Amateur radio was part of this week's episode of AMC's "Halt and Catch Fire".
In the opening part, the character Gordon had set up his ham shack in a closet in his house and he was fiddling with his transceiver. He says it was home-brew, but it was really an FT-101B, which I found rather amusing. I thought I recognized the radio and, when I looked closely during the replay of that episode, the model number could be clearly seen.
I'm sure his on-air manner would have branded him as a lid, unless such behaviour was permitted 30 years ago when the episode is supposed to be set.
One thing I found odd was that it sounded like he was operating AM as I think he was on HF. I remember when AM was common on those bands where I grew up but that was during the mid-1960s. I thought that by the 1980s, SSB was the main voice mode.
He was having problems making contacts, and his wife suggested that maybe a lot of hams were possibly on-line. In the mid-'80s? I'm not so sure about that, even though there were dial-in services and bulletin boards available back then (I was active on a CompuServe space board at the time). Even the use of the term "on-line" seems a bit suspicious, as I don't recall it ever being used in those days.
Anyway, I thought it was interesting that amateur radio was part of this week's story, despite some questionable details. Unfortunately, nothing about satellites.
73s
Bernhard VA6BMJ @ DO33FL