JetStream Mini vs Watergate Burglars

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zerg901

zerg901

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There is a Radio Shack "JetStream Mini" radio in this photo - Rarely seen photos from the Watergate break-in
- below the hand written note that says 'Mobile Crime Lab'. That JetStream Mini was able to receive AM broadcast stations and aircraft. I suspect that Alfred Baldwin thought that he had a Radio Shack "Patrolman Mini" (which looked identical). The Patrolman Mini hypothetically would have allowed Baldwin to listen to DC PD radio
transmissions


-----------------------------

I think the plumbers spent $19 buying the wrong radio.

1973 Radio Shack Catalog

Page 170 and 171 has the JetStream Mini which received the aircraft VHF band

Page 176 and 177 has the Patrolman Mini which received the police VHF band

LOL

--------------------------------------

CIA agent / Watergate burglar claimed that he was tying to disrupt an assassination plot -
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/05/09/watergate-burglars-account-his-crimes-and-what-it-tells-us-about-mueller-indictments/
 
RFI-EMI-GUY

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They had a ton of 35 MM film with them . I imagine they expected to spend hour copying documents.
 
RFI-EMI-GUY

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James McCords excuse of a story for his involvement in the Watergate break in is a bunch of hogwash. His deathbed "PowerPoint" was just a weak attempt by an old man to rewrite his sordid history. There was no grand plan to thwart an assassination attempt, it was pure political espionage to get dirt for Tricky Dicks reelection. The court did not buy his story 43 years ago, why should anyone buy it now.

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zerg901

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I think the National Archive in College Park Maryland has the portable radios used by the burglars. But they dont have the JetStream Mini. IIRC the emails that I swapped with them 2 years ago.

Recently I saw a mention that the Republican National Committee held the FCC radio license for the portable radios.

There was also a bug involved. I was told that reading the transcript of the trial might shed more light on how the radios and bugs were actually used.
 
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That transceiver was I believe a Bell and Howell 2-way radio (obviously modified) on a PS channel no less 154.815. The VA had a ton of them in the early to mid 70's in the 170mhz band. I like the 2 tone reeds (Murata) that were used to switch the bug on and off. Just wondering how you could get the bug to receive when it was transmitting to shut it off?
 
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RFI-EMI-GUY

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radioman2001 said:
That transceiver was I believe a Bell and Howell 2-way radio (obviously modified) on a PS channel no less 154.815. The VA had a ton of them in the early to mid 70's in the 170mhz band. I like the 2 tone reeds (Murata) that were used to switch the bug on and off. Just wondering how you could get the bug to receive when it was transmitting to shut it off?
Click to expand...
There is a pager like device shown that says Kel Com on the PCB and looks to have a similar control top to the Bell and Howell walkie talkie. It has a 7 volt battery in it.


I suspect that it was used in carrier squelch mode to provide the paging tones from the control radio to the bug. Pagers use a battery save feature to shut down and wake up which should give weeks of operations for the control.

Bell and Howell made small pagers back in the day.

I guess the bug itself transmitted on another frequency and was powered from a larger battery connected to the terminal strip.

This gear looks to be built by a 3 letter agency. A lot of mechanical assembly required. Not a radio shack project.

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This whole article is really interesting, looking at what was cutting edge spy stuff from the day. Defintely built by some three letter agency or a contractor to them. I knew someone who did this kind of stuff in the 80's and 90's.
I though most battery save functions for pagers didn't come into play until the Metrx series made in the late 70s (unless you count REACH who patented it in 1959) or unless that was done by the builder and not from the pager manufacturer.
 
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radioman2001 said:
This whole article is really interesting, looking at what was cutting edge spy stuff from the day. Defintely built by some three letter agency or a contractor to them. I knew someone who did this kind of stuff in the 80's and 90's.
I though most battery save functions for pagers didn't come into play until the Metrx series made in the late 70s (unless you count REACH who patented it in 1959) or unless that was done by the builder and not from the pager manufacturer.
Click to expand...
I think the battery save featute was subject to some patent infringement suits. It is really needed for any pager,

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zerg901

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Watergate Scandal Timeline - more info here about the Watergate burglary - now I see 2 radio failures - they didnt hear the cops getting dispatched on the JetStream Mini - and their HT to HT comms failed spectacularly
 
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This I found on Worthpoint about the B&H / GE Pocket Mate Walkie Talkies used. These were a popular ham radio conversion project in the 70s as they were surpluses out,.

Vintage
Bell & Howell

Walkie Talkie

Type 247

Not Tested

Parts or repair ONLY

Pre Owned

Shows signs of age and use

On my search for information about this walkie talkie I stumbled across information that this was used during the

Watergate Scandal!

POCKET MATE(1965-1969)

The Pocket Mate was GE's first actual hand-held radio and designed to compete with Motorola's HT-200 which had been introduced in early 1963. The Pocket Mate is believed to have been introduced about 1965 and is much smaller than competitor Motorola HT-200. The Pocket Mate is almost as bizarre in appearance as the Voice Commander or the Accent 450 radios. A peculiar captive telescopic whip antenna was permanently attached, and flipped upwards on the side of the radio to a vertical orientation. The round speaker in the front center also acted as the microphone, a design flop repeated by many designers over and over again throughout the 1960's and into the early 1970's, including the Motorola HT220. A round push-to-talk button near the top on one side completed the strange appearance of this ugly two-tone radio. The Pocket Mate was made only in VHF versions and is rare. They were also made under Bell & Howell and Kel-Com brand names in a dark, solid gray color style. The Pocket Mate was the radio found in the possession of the Watergate burglars during the famous Nixon era Watergate debacle. Some were apparently also used by the Secret Service and various covert agencies, which in retrospect leads me to pity them a bit for having to use what I think is a silly looking radio. For reasons unknown, the Pocket Mate and its relabeled versions are very rare today.

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zerg901

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I found this old info



http://www.dartmouth.org/classes/64/Obits/Horowitz-article.pdf

Jay Horowitz was a Boston educated Jewish lawyer - he questioned Nixon
during Watergate - he thought that Deep Throat should have been
prosecuted - and he sued the ADL (and won) when they supported Jewish
scannerists who eavesdropped on "anti Semite" neighbors in Evergreen
Colorado

this was no doubt back in the day when portable telephones operated on
46 and 49 Mhz - and were easy to receive on police scanners

I wonder if Jay Horowitz became familiar with scanners during his work
on Watergate?
 
zerg901

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radioman2001 said:
That transceiver was I believe a Bell and Howell 2-way radio (obviously modified) on a PS channel no less 154.815. The VA had a ton of them in the early to mid 70's in the 170mhz band. I like the 2 tone reeds (Murata) that were used to switch the bug on and off. Just wondering how you could get the bug to receive when it was transmitting to shut it off?
Click to expand...

RadioMan where did you get the 154.815 info? Did you post recently somewhere about these radios being licensed to the Republican National Committee?
 
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