WWII radio plays WWII broadcasts!

[OvenMaster]

http://news.stv.tv/scotland/tayside/...r-raf-station/

[Sandy G]

Reminds me of the obscure 1980-81 TV series "Darkroom"...They had a story about an old radio that picked up WW2...Fella acted on it, fell asleep & found out he'd changed history...Germany won WW2...

[David Roper]

That Darkroom episode was very good. The motivation of the guy receiving the ghostly signals was to prevent the death of his father--who had been killed during the war. Oops--unintended consequences!

I wonder who the third guy was...that is, the one watching that episode besides myself and Sandy. :P

[Sandy G]

I LOVED the "Denouement"-Out of kilter music-Cleveland Deutschlander- Mercedes & Volkswagens-"Guten Tag, Hauptmann Schindler !"....Mbwahahahahaha...That series should have done a LOT better than it did...

[electroking]

They should plug it in, that would boost the volume!

[truetone36]

I remember that episode of Darkroom, he was recieving the signals on a crystal set, IIRC.

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Reminds me of the obscure 1980-81 TV series "Darkroom"...They had a story about an old radio that picked up WW2...Fella acted on it, fell asleep & found out he'd changed history...Germany won WW2...

There was a similar plot for an old "Amazing Stories" (or "Twilight Zone")from the mid 1980's. It was about a guy in his early 40's who had a wife and family, he wished his father did not die in World War II. I think he had a ham radio radio set where he stumbled across the ship his father was on before it was torpedoed. He sent a warning to the boat through the time barrier (or whatever). He went ot bed and woke up with his elderly parents running a butchershop. It was labeled "Fleischerei," German for "butcher shop" and saw an SS officer come in and warmly greet his parents while picking up his order. The man found out he was single, had no family and worked with his parents in a butchershop in a 1980's era German occupied America. It freaked me out.

[Sandy G]

What you're describing IS the "Darkroom" episode to a "T". It was only on one, maybe one & a half xseasons, & IIRC, they "jerked it around" on time slots, so you never knew when it was gonna show up. I think the main character was played by Lawrence Pressman, seems like he was in a fair amount of stuff back then, usually as a "Harried Dad" type.

[electronjohn]

Then there's "The Waveries"...a SF story I read as a little kid. Seems folks began picking up the letter "S" repeated over & over...then scraps of voice...bits of music...30s radio shows. Someone figured out that the initial signals were Marconi's first tests, followed by Fessenden's tests, early broadcasts...all in the order they were originally transmitted. By the time signals from close to the present day were beginning to show up, it was too late to stop THE ALIEN INVASION!!!!

[wa2ise]

I vaguely remember a TV show, in the early 80's, where a kid repairs an old tube car radio, and it picks up a station that appears to be playing music and programming from the 40's (when the radio was made). It turns out the kid replaced a coil (probably the local oscillator coil) with a wrong one, and that made the radio pick up a nostalgia SW station. And it was a nearby station, which had enough signal strength to barge its way past the MW antenna circuit, and also explained why only the one station could be tuned in. The kid became disappointed by this mundane explanation, as he though he created a time machine radio or such... Well, what do you expect of a plot written for a TV show...

[David Roper]

Props to Sandy for remembering Lawrence Pressman was the star of that episode. It was the second installment of Darkroom, broadcast 11/27/81:

Charlie Miller discovers that his crystal radio is in contact with the German U-boat that sunk the ship his father died on during World War II 30 years ago. Should he change the course of history and save his father?

[NowhereMan 1966]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

I vaguely remember a TV show, in the early 80's, where a kid repairs an old tube car radio, and it picks up a station that appears to be playing music and programming from the 40's (when the radio was made). It turns out the kid replaced a coil (probably the local oscillator coil) with a wrong one, and that made the radio pick up a nostalgia SW station. And it was a nearby station, which had enough signal strength to barge its way past the MW antenna circuit, and also explained why only the one station could be tuned in. The kid became disappointed by this mundane explanation, as he though he created a time machine radio or such... Well, what do you expect of a plot written for a TV show...

I believe it was "Nanny and the Professor," it was on from about 1970 to 1972. Hal was the oldest kid and was into science and electronics and he fixed Nanny's radio in her Model A, which she names Arabella. Nanny had low-level ESP where she foresaw things and so on.

[David Roper]

What a strange feeling. wa2ise's description didn't ring any bells at all with me, but when NowhereMan remembered it was an episode of Nanny And The Professor--ding!--I remember it too. Really quite something to recall something from such a young age that I hadn't thought of in nearly 40 years.

And thinking it would be great to refresh my memory, I checked hulu. They have 23 of the 26 second season episodes...and OF COURSE this is one of those that's missing!

[Bill Cahill]

Can't remember the movie, but, there was a story where an old man in a bording house took his old console early 30's radio up to see if it still worked. It did, and, he started receiving music, and, news from the time, he, and, his girl friend, the present keeper of the place, were dating.
She wouldn't believe it. Got rid of the radio. Angered, he bought it back, and, was listenning to it again.
She finally walked in during one boadcast, and, they started to dance. Next thing you know they are both young again, and, the radiolooked like it was new.
Happy ending, anyway.....
Bill Cahill

[Sandy G]

That was a "Twilight Zone" episode, "Static", IIRC, starring Dean Jagger, who always played an old curmudgeonly-type man. Another guy who was in it, I believe, was Robert Emhardt, who was seen frequently in early sixties TV, usually playing a mayor, or some sort of bigshot. His best remembered role was that of Mr Tucker, the harried executive who gets stranded in Mayberry on a Sunday afternoon when his Lincoln breaks down, in the episode "Man in a Hurry".