On 22 Oct 2005 12:14:29 -0700, wrote:
From: on Oct 21, 4:25 pm
Leo wrote:
On 20 Oct 2005 09:40:10 -0700, wrote:
Leo wrote:
On 15 Oct 2005 14:02:03 -0700, wrote:
From: Leo on Oct 15, 9:36 am
On 14 Oct 2005 15:02:32 -0700, wrote:
Leo wrote:

etc.

IMHO one of the biggest reasons ham radio isn't better known
is that it's not a very "visual" thing - it doesn't translate well to
TV or a movie.

Really? Ernest Lehman didn't think so. He wrote a fairly
popular novel entitled "The French Atlantic Affair" which was
made into a two-part TV movie on one of the networks. Lehman
was a respected award-winning screenwriter ("North by Northwest"
is perhaps the most notable). Lehman was also a licensed ham.

thank been trying to remeber the title of that movie I will have to
check if it avable in in DVD

but on the tangent is my memeroy faulty or didn't those hams in voled
(the land station was a Girl ham as I recall) violate FCC rules and
use a Code in violation of the rules (except for the emergency nature
of the transmisiion

Get the BOOK version. The TV movie was so re-written (for the
worst) that I'm surprised Lehman didn't lodge a protest with
the WGA (Writers Guild of America). Truly a terrible
adaptation for TV. As for casting...well, Chad Everett was
the "lead." :-) [not even close for an Emmy nomination...]

One reason for revision argues that the original book version
had too much graphic sex in it (some, not a great deal), graphic
violence (such as machine-gunning a bunch of tourists on the
ship), alcoholism and drug use (by some peripheral characters).
No kiddies involved in the book version, only adults.

The solution to the dilemma of a hijacked cruise ship involved
the Rand Corporation and a medical doctor who had taken his
portable ham rig with him (which his wife didn't like). In
the original book version, the hijackers (a large group of
swingers, by the way) meet an unusual, topical end.
["topical," NOT tropical...]

Check with Amazon on availability...of the book. Forget the
DVD (if there is one).

Ernest Lehman was interviewed in one of the independent ham
publications, got a couple pages in CQ (?) with his picture
in it. I'm surprised that all the name-dropping superhams
in here haven't included his name in any "prominent show-biz
hams" listings. Lehman died recently. You can do a regular
search on that name and come up with many a hit on it.

Of course, CB Radio has been featured in many a TV show and
movie such as "Convoy," "Smokey and the Bandit," and (would
you believe this title) "Flatbed Annie and Sweetiepie"...not
to mention an essential part of "The Dukes of Hazzard" series.

"Flatbed Annie and Sweetiepie, Lady Truckers" (the whole
title) was an amusing two-hour TV movie starring Kim Darby
and Annie Potts (might have been Potts' first big role)
circa 1978. [Darby was "Sweetiepie" and Potts was
"Flatbed Annie"]

Morsemanship prior to around 1950 has been portrayed rather
often, perhaps most noted in the various versions of the
Titanic disaster of 1912. [I doubt anyone in here except
James Micollis was alive in 1912... :-) ]

It's hard to recall the large number of Westerns cranked
out between the 1930s and 1960s that DIDN'T have a scene
of a "telegraph office" with its clickety-clacking "sounder"
on the sound track. The telegrapher nearly always had on
an eyeshade and sleeve garters (must have had a lot of those
available from Western Costume Co.).

Those of us old enough to have enjoyed radio broadcasting
of pre-TV times can well remember a "newscaster" beginning
with a burst of beeping morse code and the voice "Good
evening, Mr. and Mrs. America, and all the ships at sea."

For a WW2 adventure movie, try "Dam Busters," based on a
real event of RAF bombers destroying German dams. Black
and white, but the sound of a single morse code character
(transmitted by each bomber after doing its thing) is very
much IN the movie. [I don't remember which plane Jimmie
flew on, but I'm sure he will recall all of it vividly]

There are many, many motion pictures of the past which
included a bit of morse code (largely the radio variety
beeping) as PART of the movie. I don't recall any where
morse code was the main plot ingredient, essential to
success of the story. Might have been one somewhere,
though, its unwanted print now decaying in a vault.