Tony Hancock. "The Radio Ham".

[WaveyDipole]

I recently came across a Hancock recording on a PYE record dated 1961 entitled 'The Radio Ham'. It starts with our radio enthusiast drooling over a new valve he has just bought for his radio. He then goes on to make all sorts of contacts and gets into a pickle when he intercepts a mayday call and is incessantly interrupted every time he tries to note down the unfortunate victims co-ordinates. I thought it was an unusual topic for a comedy sketch but all good humour nevertheless. I would have been just one year old when it was recorded, yet here I am finding it funny some 53 years later!

Just wondered if anyone had heard it before?

If so, perhaps you can decipher this 'TECHNICAL DATA' on the back of the sleeve:
"Recorded by a Grindley Gibbons Mark Two Panovistic microphone incorporating ecliptical suspension bars with two overhead valves, Sansom and Margrave condensers with hand ground tappets, disc brakes, and twin exhaust pipes. Three hundred megacycles on a frequency of two thousand bicycles providing an output of 0000.003 volts to the square inch with a noise ratio of ten to one at half volume giving an annual fall out of 97 units."
(Still plays on a standard record player at 33 and a third RPM though)

It then goes on to advise:

"For best results wipe the surface after every playing with a piece of best quality emery cloth" (Don't try this at home!)

[HamishBoxer]

The Radio Ham is excellent,think it is though just the video version i have seen.

[Sideband]

I remember this when it first was aired although I was only around 8 at the time but my older brother was a huge fan . He was also a radio ham and could 'connect' with the situation. Of course I didn't really understand any of it but in later years 'rediscovered' it. Sounded even funnier then because it was so technically inaccurate. I've got the original Pye recording somewhere, the 'b' side is 'The Blood Donor' which is just as funny.


Rich


*On receiving the Mayday call....'Mayday, Mayday'?? That was weeks ago. It's nearly June'!

[mark pirate]

Excellent sketch Tony Hancock was a true comedy genius.For those of you who have never heard it, or would like to hear it again, it is on Youtube.

Mark

[WaveyDipole]

Yesterday was the first time I have ever heard it.
Haven't listened to 'The Blood Donor ' yet. saving that for another day....

[Radio Wrangler]

I think the record was a spin off from the original Hancock's Half Hour.

Paul Merton did a recent version of it.

There's been very little about amateur radio on radio or TV. There was a dramatisation about a solo yachtsman pretending to be in the southern ocean which put radio amateurs in rather a bad light.


Three hundred megacycles? That's almost a whole armful.
David

[WaveyDipole]

mark_pirate, didn't realise they might be on YouTube. Thanks for mentioning it. Had a look and there are a few of them on there.

PS, Yes, the record is an audio presentaton of the TV series Hancocks Half Hour.

[Herald1360]

Originally Posted by WaveyDipole

If so, perhaps you can decipher this 'TECHNICAL DATA' on the back of the sleeve:
"Recorded by a Grindley Gibbons Mark Two Panovistic microphone incorporating ecliptical suspension bars with two overhead valves, Sansom and Margrave condensers with hand ground tappets, disc brakes, and twin exhaust pipes. Three hundred megacycles on a frequency of two thousand bicycles providing an output of 0000.003 volts to the square inch with a noise ratio of ten to one at half volume giving an annual fall out of 97 units."
(Still plays on a standard record player at 33 and a third RPM though)

It then goes on to advise:

"For best results wipe the surface after every playing with a piece of best quality emery cloth" (Don't try this at home!)

That's a classic piece of technogobbledegook- a small portion of radio with a large helping of motoring jargon and what looks like a side dish of radiation reference, topped of with some audiophoolery.

[WaveyDipole]

I did like the mention of a noise ratio of ten to one at half volume together with the advice to wipe the surface with an emery cloth! I'm sure that would improve said ratio!

[AC/HL]

If you search for Pye Radio on eBay, the results usually include several listings.

[trh01uk]

Sadly, "The Radio Ham" has largley shaped the public's view and understanding of amateur radio. And equally unfortunately - its rather accurate for many hams......


Richard

[HamishBoxer]

It would seem the Pye record is the original and others are reissuses.

[Nymrod121]

My first broadcast engineering appointment was at the Crowsley Park facility of the BBC Monitoring Service (headquartered at Caversham Park near Reading).

Our duties included the reception of off-air high-frequency* broadcasts from Voice of America and Radio Canada International for relay purposes (via Woofferton and Daventry respectively).

During 1979-80, RCI broadcast a number of 'Hancock's Half Hour' episodes (including 'The Radio Ham') and my evening/night shifts "on relays" were livened up considerably as a result!

Regrettably, someone in the BBC copyright department realised that a legal problem was arising and RCI's rebroadcasting of the series was stopped ... much to my dismay.

Best wishes
Guy

*For David (R.W.)'s benefit - that's somewhere between a fortieth and a fourteenth of an armful

[camtechman]

The bit that tickled me when I first saw the broacast (when I were but a sprog) was: "It is are raining not here also" .I think it was in reply to a Japanese ham ?

[Anthony Thomas]

The Radio amator and many other of Tony Hancocks excellent comedy were unashamedly copied into Norwegian and Played by Rolf Vesenlund or Marvin Fleksnes. Here is a link to a viewing of this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sNdzf_U6zE

Rather sadly a bonafide Norwegian was allotted his call sign LA8PV and was so troubled by mickeytakers that he had his callsign changed.
Here is a link to that story:http://www.amateurradio.com/the-radi...own-call-sign/

I met this amator a few years ago and he lives in the next town along the coast from me.

[Junk Box Nick]

Originally Posted by trh01uk

Sadly, "The Radio Ham" has largley shaped the public's view and understanding of amateur radio.

I remember in the 1970s, when Hancock was still fresh in many minds, and you could still get a copy of the record in Boots or Woollies, that a major gripe of the amateur fraternity was how when talking to any member of the public about the hobby they immediately referenced Tony Hancock.

Even back then, amateurs were seen as a quirky fraternity who strung up wires in their gardens that would interfere with your telly and, unfortunately, the hugely funny Hancock didn't help.

As such, like trainspotters and other groups that have subsequently become termed 'anoraks', amateurs were ripe for mickey taking.

[AC/HL]

Has the term "Ham" been rehabilitated, I seem to remember that many didn't like it?

[SiriusHardware]

Originally Posted by AC/HL

Has the term "Ham" been rehabilitated, I seem to remember that many didn't like it?

"I've got friends all over the world!...

...none here, but all over the world!"

Doesn't really put us in a good light, does it?

[Radio Wrangler]

Still don't.

It either comes out of the same mould as 'Ham' actors, or it implies that the person using the term can't manage the word 'amateur'.... which seems can be spelled correctly by as many people as 'bakelite'

David

[MotorBikeLes]

I remember a not very bright chap (a dustbin man by "profession") who took an interest in radio as well as his then popular a.m. car tranceiver use. He did not appreciate the way he was "put down" by a local amateur. He referred to "them" as "Hamature hams". All very sad, but he was a business oportunity to whom I sold an old B18 (I think that was the model), and if I recall, Chas Miller later sold him a rather more upmarket USA made ex services valve set. (Memory lapse means I will remember the well known designation some time after posting this).
Les.