"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.

Roger Basford wrote:
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?

Although the ham at the other end called him Bill, if you say it was not
Halligan, I'll take your word for it. A little later in the film he and
another man are identified as Bill Halligan and someone else, whose name
I did not catch.

I assume if you actualy know what Halligan looked like (I don't) you can
tell them apart and if you are careful at listening for names, you can
figure it out.

BTW, did anyone notice the one serious flaw in their design? It was designed
according to the film to work using standard 117 volt household electricity.
A gasoline generator was included as an addon (a trailer) that provided
it.

AFAIK they were never used in combat in a place that had 117 volt AC power.

I know that Europe had 220 or 240 volt power, what did the pacific areas have?

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in message
...
Roger Basford wrote:
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?

Although the ham at the other end called him Bill, if you say it was not
Halligan, I'll take your word for it. A little later in the film he and
another man are identified as Bill Halligan and someone else, whose name
I did not catch.

I assume if you actualy know what Halligan looked like (I don't) you can
tell them apart and if you are careful at listening for names, you can
figure it out.

BTW, did anyone notice the one serious flaw in their design? It was
designed
according to the film to work using standard 117 volt household
electricity.
A gasoline generator was included as an addon (a trailer) that provided
it.

AFAIK they were never used in combat in a place that had 117 volt AC
power.

I know that Europe had 220 or 240 volt power, what did the pacific areas
have?

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

Hi Geoff,

The guy with the glasses in the scene in the office is Halligan, that's
where they are looking at the drawings and also inside the RF deck. The
other chap in the ham station part looks different. I suppose it didn't
matter if it was a staged scene.

I suppose that during training in the US there might have been times when
domestic 117 V AC was available but in the Pacific they probably used
domestic power supplies of the colonial power, so British standard for
Australia, Malaya and the British-administered islands, Dutch for what we
now call Indonesia and possibly US standard for the Philippines? In Europe
220-240 60Hz is the standard now but I don't know about WWII, the UK still
had areas using 220 V DC at that time.

There's an interesting article on the SCR-399 in Russian service here -
http://www.w9wze.net/df.php?dn=Featu...hall_Zhukov.wp

Cheers,

Roger/G3VKM

On Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:47:04 +0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Roger Basford wrote:
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?

Although the ham at the other end called him Bill, if you say it was not
Halligan, I'll take your word for it. A little later in the film he and
another man are identified as Bill Halligan and someone else, whose name
I did not catch.

I assume if you actualy know what Halligan looked like (I don't) you can
tell them apart and if you are careful at listening for names, you can
figure it out.

BTW, did anyone notice the one serious flaw in their design? It was
designed according to the film to work using standard 117 volt household
electricity. A gasoline generator was included as an addon (a trailer)
that provided it.

AFAIK they were never used in combat in a place that had 117 volt AC
power.

I know that Europe had 220 or 240 volt power, what did the pacific areas
have?

Geoff.

If you're invading, you get to say what standard power is.

They may well have sent the thing out with a set of adapters (or just
taps on the mains transformers) for times when reliable power was
available.

--
http://www.wescottdesign.com

"Roger Basford" Roger at new-gate dot co dot uk wrote in
message
et...

"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.
The ham radio session was almost certainly staged. Old
call books would identify the station. I wonder if any
library has a collection of them, perhaps the ARRL does.
Bill Halligan is the fellow behind the desk in the scene
where the modifications to the HT-4 are being discussed.
I was wondering how many of these rigs were made, where
did you get the statistics?


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

"Roger Basford" Roger at new-gate dot co dot uk wrote in
message
et...

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in
message ...
Roger Basford wrote:
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?

Although the ham at the other end called him Bill, if you
say it was not
Halligan, I'll take your word for it. A little later in
the film he and
another man are identified as Bill Halligan and someone
else, whose name
I did not catch.

I assume if you actualy know what Halligan looked like (I
don't) you can
tell them apart and if you are careful at listening for
names, you can
figure it out.

BTW, did anyone notice the one serious flaw in their
design? It was designed
according to the film to work using standard 117 volt
household electricity.
A gasoline generator was included as an addon (a trailer)
that provided
it.

AFAIK they were never used in combat in a place that had
117 volt AC power.

I know that Europe had 220 or 240 volt power, what did
the pacific areas have?

