Batboard

There have been many production co.s that are too cheap to get the proper radios. They just use old speaker mics.

Several production co.s have called freinds of mine that rent radios to motion picture/TV production companies, and are just buying up old speaker mics.

Jonathan KC8RYW wrote: Be sure to fit the radio model to the character. A security guard wouldn't be using an Astro Saber. They'd be using an SP-50, or some other cheap r

Not exactly Astro Sabers, but back when I was a security guard we used Maxtracs and P200's.

Jonathan KC8RYW wrote:
A security guard wouldn't be using an Astro Saber. They'd be using an SP-50

Well I went from using a maxtrac with telephone interconnect along with a P100, then a SP50, now years later I'm using a MTX9000 B7. I guess things do get better

i think it was the terminal or one of those airport movies, or maybe it was the interpeter that seemed like a motorola commercial to me.

something about how every time someone used a radio, i think they were either xts's or ht1250's, they had it glued to the front of their face so the motorola label on the back of the radio was smack dab in the middle of the screen in all its glory.

My all time favorite screw up was in Striking Distance with Bruce Willis, where in the begining he is a car chase, and his father in the movie is callling into dispatch using the PA Mic of their Federal Signal PA300 siren. And when they finally stop the car he uses the same mic to order the suspect out of the car. OOPS! Still a great movie, though.

In germany they use more and more authentical police radios, here these are radios specially developed for german police/fire/rescue use. They just are missing that the handhelds nowadays are MTS2000 or Waris, they still use the older stuff from the seventies, what today is only used by some smaller firefighter units. Of course it looks more police-ish, green colour (in germany the colour of the police is still green, but they are moving to blue).
Regarding full duplex, in germany this is mandatory for the car radios, so it is authentical when they have a handset - but still they forget to press the PTT on the handset to activate the transmitter :-)

Has anyone ever considered that they put errors into the movies... so a few years after its out, people will rent the movie again, so they can pick it apart (a few more buck in rentals or sales maybe)...



Nah, movie makers do not think that far ahead...

as to all of the cross band radios not working with each other, I make alot of $$$$.$$ doing just that for people...you want your 800mhz trunking system to talk with a 150 band radio, how much would that be worth to you ? cuz I can make it happen...

with all of the gaping plot holes in most of the swill that's produced nowadays I am 100% certain that ignorance is the only possible reason for the goofy radio usage in most films

Does anyone know what the show "Reno 911" uses now? Before they used 800MHz System Saber 3's, then they went to these black radios with aftermarket mics on them. (They look like the "Trooper" style one that Pryme makes).

Rayjk110 wrote:Does anyone know what the show "Reno 911" uses now? Before they used 800MHz System Saber 3's, then they went to these black radios with aftermarket mics on them. (They look like the "Trooper" style one that Pryme makes).

On a side note...some real NYPD officers (POs, not Sergeants or above) shelf out the money themselves and buy those ebay speaker mics on their Sabers. Probably not the greatest idea but when you are running 10 blocks and try to chase down a perp and turns out you need to yank out your 3lb saber for help, you probably want a speaker mic handy!

Jonathan KC8RYW wrote: Be sure to fit the radio model to the character. A security guard wouldn't be using an Astro Saber. They'd be using an SP-50, or some other cheap r

Some guards up this way are known to carry GE/Ericssson MPA radios with the long dipole antenna and high-cap battery. Size wise, it's bigger than an Astro Saber with the VHF wide-band antenna and high-cap battery. Pretty damn gawdy if you ask me.

dxon2m wrote:On a side note...some real NYPD officers (POs, not Sergeants or above) shelf out the money themselves and buy those ebay speaker mics on their Sabers. Probably not the greatest idea but when you are running 10 blocks and try to chase down a perp and turns out you need to yank out your 3lb saber for help, you probably want a speaker mic handy!

It ain't just NYPD officers that shell out their own money for speaker mics and spare batteries for their radios... you can add LAPD, LAFD, LASD, and probably every other agency that has a beancounter buying the radio systems and not someone who has real-life experience ! Most of them are smart enough to go OEM or equivalent but just cus they are a cop doesn't mean they aren't chea... errr frugal

Radio goofs I know off-hand....

"The Manhattan Project"....near the end of the movie, the SWAT team is in the facility, carrying MX300Rs....and holding them to their heads like it's a damned telephone! That's a nice way to go deaf when the dispatcher
shouts "I can't hear you!" right in your ear.


"BMX Bandits"....incidentally, Nicole Kidman's first movie. More than one scene shows an actor holding an MX radio and "talking" on it...but there's no battery.


"Short Circuit"...the Micor control head on the dashboard of the panel truck
isn't connected to anything at all.


In one of the Lethal Weapon movies, people are talking to each other on portable radios that are in different bands. VHF for one guy, UHF for another. Not impossible, with a cross-band repeater, but not probable, either.


In a movie I can't quite name, a girl needs to do some MacGyver stunt to try to make the elevator she and others are trapped in, start moving again. So she gets the security guard to hand over his high power HT-220. Inside it, she finds a handful of wires...I've never seen so much
wire in an HT-220!

No idea what movie that was.


Elroy

Elroy Jetson wrote:"Short Circuit"...the Micor control head on the dashboard of the panel truck
isn't connected to anything at all.

Elroy

That's because the Indian guy was so smart, he invented a primative version of Bluetooth, and it's connected wirelessly!

Elroy Jetson wrote:"BMX Bandits"....incidentally, Nicole Kidman's first movie. More than one scene shows an actor holding an MX radio and "talking" on it...but there's no battery.

They weren't radios NSW Police were using at the time, either.