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February 7th 05, 07:26 PM

In article ,
says...

"HankG" ) writes:
"Tom Sevart" wrote in message
...

"Richard Larson" wrote in message
...
I've been watching Hogan's Heroes reruns and in the beginning they show
Kinch operating some sort of radio. He's shown turning a crank looks
like.
What sort of radio could that be?

A Baygen? :-)

As Cinch turns the crank, there is a 'slider' moving inside of coil
(probably a primitive crystal set for receive only). You would expect that
being in a concentration camp, their radio would be make-shift at best.

HankG

First, they weren't in a concentration camp. Those were for people who
the nazis didn't like. They were in a prisoner of war camp, which at least
had the benefit of being run under the rules of the Geneva convention.

Since it was an exaggeration of the situation, there is no limit on what
would be in the radio. It's been years since I saw the show, but I remember
no indication that they were working with primitive equipment.

In reality, POW camps were not restricted to crystal radios. I gather that
even before the war began, the British started preparing officers for
capture, and the Red Cross packages were designed to help them
escape. Luxury items were chosen to bribe the guards, that scene in The Great
Escape has truth to it, and items were sent in the package that could be
remade into other things. Plus, useful items for radios were outright
smuggled into the camps in the packages.

A couple of years back I talked with an AAC radioman at
Horsetraders in New Hampshire who'd spent some time as an unwilling
guest of the third reich in a POW camp near the Polish border. He'd
built a two tube regen RCVR with tubes he bought from a Polish radioman
in another section of the camp. The price of a radio tube was three
full sized rats...captured, dressed, cooked and ready to eat. Guys in
his barracks made a real game of getting the rats cuz they'd rather have
the radio than eat the "money" themselves.

Yes, most had nothing more than a crystal radio. But some camps had full
blown receivers. And one POW camp had a complete transmitter, which was
never used but ready in case it.

Given that the camp in Hogan's Heroes was practically a spy ring, I would
expect that arrangement would have been made to bring them a proper radio
and other supplies.

Michael

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