Ham radio in popular movies, always inaccurate, always illogical

OK, so I’m bored. I just got finished watching the DVD movie “Crimson Tide” (Danzel Washington & Gene Hackman ~1995) Great movie. Not exactly ham radio but military radio. There is a glaring discrepancy when the sub is receiving Emergency Action message (EAM) traffic while submerged on Extremely Low Frequency (ELF) The film show message traffic being received at what looks like about 300 baud. Not possible at this frequency. ELF was several characters per minute. (ELF was decommissioned several years ago) Even VLF will not support high speed data. But, … having said that, it is still a great movie.
Tom WA4ILH

 

I guess they could call an intermission for a leisurely trip to the lobby while they receive the entire message.

 

These are movies, time to move on.

 

Are you sure? It doesn't quite feel like it's time yet. After all, this must be the 10th post just like this in the last 2 years. Even more if you go back farther. People seem to enjoy discussing it, FWIW.

 

my movie teeth grinder: a plane is in trouble. it makes BRAP..BRAP..BRAPPP sounds.

there was, in fact a plane engine that did that. The Gnome LeRhone. a French engine with the crankshaft bolted to the firewall, and the prop bolted to the crankcase, and the whole furshlugginer contraption rotated. no throttle: wide open at all times. you reduced power for landing by interrupting the spark. They show modern, currently made aircraft doing this in moronic TV shows.

how did they find people stupid enough to hand-prop start those engines, and smart enough to get out of the way?

 

Ham radio is not portrayed accurately because to most people it would be boring. Also to the plot of most films, the actual way ham radio works is not important.
Kind of like portraying firefighting accurately in movies or TV. True portrayals of station life would be horribly boring. True portrayals of how it looks inside of a burning building wouldnt show up on screen. They change it it to make it appealing.

 

Accurately shown ANYTHING cannot be boring, let alone ham radio. It's just like pizza, or sex...

 

if they showed actual effective martial arts moves, people would get hurt. they show flashy ineffective moves, to avoid the inevitable lawsuits.

 

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