Amateur radio in the movies

Many of us will be familiar with the 1960 BBC TV comedy series 'Hancock's Half Hour' starring Tony Hancock - particularly the infamous bungling radio ham segment
"It is are not raining in Tokyo" and "GLK London calling the world".

Putting that to one side, amateur radio has been on movie and television screens numerous other times, as Jim Linton VK3PC reports.

Possibly the earliest time amateur radio appeared in cinemas was the 1941 movie called "The Men of Boys Town". The character played by Mickey Rooney was a radio amateur who chatted frequently from the home of his adoptive parents to a friend called Pee Wee, who operated the Boys Town amateur radio club station. Wonder just how many that inspired to join our hobby?

Probably the penultimate movie was a French film entitled "If All the Guys in the World" which featured a young radio enthusiast Jean Louis in Paris who received a distress message from a ship. Through his efforts and with the help of other radio amateurs around the world he tries to prevent a major disaster.

Another movie was "The French Atlantic Affair" in 1979 about a hijacked cruise ship where a ham radio set was the only independent communication with the outside world.

However the use of amateur radio by movie-makers in the past decade or so has often not portrayed it correctly, and probably done more harm than good to the cause of ham radio.

A string of movies including Phenomenon in 1996, Contact 1997 and Frequency 2000 all concerned the supernatural, with amateur radio merely playing a convenient part of the storyline.

It's time for amateur radio to be portrayed accurately in a movie, or even a television soap opera using young actors.

Perhaps there is a script writer, film industry executive, actor or someone else with influence who can make it happen - after all aren't dreams what movies are made from?

Jim Linton VK3PC.

Source: Wireless Institute of Australia

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