Historical Events on the radio.

[Dispatrick]

If you could travel back in time with a radio and listen to a historical event in real time which would it be? I would have loved to listened to WW2 radio communications. air to air comms in dogfights, Pearl Harbor, D-Day.

 

[majoco]

I was listening to the VoA on my Marconi R1475 on the 22nd November 1963 when President Kennedy was shot in Dallas. I rushed downstairs to tell my Dad and he didn't believe me at first until he saw it on the TV.

 

[Whiskey3JMC]

I've listened to the FDNY 9/11 tapes on quite a few September 11th's. It amazes me how John Lightsey retained his composure and coordinate communication ops throughout the most horrific terror event on American soil, truly a legendary dispatcher. Can't imagine what it must have been like listening to it all unfold on a scanner

 

[a417]

Moon landing, and the original broadcast of Orson Welles' War of the Worlds.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

Great question and so far excellent answers. How about 1978 NYC blackout.

 

[krokus]

Detroit riots

 

[doctordialtone]

Orson Welles' War of the Worlds

Wow! You're old!

The War of the Worlds (1938 radio drama)

 

[a417]

C'mon @doctordialtone, I was given the opportunity to travel thru time!

 

[rcool101]

My brother in law was at my house with my sister in law early in 1978. He was turning knobs and spinning dials on my Yaesu FT101EX and called me to listen to what he found. Some guy on 40 meters with a small crowd cheering behind him and asking someone about Political Asylum. It was like he was an evangelist....Found out 2 years later after the mass murders thru a communications rag it was The Rev Jim Jones in Jonestown Guyana...we had no idea at the time. who it was at the time we heard him...The death toll was over 900 men women and children.

 

[trentbob]

It would be interesting to hear the one VHF low-band simplex dispatch frequency of the Dallas Police during the Kennedy assassination.

Apparently for a brief time one of the motorcycle cops had an open mic during the actual shooting and the number of shots could be counted.

Also when Oswald allegedly shot officer JD Tippit a citizen got on the radio to call it in.

I know there are tapes of these Radio Calls but I would like to hear the entire thing without anything scrubbed or taken out of it.

 

[AB4BF]

There are many historical radio transmissions that I would like to hear, like the old radio shows on the AM and SW bands in the '30s, through the '50s. I would like to have listened to WW2 from the beginning to the end. Also, the Korean war...

But, most of all, I'd like to hear is the reception of signals and transmission of answers to the signals Nikola Tesla said he received and answered at the turn of the last century to alleged space beings. WOW! As far as I know Tesla was the only one at the time experimenting with voice communication into space.

 

[KK4JUG]

Those things are all good (and I remember some of them) but I also enjoyed the chance to get away from my world by listening to things like Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve, Jack Benny, Amos and Andy, Gunsmoke, Dragnet, Mr. & Mrs. North, etc. on the radio. I spent many hours in front of that old Crosley console radio. (And, I still get to listen to many of them on satellite radio. One technology morphed into another.)

Yes, I'm old! Don't go there.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

KK4JUG one way to do that is find some of those old programs on YOUTUBE then plug an FM transmitter and listen to them on your scanner or vintage radio. Just a thought.

 

[hiegtx]

It would be interesting to hear the one VHF low-band simplex dispatch frequency of the Dallas Police during the Kennedy assassination.

Apparently for a brief time one of the motorcycle cops had an open mic during the actual shooting and the number of shots could be counted.

Also when Oswald allegedly shot officer JD Tippit a citizen got on the radio to call it in.

I know there are tapes of these Radio Calls but I would like to hear the entire thing without anything scrubbed or taken out of it.

That would have been interesting. At the time of the event, I was at lunch at my Jr. High (now usually referred to as 'middle school'). They called us into the auditorium, instead of letting us go outside after eating, and announced the shooting. At that time, JFK's condition was not yet confirmed. That came later, over the P.A., when we were back in class.

I did listen & record multiple hours of transmissions during the July 7th, 2016, shootings in downtown Dallas, where 5 officers were killed. That was a tense time locally.

 

[ten13]

I've listened to the FDNY 9/11 tapes on quite a few September 11th's. It amazes me how John Lightsey retained his composure and coordinate communication ops throughout the most horrific terror event on American soil, truly a legendary dispatcher. Can't imagine what it must have been like listening to it all unfold on a scanner

I was not impressed with his operation.

At times he was unable to take even limited control of the radio, stopping to listen and reply to redundant and inane radio transmissions at the scene. He let the field take control of the radio instead of himself. It sounded at times that, despite the nervousness of his voice, he was unaware of the scope and magnitude of the situation, and treated it as just another high-rise fire, using rote statements to address serious and potentially serious situations he became aware of.

I was waiting for him to ask, "Division One, is the fire still doubtful?", and what the surrounding properties were.

Depending on the crew at hand, I would have taken him off the radio. But, if I remember correctly, he replaced someone else, which means that's the best they could do.

 

[skidplate]

Waco, tx

 

[trentbob]

That would have been interesting. At the time of the event, I was at lunch at my Jr. High (now usually referred to as 'middle school'). They called us into the auditorium, instead of letting us go outside after eating, and announced the shooting. At that time, JFK's condition was not yet confirmed. That came later, over the P.A., when we were back in class.

I did listen & record multiple hours of transmissions during the July 7th, 2016, shootings in downtown Dallas, where 5 officers were killed. That was a tense time locally.

Yep you have a few years on me, I would have been 10 years old in November of 1963 in grade school. With us we just had an early dismissal without an explanation. My mom like many moms did not work and stayed home as a housewife.

It was not until I got in the door that she told me what happened. Stuck to the TV Like Glue from that point on.

Yes the 2016 shootings were awful and very frustrating as everyone knew who was behind it. Very frustrating for many in the country. I can imagine monitoring that event live time.

 

[hiegtx]

Yep you have a few years on me, I would have been 10 years old in November of 1963 in grade school. With us we just had an early dismissal without an explanation. My mom like many moms did not work and stayed home as a housewife.

It was not until I got in the door that she told me what happened. Stuck to the TV Like Glue from that point on.

Yes the 2016 shootings were awful and very frustrating as everyone knew who was behind it. Very frustrating for many in the country. I can imagine monitoring that event live time.

It did get quite hectic.

And in 2015, we had the guy, in what used to be a mobile-check cashing van, opened fire on DPD headquarters. That van was more or less an armored car. He was chased down I-45, tires were spiked along the line, He pulled into a Jack-in-the-Box on Hutchins, and stopped back behind it. That chase and the stand-off that followed was also heavy radio use between agencies.

 

[cbehr91]

Being a railfan I would like to go back to the early days of widespread use of railroad radio (60s, 70s) when towers were more prevalent, and when you only needed a small handful of frequencies for each railroad.

On another note, for those wishing to hear stuff from the Kennedy assassination there are some Dallas Police radio tapes on YouTube.

 

[CrabbyMilton]

The JFK assassination would have been very sad to hear on the scanner. It was about a year before I was born but I grew up hearing details of it. We've all seen Walter Cronkite breaking the news on CBS. However, I would recommend pulling up both the ABC and NBC coverage.
Those anchors were scrambling with bad connections and being caught off guard but they still maintained a professional attitude.