TheSamba.com :: View topic - Cold War Era - The Beetle

Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:00 pm

For those of you (like me) too young to remember - CONELRAD was the predecesor to the "Emergency Broadcast System." Our bug's - and some busses - are pre 1964 - when CONELRAD was in existance. There is a GREAT poster at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cdb_prime_cvr.jpg. Where there any stickers to post above your car radio in existance? I may make a vinyl sticker for my 62 (so as to not hurt the paint) based on this sticker...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Cdb_prime_cvr.jpg

Notes to admins - sorry if this is the wrong forum for this - but hey - its kinda off topic - kinda on topic...

Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:02 pm

Maybe this should be in Off Topic or general/chat.

Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:39 pm

Sorry - didn't see that - been here forever never thought about it till now - if it gets moved - thats peachy

Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:59 pm

Hey Solexes (Ryan)?
Just thought I'd throw in I'm old enough to recall conelrad.
I spent thirty years in the Navy 1957 to 1987. I served in Japan from
1960 to 1963, returning to the states in November that year. As a matter of fact I was riding in a friends new '63 bus on my way to naval air station
Alameda, california, when I turned on the sapphire radio and learned president Kenedy had been shot in Dallas.
Anyway, I recall the radios of that period had "tick" marks to show where to turn for civil defense info and from time to time when you listened to the radio the program would be interupted for a test signal and directions where to turn for information.
I personaly don't ever recall seeing that decal in any government (navy)vehicles. And while i'm not the resident expert, I don't remember seeing it
in anyones personal vehicle either.
For what its worth, although I supported the civil defense effort. I don't think I would have looked favorably at a "hokey" decal like that stuck to the dash of my personal vehicle.
But then, thats just me. :D

Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:15 pm

Hey Mr. Mike~!

Yes - its Ryan BTW from the OTHER forum.

<cue=scary music>
As far as the CONELRAD - yes the tics were on radios - at least from 59-64? I remember my grandfather's 64 Chevrolet had them - he tried explaining what it meant - but I didn't know what CONELRAD was - and he was too busy driving at the time.

I know the CONELRAD poster I mentioned was not a sticker or anything - but I thought it might be a good reminder that the 60's were not ONLY about peace and brotherhood - but also about paranoia and the Red Scare.

My Uncle (Maj. George Lang) served from 1965 on until he retired in the late 80's. And he STILL wont talk about what all went on - and he was a medical helicopter pilot - but he will say "You don't want to know."

I may not want to know - or have those memories - but ignoring the past is - well - suffling it off under the carpet. Even the "hokey" decal is a reminder lest we forget.

I do recall being a kid in the 80's in elementary school and STILL doing Duck and Cover drills with my teachers. I remember the many "false alarms" we had in the 1980's due to Davis Monthon AFB in AZ having a new computer system. I also remember EBS tests - EVERY day.

I know now that the "precautionary" measures of the 1960's were little more than feel good campaigns. But - the CONELRAD marks are still on the radios from 1962 and other years.

*shrug*
</cue>
But in reality we all die sometime...and in 1962 - the "Fasten Seatbelts"
sign in a VW beetle in the US was about as safe as CONELRAD with all those Edsels, Fairlanes, and Impalas driving about. I just thought it might be semi period to have CONELRAD stickers in the car - along with that Fasten Seatbelts sticker from AAA to remind us as to how much times have changed.

1962 - While driving

Threats included
Pedestrians
Cars
Nuclear Bombs

To neutralise the threat
Horns
Lap belts, metal dashboards, horns, pop out glass
CONELRAD and Fall Out Shelters.

2008 while driving

Threats include
Pedestrians - Front and Rear impact sensors
Cars - front, side, rear air-bags, crumple zones, OnSTAR, ABS
Terrorist Threats - ??.

Thu Apr 03, 2008 8:48 pm

All my old VW radios had those marks.

School drills, and the monthly testing of air raid sirens in the San Fernando Valley (10AM last Friday of the month). Those sirens are disconnected, but still installed at many intersections. Convoy trucks labelled for the Nike missile bases that used to ring the valley would be used in parades. School films included how to surive in your bomb shelter, and how to open contaminated containers like cans and bread wrappers. Silliest was the drop and cover drills where the teacher would close the venetian blinds as if those would stop an atomic blast!

Thu Apr 03, 2008 9:07 pm

Sirens!!! I'd forgotten those...

Fun story - this is long btw.

My old HS - had a fallout shelter. Not a small one either. Enough for 1000 people. It was HUGE. It had many many rooms and covered most of the campus. I remember the "emergency student entrance" in the lower levels - with the large steel blast door and contrete wall. Or how about the three stories down into it????

Davis Monthon was a stratigic base - and my mom lived a few streets away when it Rincon was erected in 1958. She remembered the drills - once a month. Most of the neighborhood would file into the shelter - then back out -

Until the pot was discovered. Turns out the contractor who had been hired to build the shelter had been found to be smuggling pot. He was arrested and in the mid 60's the shelter was closed.

One friend of mine in 1993 took a tour for an investigatgion for the school paper. While there he snagged some candies from a container.

These were "Starch/sugar" suppliments "to be given one in a week." He had three and started shaking badly. He learned starch and suguar do not mix when concentrated.

Last I saw in 2000 the shelter doors - and fallout symbol was still there.

Quite interesting.

But the sirens

All over town - every Saturday or Sunday at noon they would sound. I was used to them.

Until the sirens were sounded to announce the beginning of Desert Storm. I had a heart attack when they blasted off on a weekday.

Thu Apr 03, 2008 10:13 pm

Enjoy yourselves:
http://www.conelrad.com/index.php

Thu Apr 03, 2008 11:35 pm

Does anyone else have their own DCD Survival Supplies barrel?

Fri Apr 04, 2008 3:55 am

"To re-use as a commode" :lol:

Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:25 am

In the 50's and 60's in Manhattan the air raid sirens would go off every weekday at noon. As a kid I never thought twice what they were for. Just another thing that happened every day. Good to set your watch by.

Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:27 am

79SuperVert wrote: In the 50's and 60's in Manhattan the air raid sirens would go off every weekday at noon. As a kid I never thought twice what they were for. Just another thing that happened every day. Good to set your watch by.

Here in Oklahoma, in the spring and in the fall, the tornado sirens are sounded at noon on Wednesday and Saturday.

Fri Apr 04, 2008 6:50 am

typesoneandtwo wrote: "To re-use as a commode" :lol:
My bucket doesn't have the seat. Are the Scato Pro-Com seats comfortable?

Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:51 am

BSQUARE wrote: Does anyone else have their own DCD Survival Supplies barrel?

nope, but I do have a DCD "radiation level tester" it's yellow, and looks like a pen light. I will have to post a pic of it!

Fri Apr 04, 2008 9:23 am

One day, in the early 90s, the sirens accidentally went off while I was working in Toronto--talk about scary! Everyone in the studio emptied to the cafeteria where we had a good view of the city to see what was going on--thankfully it was a glitch in the emergency alarm system. I think they were removed shortly after that.