Phil-Mont Mobile Radio Club, an association of mobile amateur radio operators, provided emergency communications during the devastating flooding along the Delaware River and in the Pocono Mountains following Hurricane Diane, the sixth costliest U.S. hurricane of the 20th century...fifty years before Hurricane Katrina. In 1959, the club produced this short film to explain amateur radio, and especially mobile communications as practiced by the club.

(The main film begins after a three minute interview with Jim Spencer, W3BBB, produced by a local cable channel many years later)
http://www.phil-mont.org/clubhist.html

[W1GFH]

Amazing...very buzzardly.

[K3ZS]

Checking out the Philmont Club web site brings back a lot of good old memories.   Growing up in the Philadelphia area, the local band among high school age hams was 10M AM.   Many of us had 10M mobile rigs installed in our parent's cars before we were old enough to drive.   Most homebrewed a simple transmitter and receiving converter.   The tube car AM radios supplied enough power to tap off HV for a 10 watt transmitter and receiving converter.   Only the rich kids had MultiElmacs and Viking mobiles.  I remember one popular unit that could be purchased combined a low power transmitter, VFO and receiving converter for 10M AM.  I built my 10M mobile transmitter from a circuit described to me over the air (on 10M AM), I drew the circuit on the back of a log page as it was described.   To this day I don't know where it came from, but it used three tubes, a 6AQ5 final, 6AQ5 modulator and a 12AU7 oscillator and multiplier.   It used a carbon mike from an old telephone and an audio output transformer, I think as a Heising choke.   The Philmont club used to bring their communications van to a road rally our high school (Abington HS) sponsored every year, with members along the rally route sending in elapsed times over 10AM.   If you ever wanted to check out a transmitter you could always call on their club frequency and someone would always come back.

Another film that may be approaching vintage status is one that the Frankford Radio Club produced years ago about ham radio, but I think the topic was (arghh) contesting.

[W9GT]

This film/video is really fantastic.  It is like getting into a time machine and stepping back into the 50's.  Many great memories and a real accurate picture of what ham radio was like back in the "good old days".  I remember seeing and hearing much of that old gear that is pictured.  I was licensed in '59, but remember what the mid 50's stuff was like and how much it impressed me as a youngster at the time.  Makes me understand even more why I enjoy boatanchors and vintage radio so much.  Real men use dynamotors!

73,  Jack, W9GT

[W1RKW]

The narrator of that film must have been widely used in all sort of info films.  Hearing his voice reminds me of all the 16mm films that were shown during my school days through the 60's and 70's.

Remember Duck and Cover?  Same voice I'm sure.

They sure ID'ed alot too. Were the ID rules more strict back then?

I wonder if any of the callsigns used in the film are still around today?

Thanks Paul, that was pretty cool find.
Bob

[W2XR]

An extremely cool film from 1955. Lots of old buzzard rigs that were modern for their time, such as a 75A-3, Ranger, Valiant, etc.

I saved this one for future viewing and forwarded the link to some other guys as well.

Thanks for sharing this video with us!

73,

Bruce

[kc2ifr]

Paul,
That film is great....thanks for the posting.
Bill

[Steve - WB3HUZ]

Very cool. Think of the impact that film had in 1959 with the recent memories of the flooding. Can amateur radio do something like that today?

[wa2dtw]

The first few minutes of the video is Jim Spencer, W3BBB, who very unfortunately recently became SK.  He was one of the giants of ham radio, whom I am privileged to have known.

73
Steve WA2DTW

[WA3VJB]

I'm sorry to hear that W3BBB has passed away.
I wish the hack interviewer had done a better job with him.
Using the lapel mic as a handheld set the stage for me.
If anyone has any current connections with Phil-Mont, I would very much like the opportunity to get a first-generation telecine dub onto a DVD,with intro and ending credits (both are missing in this rendition). We can then consider making it available on here in a full-frame 4:3 format that would really do it justice.

[Tom WA3KLR]

Paul,

I just sent you a PM on this.  I am a Phil-Mont member.

[Ed-VA3ES]

The narrator on that Phil-Mont film was none other than Edward R. Murrow.  The original film is entitled "Every Single Minute".

[W1RC]

  Absolutely outstanding!   This should be shown to every Ham club so the members would have some appreciation of what the hobby was really like before it became "dumbed-down" and a call-sign became as easy to get as a driver's licence.  Wonder if a good copy of the film is available.......

[W3RSW]

A wonderful vingette of the not so long ago....  I really appreciated the link.  Notice the pie plate cap and coil loading on that one whip?  Real radio.  Easy to forget a time when roads didn't have side marker lnes, let alone quadruple center lines so prevalent today. -When power and phone poles had yard arms loaded with many wires. You could tell the size of the city coming up by the numper of yard arms and wires on the poles.

Wasn't it nice to hear crisp signals without quackery?  And every person featured looked very professional....   - jackets and ties, nurses with crisp uniforms.... 

And Buicks were king.  Imagine that!
- Rick '3rsw

[K1MVP]

A wonderful vingette of the not so long ago....  I really appreciated the link.  Notice the pie plate cap and coil loading on that one whip?  Real radio.  Easy to forget a time when roads didn't have side marker lnes, let alone quadruple center lines so prevalent today. -When power and phone poles had yard arms loaded with many wires. You could tell the size of the city coming up by the numper of yard arms and wires on the poles.

Wasn't it nice to hear crisp signals without quackery?  And every person featured looked very professional....   - jackets and ties, nurses with crisp uniforms.... 

And Buicks were king.  Imagine that!
- Rick '3rsw

Yep,--and back then hams had to take a REAL exam, both with CW and theory, before an FCC examiner.
        CW,--BOTH sending and receiving at 13 or 20 wpm, and if ya failed, you did not get a chance
        at taking the written,--ya had to wait 30 days and ya got to "try gain" to pass the cw and
        then take a "crack" at the written exam.

        If ya failed the written,(after passing the cw)-- wait another 30 days to retake the cw and
        retake the written.--no such thing as "credit" for either exam,--ya had to pass both in one session.
        Yep, them was the "good ol days".--and a novice was a novice,--for only a year,--if he did
        not upgrade whithin that year to general or extra,--he was "gone".
                                                   73, K1MVP

     

[Tom WA3KLR]

The narrator of the film was NOT Edward R. Murrow.  I believe I know who the narrator was, but am trying to get that confirmed now.  I will put this information out.  Unfortunately it's been 20 years since I've seen the film.

Most or all of the footage was filmed and produced by one of the club members, Bill Bornmann W3VXN, a professional photographer at the time.  Bill has been a silent key for a while.

The club was on 10 meters AM then.  Those were the days when much of the mobile radio gear was installed the trunk.  I remember seeing (as a tot) at least one member with an ART-13 in his trunk.