Talk:Amateur radio in popular culture
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Well it looks like we're off to a good start. Anonym1ty 20:50, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
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[edit] Old discussion
Where can we find Amateur Radio in popular culture today? Well we all know ad nauseum that we can find it in TV and movies. We can also find it in Music. Such as RUSH's song YYZ and a Group called "The Ham Band".
What might be more interesting is something about how and why these little bits of ham radio end up in our popular culture. Minor references are all around us if we happen to see or hear them. I have seen episodes of Jeopardy where i could faintly hear morse code in the background sound track.
When on the 2005 QCWA convention I listend to Chip, K7JA discuss how he ended up on the Tonight show sending morse code against some text messengers - In this case the interesting point here is that many of the staff at the Tonight Show are hams.
What about some of the experts brought into your local news broadcasts? Many times there is something related to Amateur Radio and you will find HAMs on TV or (BC) Radio talking about something.
Other hobbies too... Remote Control planes, cars, boats etc. seem to be very popular and a place where people are exposed to Amateur Radio. Same thing for model rocketry, SWL and Weather aficionados. Computer Networking is an other place you see regular people being exposed to amateur radio.
Where have you found Amateur Radio? Anonym1ty 22:53, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
- Mostly, I find amateur radio in my basement!! :-) Seriously, all good points, all of which can be added to the new article Amateur radio in popular culture, which I just created. One thing you left out: books. I know there are a bunch that the ARRL sells, but I would bet there are others. No, I don't mean the Handbook, I mean novels that have amateur radio as a plot device -- N5UWY/9 - plaws 00:22, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Sounds like SSB?
Star Wars (1977) during the battle of the death star, the pilots communicate with each other over the radio using what sounds like SSB modulation, which is frequently used in the Amateur HF band. This is particularly obvious if you listen for the voice distortion characteristic of SSB when flipping between one character speaking and a character listening in another location over the radio.
Could a 'duck talk' effect by George Lucas be considered a valid example of Amateur Radio? This doesn't seem an appropriate way to explain Amateur Radio on film as some of the others on the list. I'd suggest removing this one if someone wants to second it, I hate to cut anything if it's just me that finds this example not fitting. Comments? --Drakcap 09:20, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
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- I'm with you. Yes, some prints of the first Star Wars movie had SSB-sounding voices, but so what? I say delete it. I'm about to reorganize the list alphabetically. --Plaws 20:28, 2005 Jun 9 (UTC)
Duck talk?? How many times have you heard SSB? It doesn't sound like duck talk to me. It sounds like a voice cliped, frequency shifted, and otherwise mangled by SSB modulation. It sounds the same in every "print" of the movie I've heard. --ssd
- It sounds like ducks if it's not tuned properly ... and apparently it wasn't tuned properly on purpose to achieve the effect. The real question is "does it even belong here?" I don't think so, which is why I moved it into an "honorable mention" section. As for the prints, I saw the original movie -- the only really good one, IMHO --6 times in the theater. At least one time, there was a different sound-dub for the scene that normally has the "SSB sound". With the way Lucas mucks with these movies, it's certainly plausible that he was trying a different approach. --Plaws 13:28, 2005 Jun 22 (UTC)
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- I like the text as currently presented. I think it's silly to have an honorable mention heading, one or two of the previous entries are equally weak, ether not explicitly crediting amateur radio, or using it in an inappropriate or unrealistic way. However, I find the THX1138 directors commentary mention telling; obviously, Lucas does like to play with SSB. :) So this ording makes me very happy. --ssd 02:56, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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- I am not sure it is worth removing anything. And in that list are a few fine examples of the use of ham radio, and what better place for everyone to find such things than in movies available to the general public. --ssd 23:33, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
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Other radio noises are used in Star Wars. Empire Strikes Back uses the digital portion of CHU the time station in Canada as communication background noise during the battle scene.--buz 03:32, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] CB radio on an Amateur radio page?
The following reference and trivia seems a bit out of place:
- In an episode of The Donna Reed Show, Donna's son Jeff becomes enamoured with the then closely allied Citizen's Band radio service, pursuing a local girl by using a home made direction finding antenna on his CB set.
Someone made this comment about Citizen's band radio:
HUH?? CB has nothing to do with amateur radio in this case....heck you can find plenty of CB references in TV and movies..including the movie Smokey and the Bandit but again, that has nothing to do with AMATEUR radio.
Feel free to edit or add the paragraph again.
73 all
--Starionwolf 06:05, 10 May 2006 (UTC) Hi:
you missed one episode. Ozzie and Harriet had an episode in which someone gets information on confidential conversations taking place in a basement or frat meeting room. It turns out there was a ham set (WW2 era Arc5) left on and the signal was picked up by an Alaskan ham and then shared with a local.
73 de WB2BMH
[edit] "Every ham radio operator has a nickname called 'handle' (name)."?????
Is there a reference for this assertion somewhere? I think whoever put this in here is confusing this with CB radio, where handles are used instead of call signs. Hams are required to use their call sign when communicating, it's in the FCC requlations ยง97.119(a)
ChardingLLNL 20:41, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
- I agree. Every ham radio operator does not have a nickname or 'handle'. They have a callsign issued by their country's Government. Ryan 14:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC) (de AB2MH)
[edit] Jericho CW messages
Do we have to list every morse message in Jericho? I think this would be more appropriate in the article for the show itself, not in this one. Ryan 14:38, 30 March 2007 (UTC) (de AB2MH)
