AM Gear in Old Movie

[John Holotko]

The following link is an image  to a screen capture from an old (early 1960's) gangster movie titled "Gangster Story" starring Walter Matthau. The image is a picture of the police radio operators desk in the movie. Notice the Johnson Ranger and the Colling 75A-4 receiver.

http://home.computer.net/~micros50/images/gangster.jpg

[k4kyv]

During that era there were still a few of the old mediumwave AM police transmitters in operation.  I recall in the winter during the early 1960's picking up police transmissions from Los Angeles just above 2 mc/s.  They would broadcast bulletins on MF, while t he cars were equipped with lowband VHF transmitters to talk back to headquarters.  So this could be realistic.  At least the setup is not intended to depict the interior of an alien spacecraft or a mad scientist's attempt to built a teleportation device.

[Roy K8VWX]

          I was in Chicago in the mid fifties and would
trim the local  oscillator to go up above 1.5 mega –
cycles on broadcast radios for some of my neighbors.
I was listening one night and they had a robbery right
under the room I had rented. I was going to the Coyne
radio and TV electronic school. On week ends there
was never a break in radio transmissions.

[Glenn NY4NC]

Hey...... that's not a 75A-4...... compare against this photo.. there's no passband tuning or AM/CW-SSB mode switch!!!... Hollywood trickery perhaps? It looks like it says 75A-4 on the nameplate but not so! 

Probably a 75A-3 or 2

[Bacon, WA3WDR]

I think it was the Hartford, Connecticut police who were on 1680 KHz, up to around 1966 or 1967.  I have no idea what kind of transmitter they used.  I heard them pretty well on the north shore of Long Island.

I also remember an old Hardy Boys movie from maybe the 30s or 40s, where Andy (Mickey Rooney, I think) and Judge Hardy were in a ham qso.  Andy was asking Judge Hardy for permission to do something or another.  As I recall, the answer was no.

[k4kyv]

Hey...... that's not a 75A-4...... compare against this photo.. there's no passband tuning or AM/CW-SSB mode switch!!!... Hollywood trickery perhaps? It looks like it says 75A-4 on the nameplate but not so! 

Probably a 75A-3 or 2

You are right.  It looks to me like 75A-3 but so blurry it could be A-2.  The receiver is in a standard 19" rack cabinet.  That was the dimension of the A-2 and A-3, but the A-4 is more compact.  Also, the kilocycle dial is different.  The earlier  receivers had sectors marked off differently, because the 10m band operated off the 2nd harmonic of the PTO and covered 200 kc/s per revolution while the other bands covered 100 kc/s per revolution.

[ve6pg]

...I WAS SITTING WITH MY SON,HE WAS WATCHING "GREEN ACRES"...OLIVER DOUGLAS IS TELLING THE STORY,HOW HE MET LISA. SHE WAS IN THE HUNGARIAN UNDERGROUND. ANYWAY,HIS FIGHTER AIRCRAFT IS IN TROUBLE,AND HE HAS TO BAIL OUT. HE RADIOS TO NOTIFY THAT IS IN TROUBLE,AND THE GUY ON THER OTHER END IS SITTING WITH A BC375 BEHIND HIM..MY SON,WHO IS STUDYING FOR HIS TICKET, YELLS OUT--"HEY DAD..LOOK AT THE BC375..!"  MY SON IS 10YRS OLD..!   SK..

[W1GFH]

"HEY DAD..LOOK AT THE BC375..!"

Snif. What a beautiful story.

[John Holotko]

Hey...... that's not a 75A-4...... compare against this photo.. there's no passband tuning or AM/CW-SSB mode switch!!!... Hollywood trickery perhaps? It looks like it says 75A-4 on the nameplate but not so! 

Probably a 75A-3 or 2

You are right.  It looks to me like 75A-3 but so blurry it could be A-2.  The receiver is in a standard 19" rack cabinet.  That was the dimension of the A-2 and A-3, but the A-4 is more compact.  Also, the kilocycle dial is different.  The earlier  receivers had sectors marked off differently, because the 10m band operated off the 2nd harmonic of the PTO and covered 200 kc/s per revolution while the other bands covered 100 kc/s per revolution.

Yeah, I agree,  there seem to be notable differences between the 75A-4 in Glen's picture versus the one I snatched from the movie.  Unfortunately that's about the clearest image I can capture.

[k3zrf]

Hey John, put that gun down, you're scaring the neighbors!

[Herb K2VH]

When I was a kid in the mid-fifties, I lived about a half mile from the Buffalo Police Radio Station in Delaware Park.  In addition to VHF-FM two-way radio for the squad cars, they also ran about 500 watts of cw somewhere around 5 MHz.  That was for city-to-city communication, and ran push-pull 810s in the transmitter, with Collins 51J-3 receivers.  There were two sets of these.  They signed the call BJ.  K2BEG and W2KZ were two of the operators.  I used to love to hang around there.  Great fun, and great memories.

Herb

[John Holotko]

Hey John, put that gun down, you're scaring the neighbors!

Hi Hi ...           

[John Holotko]

When I was a kid in the mid-fifties, I lived about a half mile from the Buffalo Police Radio Station in Delaware Park.  In addition to VHF-FM two-way radio for the squad cars, they also ran about 500 watts of cw somewhere around 5 MHz.  That was for city-to-city communication, and ran push-pull 810s in the transmitter, with Collins 51J-3 receivers.  There were two sets of these.  They signed the call BJ.  K2BEG and W2KZ were two of the operators.  I used to love to hang around there.  Great fun, and great memories.

Herb

That's really interesting to hear about the old gear and styles of  operation used in police and public service communications.  That's the first  I ever heard of cw being used as a mode but I guess it was reletively simple,  reliable,  and good for longer range city to city work under wide ranging conditions.

[w3jn]

The "tower" scenes in the movie "Airplane!" had a bunch of Collins 75A/51J/32V series equipment.

[Herb K2VH]

That's really interesting to hear about the old gear and styles of  operation used in police and public service communications.  That's the first  I ever heard of cw being used as a mode but I guess it was reletively simple,  reliable,  and good for longer range city to city work under wide ranging conditions.

Yes John.  It was true then, and it's still true today-- If you can't get through on phone, cw probably won't let you down.

[W8KHZ]

Looks like a 75A2 to me... I don't see the mechanical filter "A/B" switch lever that would have been present on the 75A3.

[Paul, K2ORC]

Not an old movie, but an old movie look is "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow".   In one scene, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) huddles up with a Hallicrafters Sky Champion.  I grabbed the remote and went back and paused the shot because I couldn't quite believe my eyes the first time.

[Herb K2VH]

Are you sure that wasn't Irb huddling up with the "Champion of the Sky"?

Herb