Watching TV

The other day I was watching Macgyver while visiting with my mother, since there really isn't a whole lot to do over there without any internet/cell phone access.  And my vehicle was in the shop!  Trapped!  Ha ha!  I love visiting my mother and brothers, but get a bit panicky without my own transportation.  Maybe I should pre-position a bicycle there!

Anyway, we were watching season 1 episode 18 titled "Ugly Duckling".  You can probably find it on YouTube or something and watch it if you want.

About 26 or so minutes in we find Macgyver and the very smart teen Kate (Darcy Marta) suddenly trapped and under attack by the bad guys.  Mac grabs a piece of equipment off the shelf and hooks it up to a large speaker to make a sonic weapon.  And it works, the bad guys clap their hands over their ears and can't shoot, until, well, you'll just have to watch it!

Anyway, again, when I saw Mac grab that piece of equipment I said "That is not an audio oscillator, that is a Collins S-line radio transmitter!"

I looked it up, compared stills from the show with pictures from the 'net, and that is just what it is, a Collins 32S-1 transmitter.


Here is the back panel of the transmitter. I think the AC power line comes out of that little hole down there on the right.

Here is the back side of the "audio generator" on the show.  Looks pretty similar!  Looks like he just plugged a cable into the "anti VOX" jack, what ever that is.  VOX is Voice Operated eXchange (which I did not know, I thought the "X" was for "transmitter"), but I don't get the "anti".

Another rear view of it sitting on the Large Speaker!

Here is the front panel of the transmitter.  Don't forget these are thumbnails, you can click the image to see the full size, or just mouse over it for a preview if you have an extension like Thumbnail Zoom Plus installed in Firefox. It's a wonderful thing!

Macgyver seems to be adjusting the exciter tuning...

And now he is adjusting the VFO (the "tuner").  Note that the meter on the right is only pointing at around the 100-something line. Are those microamps or milliamps?  I can never remember!

Whoa, the meter is pegged now!!

But, sadly, it only works while it is still plugged in, and so here we see the bad guys have bonked Magyver on the head and made off with the girl-who-knows.

Thanks for reading!

The images of the front and rear panels were found 

using Google Image Search.

All images from the television show are copyrighted

 by someone and used without explicit permission.