[Milsurplus] High & Mighty / GI electronics (and Island in the Sky)

[Mike Morrow]

Marty wrote:


>AMC ran the movie last night for what may be 1st time on TV.
>John Wayne, Phil Haris, Robt. Stack
>
>Sightings:
>
>  o BC-375 (191?) as tx
>  o APX-6 as DF


Marty and all,

You should have caught the movie that ran before that:  "Island in the Sky."
It is a 1953 John Wayne movie that I'd never heard of before, with him as a
pilot of a C-47 and crew that has a forced landing in uncharted Canadian
winter wilderness.

Gear that was used by the crew with some plausibility were:

SCR-287:   BC-375 (even had cables connected on left side)
                     BC-348-J, N, or Q
                     BC-306 LF load coil
MN-28 control box for Bendix MN-26 RDF (AN/ARN-11)
SCR-578:   BC-778 "Gibson Girl" emergency hand crank transmitter.

The crew used the normal radio gear to contact searchers until battery power
was gone, then went to the BC-778.  All comms were in Morse, though no real
Morse was actually heard in the movie.  No AM phone use was shown except
between search aircraft pilots.

The one big howler was a tuning unit for a GP-7 navy transmitter that was
for some odd reason sitting on the radio operator's table next to the
BC-348.  Also, the radio operator used a Vibroplex key, and obviously the
actor was not even remotely familiar with how one is used.  The standard
J-37 would have been better.  A large I-82 navigator's ADF bearing indicator
was shown on the pilot's panel of a search aircraft (also a C-47).  I guess
the search aircraft had an ADF (not RDF)...since the bearing needle was
shown fluctuating as a 500 kc signal was received.

The downed crew connected a long-wire antenna to the BC-778, and there were
discussions by the crew and the search aircraft crew about it operating on
500 kcs.  The movie showed that considerable effort was required to operate
the crank generator.

While using the last ship's battery power for the normal radio gear, they
had a search aircraft send a homing signal while the downed aircraft used
their RDF to get the bearing, then send it to the search aircraft by Morse.
Wayne operated the RDF from the pilot's seat, then reported the bearing to
the radio op, who sent it out in Morse.  I thought that was surprisingly
accurate for how such an evolution would occur.   Normally one would expect
that the radio operator would be shown somehow doing it all by himself.

All in all, the movie was way way above average "radio quality" for any
movie I've ever seen where radio played a significant role.  Had they
ditched the GP-7 tuning unit and Vibroplex, and allowed us to hear real
Morse, it would have been outstanding.

73,
Mike / KK5F
PS:  Another wonderful but seldom shown airplane flick is the 1964 Glenn
Ford movie "Fate is the Hunter."  There's not any radio stuff in it, but
it's great and rarely shown.