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel
N3OWJ/4X1GM

Hi Geoff,

The guy with the glasses in the scene in the office is
Halligan, that's where they are looking at the drawings
and also inside the RF deck. The other chap in the ham
station part looks different. I suppose it didn't matter
if it was a staged scene.

I suppose that during training in the US there might have
been times when domestic 117 V AC was available but in the
Pacific they probably used domestic power supplies of the
colonial power, so British standard for Australia, Malaya
and the British-administered islands, Dutch for what we
now call Indonesia and possibly US standard for the
Philippines? In Europe 220-240 60Hz is the standard now
but I don't know about WWII, the UK still had areas using
220 V DC at that time.

There's an interesting article on the SCR-399 in Russian
service here -
http://www.w9wze.net/df.php?dn=Featu...hall_Zhukov.wp

Cheers,

Roger/G3VKM

I think you mean 50hz. Power standards have varied all
over the place and are still not uniform. In 1944, for
instance, Los Angeles had both 50hz and 60hz power. A few
areas had DC power (parts of New York City for instance).
Canada around Niagra Falls had 25hz power (made the lights
flicker). In the US standard mains voltages were 110, 115,
117, 120, 125V,220, single phase AC and similar voltages for
DC. There was also three-phase AC at 220, 440, 480, and some
other voltages depending on where you were. Much military
equipment was usually designed with transformers which could
operate from either a nominal 115 or 220 V and could operate
on 50hz as well as 60hz current. Some equipment, like the
BC-779 receiver (Hammarlund Super-Pro) were available with
power supplies that could run on 25hz as well as 50/60hz at
perhaps a dozen voltages.
Undoubedly the BC-60 could run on several voltages and
on 50hz current but the rigs shown in the film are
self-contained meant to operate from the generator sets
supplied.


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

"Roger Basford" Roger at new-gate dot co dot uk wrote in
message
et...

"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.
FWIW, Bill Halligan was W9AC


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

"Richard Knoppow" wrote in message
...


Roger Basford - G3VKM - Norfolk, England.
The ham radio session was almost certainly staged. Old call books would
identify the station. I wonder if any library has a collection of them,
perhaps the ARRL does.
Bill Halligan is the fellow behind the desk in the scene where the
modifications to the HT-4 are being discussed.
I was wondering how many of these rigs were made, where did you get the
statistics?


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL





Hi Richard,

The topic of BC-610 numbers came up on the WS19 group on Yahoo recently and
someone supplied the following:-

"During the period 1 Jan. 1940 through 31 December 1945 the US Government
purchased 14,706 of the SCR-299, 399 and 499 sets.

Practically speaking, deliveries did not start until 1942, when 1571 sets
were
delivered. In 1943, 5,911 were delivered, in 1944 another 5,317 sets, and
in
1945: 1,907. This does not count the HT-4 versions delivered for testing
before
the creation of the BC-610, and I believe there were sets purchased and
delivered after 1945 as well, for use in assorted AN/MRC- numbered
communications
vans, up through the Korean War period.

I don't know whether there were any lend-lease contracts for these sets. If
there were, those numbers probably would not be included in the above".

Can't recall who posted that but it was someone in the US.

Hallicrafters also re-badged the BC-610 as the HT-4 after WWII, probably to
clear stocks, I have a manual for one. By the time the Korean War came
along, dealers over here were offering good prices to buy back '610s and
ET4336s that had been sold to the ham market, in order to resell to the
military - two bites of the cherry.

Roger Basford

On Tue, 07 Apr 2009 12:00:44 -0500, Tim Wescott
wrote:

On Tue, 07 Apr 2009 15:47:04 +0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:

Roger Basford wrote:
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?

Although the ham at the other end called him Bill, if you say it was not
Halligan, I'll take your word for it. A little later in the film he and
another man are identified as Bill Halligan and someone else, whose name
I did not catch.

I assume if you actualy know what Halligan looked like (I don't) you can
tell them apart and if you are careful at listening for names, you can
figure it out.

