I just finished watching “Porky’s Railroad,” a 1938 Looney Tunes classic.
Why did I watch it? Because, Internet.
There’s a scene in the movie where a railroad telegrapher is sending a message in Morse Code… which I can copy. Landline guys wouldn’t have used the Morse variant I understood, but this was obviously being sent by a radio guy. I pulled out a pad and rewound.
QST QSL LEON SCHLESINGER HOLLYWOOD FOR PICTURE OF PORKY
QST and QSL are telegrapher’s abbreviations. QST originally meant calling all stations. QST was in 1938 and is still the name of the ham radio magazine of record. QSL asks for verification of reception. Leon Schlesinger was the producer. The rest is obvious.
The code was very rough and ‘sparky,’ which even by 1938 was disappearing from real radio communications.
This is really obscure. I wonder if I’m the first to discover it?