"Richard Knoppow" wrote in message
m...
I looked at the film again and see what you mean by the dollies, etc.
I didn't realize the first time how much hand work was done. I didn't see
a single power tool of any sort, the closest was a "Yankee" screwdriver.
Undoubtedly there were power tools elsewhere but they didn't seem to be
used for assembly.
BTW, the ham radio scene near the opening is one of the few
representations of ham radio on film that is not laughable. I did notice
the absense of a clock, the fellow checks the time on his watch. Perhaps
deliberately so that there would be no problems with the clock jumping
around between shots.
Jam Handy Films, who made this epic, was based in Detroit and produced
a lot of industrials for General Motors, particularly the Chevrolet
division, some of which are on this site.
They did all right, except when they tried to emulate Hollywood, as in
the montage at the end of this film.
--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL
Hi Richard,
I did try to ID the W9WZE operator in the clip - it's not Bill Halligan -
any ideas? One suggestion I had was that he was one of the senior engineers
working for the company. I didn't notice any date on the captions, so if
that is a post-1941 film then the operating session would have surely been
staged, as Ham Radio had shut down, so maybe it was done by using recordings
of the other stations?
Yes, no power tools then, but I did like the fact that all the ladies
working on the line had their own named tray of tools. I wonder how many of
them are still alive? They produced nearly 15000 SCR-299, 399 and 499
variants during WWII and I'd bet there are a fair percentage of those still
around across the world.
73
Roger Basford - G3VKM - Norfolk, England.