Morse Code 'CQ' Call in Star Trek: "The Space Seed"
Star
Trek is famous for its technical faux pas repertoire, but the writers did manage to get in some impressively
accurate scenes once in a while as well. Melanie and I were watching "The Space Seed" last night when a familiar dah-dit-dah-dit
dah-dah-dit-dah (CQ) began playing in the opening
scene (hear it in the video clip below). 'CQ' is the general broadcast by an operator
searching for conversation. Accompanying it is one of the few times where Mr. Spock gets something wrong even though
his assessment of the situation is 'logical.' Captain Kirk couldn't help poking fun at him. In this episode from the
1967 television series, the notorious Khan is introduced. He does not reemerge until 1982 in "The Wrath of Khan."
The old boy Ricardo Montalban aged quite
a bit in those ensuing 15 years.
I have always liked the Captain James Tiberius
Kirk character because he was portrayed as a man of virtue: moral, fair, brave, compassionate, loyal, selfless,
ethical, principled. He was a good role model for boys (and men). Don't get me started on the weenie-fied, fault-filled,
self-doubting, emotionally challenged men that seem to dominate today's shows.
RF Cafe began life in 1996 as "RF Tools"
in an AOL screen name web space totaling 2 MB. Its primary purpose was to provide
me with ready access to commonly needed formulas and reference material while performing
my work as an RF system and circuit design engineer. The World Wide Web (Internet)
was largely an unknown entity at the time and bandwidth was a scarce commodity.
Dial-up modems blazed along at 14.4 kbps while tying up your telephone line,
and a lady's voice announced "You've Got Mail" when a new message arrived...
