Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Walkie - Talkie!


Speaking of Pirates......

Back in 1968 my friend Paul aquired a 27mhz walkie - talkie like the one above. In those days these were illigal and could not be bought in shops. I seem to remember that he won a set of these at Bingo at Pontins! These things were pretty nasty...range of about 100 yards and a super-regen receiver that created a huge amount of noise. Paul lived about 200 yards down the street from me and with the walkie-talkie's own telescopic aerial it just didn't reach bedroom to bedroom. So I decided that if I connected my own outside longwire aerial to the walkie- talkie we should be able to increase the range. It did! I could sit in my bedroom and talk to Paul in his own bedroom - brilliant!!
So one afternoon my Dad came into my bedroom to see what I was up to, I was talking to Paul on the walkie-talkie. As a joke, my Dad took the walkie - talkie and said "Hello...Victor...Victor...netting started..."
Paul was shocked...he thought the Police were on to use!
My Dad carried on with this for a while until Paul came running up the street heading for our house. We played on a bit longer before telling him it was my Dad winding him up!
We used these walkie-talkies for a while until one night I had a knock on the door from a woman who lived at the back of us. Their Television was completely blanked out. When I went round to investigate, I discovered that it was the RECEIVER that caused the problem not the transmitter. It seems that when the receiver was running every television in the neighbourhood was wiped out. Details of the walkie-talkie are here:
Needless to say I soon closed down and hid the beasts!!
Nowadays walkie-talkies and other 27 Mhz equipment is legal and can be bought anywhere. I now have several remote-controlled airplanes digitally controlled. Great!
This website is fantastic some super retro stuff here that brings back memories!

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