Has anyone noticed? Life on Mars - Use of portables

[George]

On the (new) hit ABC show Life on Mars, has anyone noticed the portables they use?

I am dead certain they are MT500 and should be HT220 for the era. The knobs are wrong.

They seem to be going out of their way to not show the portables much.

I was working on MT500 in 1985 and the HT220 would have been appropriate for 1973.

[LVGUY]

Yeah, I noticed that also.
We had a combination of HT220's, HT200's and HT220 OMNI's in Queen's area unit's.
I have in my old radio collection a working pair of original NYPD HT220's (2) Channel and a HT200 Omni also an original and the all have the Pct markings
I will post some pictures of them soon.

[MTS2000des]

noticed the wrong knobs, reminded me of many episodes of "Hawaii 5-0" with the HT220's with NO KNOBS on them!

I still have an original Atlanta PD HT220 public safety model, no speaker/mike in the radio, it has a PSM only. It still works, 6F model with their old 460 channels in it. Original date codes on it say March of 1972. APD was using these up until late 1994 when they went to their current analog Smartnet II 800 system. They also used Sabers. APD detectives carried VHF MT500's until their switch to 800- weird arrangement, APD CID stayed on VHF for interoperability with the state and other metro counties (including Fulton) who until the late 80's, were primarily VHF. The VHF CID channels were patched into the UHF repeaters (F6 IIRC). Those were the days indeed.

[RadioSouth]

Yep, guess the MT500's were standout to us radio guys. Also noticed they were sporting VHF antenna's, they/ve been on UHF-T for as long as I can remember. (Also the precinct #'s were way off).

[LVGUY]

Re: UHF

They were mainly on VHF in the 60's through the 70's
I don't remember when they did a complete change to T-Band but I will find out and post it.

[LVGUY]

Here's my NYPD HT220 OMNI, This was assinged to the 114 PCT. in Astoria, Queens and it look's like it didn't see much use. It still is working and has the original crystals.

[George]

You may want to keep those pictures to yourself because NYPD may want their radio back considering how well their stuff works these days...NOT!

If this were FDNY, no contest...they WILL take it back from you!

[Tom in D.C.]

In the 60s NYPD was using HT220 slimlines in Manhattan South for foot patrols.
When I left there in 1977 I think they were still on VHF but shortly after that
started the migration to UHF. As can be seen from the photo, many of the 220s
were convertacom units. Coverage with the slimline radios was awful and there
were few remote receivers and those that existed were pretty far apart. A common
scene was a footman standing at the scene beating the hell out of his 220 trying
to get it to work. Never did any good but I guess it made the guy less frustrated.

[RadioSouth]

Now that you guys mention it I remember as a kid the cops had a 'client' that I overheard was 'Motorola'd' and the cops antenna was stretched out over 2 feet, so yeah that had to be VHF and I guess during that era they weren't good for much else. About 1980
everything was UHF-T and the radio of the day was MX series. Later on when the switch was made to Sabers they were SP one watt with those huge 4595 type battery. Both the MX's and Sabers had rattails. Very few mobiles in use (used by other than precinct units) and those were those clamshell head radios and later Spectra's.

[LVGUY]

Here are my pair of Original NYPD HT220's that still work. One is marked 52 SNEU which stands for 52 Pct.Street Narcotics Enforcement Unit and the other is marked MSTF. Both are channeled alike.

[N9LLO]

I am going to whore in on this thread to say I am looking for a slimline HT220 in good shape for my collection, any band. Please PM or email me at [email protected].

Chris
N9LLO

[FireCpt809]

I still have an HT210 omni 2 Freq It was a black HT220.. It was my first radio as a fire officer. When my FD upgraded to HT600's in the early 90's we traded the 210 into a dealer. I found it later at a hamfest in a box and paid $10 for it. The battery is shot. But I have powered it up on the bench it still puts out 5w.

[griegert]

Good eyes, I had to run the DVR back several times on that jumper episode to confirm it was an MT500. Even worse I saw a cellular antenna on one of their old undercover cars! Speaking of vintage Ht220's, anyone know where I can get an original VHF telescoping whip for one? I want to complete my HT220 collection with a whip. Greg W6GRG

[billy7834]

Anyone catch the last episode? There was a scene with the portable being used up close. Looking a lot like a 220 omni.

[txshooter]

I have several gang chargers for these still sitting in storage if anyone needs one. You pay the shipping...

[alex]

Just FYI - MSTF is Manhattan South Task Force if you didn't already know, google, or otherwise figure that out.

Also, to revive an old post - http://batboard.batlabs.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=2381 covers a lot of portables in the movies and if I recall - a number of posts about the Jurassic Park sabers.

-Alex