I'm going a vague memory here, but one of the fellows did look like
Bill Halligan who 10 years later was often pictured in Hallicrafter's
ads. I remember he had a two letter suffix in his call and for some
reason I thought it was W9AN. Someone with a 1950's QST might be able
to see the ads. I believe that Bill Halligan is the fellow who appears
at minute 5:30 or so of part one of the film and I think he is the
fellow on the left with the rimless glasses. Notice how spartan his
executive office is. Two letter suffixes were extremely rare in those
days. You had to be licensed before WW I to get one. There was no
country prefix at the start. I had two mentors in the mid 50's when I
was a young teen with my first license. They told me that right after
WW 1 their calls were 9GI and 9AOF. The guy with the two lettter
suffix got his before the war, the guy with the three letter suffix
got his immediatiately after WW I and always thought he should have
had a two letter suffix. W9GI was the only two letter suffix in our
town. He was an old marine telegrapher on the Great Lakes ore carriers
and car ferries. The "W" was added later to US calls (and the "K's"
came in the 50's ...I was first K9CAH in 1956 and callsigns were done
in alphabetic order at that time. "N" and "A" suffixes came later.

Of course, the scene with the ham operating at the beginning had to
have been a simulation as there was no ham radio during WW II, the
hams were forced off the air. The same thing happened in WW I.

I doubt anyone with an original two letter suffix is alive anymore.
The few I knew then were very old men in the 50's/60's. Those with
two letter suffixes who have them now started to get them in the
mid-late 1970s. At first you could get one if you held an Amateur
Extra and had been licensed for 20 years. The first group to get the
two letter option at that time were those who held the Extra before
incentive licensing came to be in the late 60's (they were very few in
number) Then it got phased in by according to when you got your Extra
and had the 20 years in. I was in that 2nd batch. Later the whole
thing became a part of a "vanity" callsign program. I got my two
letter suffix in 1977 right after I crossed the 20 year mark (I was
licensed at age 13.) To the extent they were available you could
request a callsign. I got my own initials though that call was
actually my third choice.

My first radio was a Hallicrafters S-38D which my folks bought for me
(rather cluelessly) while I was awaiting my license (It took about 3-4
months for a license to come through after one took an exam back
then,) The S-38 family was really just a consumer shortwave listening
radio and I'd be hard pressed to think of a radio less suitable for
two way communcations. Nevertheless, I did muddle through for one year
with that radio for a year and probably developed great skill in
selective listening to sort out signals on the novice bands which were
very crowded then. I worked quite a bit of stateside stations,
probably 20 states with that receiver and a heath AT-1 trasmitter,
rated at 25 watts INPUT, but actually putting out only about 7 watts.
We were QRP before there was QRP. By the next Christmas I had my
General Class which was actually quite a feat for a 13 year old as the
test required hand manipulation of algebraic formulae and I was a year
shy of having any Algebra class. My high school shop teacher (W9ZKB
-SK) tutored me through all this and I passed the first attempt. For a
short while I was the youngest ham in Wisconsin. I got a Hammarlund
HQ-100, one of the very first of those and had to wait about two
months beyond Christmas for it to come in. I had by then a Viking
Adventurer which was 50 watts in and about 25 out. It was all CW, I
couldn't afford a phone rig at home. I operated a lot from my Junior
High School where W9ZKB set up a spare rig of his in his drafting
classroom. He let me operate there during his class when I had a study
hall but I had to operate CW since I couldn't disturb his class. With
that lack of phone access, I became a pretty dedicated CW op. I still
am.

Jon Teske W3JT

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Roger Basford wrote:
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?

Although the ham at the other end called him Bill, if you say it was not
Halligan, I'll take your word for it. A little later in the film he and
another man are identified as Bill Halligan and someone else, whose name
I did not catch.

I assume if you actualy know what Halligan looked like (I don't) you can
tell them apart and if you are careful at listening for names, you can
figure it out.

BTW, did anyone notice the one serious flaw in their design? It was designed
according to the film to work using standard 117 volt household electricity.
A gasoline generator was included as an addon (a trailer) that provided
it.

AFAIK they were never used in combat in a place that had 117 volt AC power.

I know that Europe had 220 or 240 volt power, what did the pacific areas have?

Geoff.

The SCR-299/399 were designed to run off 110VAC 60Hz. The PE-95 gas
generator is a 10KW 110v-only unit. I, personally, have never seen a
BC-610 running off 220v. In past discussions with my my Elmer, he
explained that they had SCR-399's on Guam and Saipan and they all ran
off either the PE-95 or "base power" which was 110v 60Hz. Although not
a ham, he was the OIC of the Signal Detachment. Whether the '610 or the
'299/'399 will actually run off 50HZ power, I do not know. The TM's
would seem to indicate not. BTW, the Signal doctrine back then was not
to plan to use, nor depend on, indigenous power sources.

de K3HVG