In the Details at Jock's

Jock Lindsey's Hanger Bar

One of the hallmarks of Walt Disney Imagineering is their attention to detail. In a recent posting Stephanie Pashowsky takes us on a delicious visual tour of the new Jock Lindsey's Hangar Bar at Disney Springs. I love aviation and old radios, so some of her images are more than just eye candy for me.

Jock's Radios

The Indiana Jones saga covers a lot of ground chronologically; Temple of Doom was set in 1935, Raiders of the Lost Ark was set in 1936, and Last Crusade was circa 1938. Crystal Skull was two decades later in 1957, so I was curious about how well the Imagineers did at getting the radio gear right.

Stephanie's image (above) shows three pieces of equipment if you include the microphone. The radio on the top is a Hallicrafters SX-99, a four band single conversion general coverage HF receiver which was in production in 1957 - so they are spot on with the a Crystal Skull radio selection.

Hallicrafters SX-99 (1957)

The radio on the bottom is a Hallicrafters, S-20R although the grill and the knob below it are different. The microphone is also plugged into the headphone jack. BTW - this radio made another appearance in Some Like it Hot, the 1959 comedy film starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown, when Osgood Fielding III makes a ship-to-shore telephone call to the hotel, with his feet propped up on a S-20R. This radio is *close* to the date for Last Crusade, but the S-16, S-20, S-21 S-22, SX-16, SX-17, or SX-18 would have been spot on.

Hallicrafters S-20R (1939)

The S-20R Sky Champion was made from 1939-1945 and sold for $49.50. It was the first in a long line of receivers, running from the S-40 (1946-1955), to the S-85 (1955-1959), and finally the S-108 (1959-1961). It covered frequencies from 540 Khz to 44 Mhz and had bandspread tuning, Automatic Volume Control, Automatic Noise Limiting, a Beat Frequency Oscillator, three-position tone control and a headphone jack!

The microphone appears to be an Astatic D-104. The earliest were made about 1933 and continued in production with little change until the 1960s.

In 1935, the era of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Hallicrafters offered the S-7 and SX-9, but neither of them are particularly photogenic.

The next year, 1936, Raiders of the Lost Ark, featured the S-9, S-10, S-14, SX-10, SX-11 and SX-12.

If you were looking for the iconic radios of the era, you'd would have to include SX-17 and the SX-28.

Hallicrafters SX-17 (1938)

If I had to pick one radio that represents the peak of the Hallicrafter's World War II era offerings it would have to the be SX-28.  Introduced in 1940, this radio has enough knobs, switches and dials to keep any one busy for days. This radio almost defines the term "boatanchor" which is the nickname many vacuum tube radio fans use to describe equipment from this era.

 Hallicrafters SX-28 (1940)