Thousands and thousands of new visitors have been rumagging through British Pathé’s 90,000 digitised newsreels after Tuesday’s brilliant discovery of a mobile phone from 1922. Eve’s Wireless became an online sensation, racking up hits for technology bloggers across the globe. Part of the excitement for us with such a colossal sized film archive, expecially one that has only just been fully launched to the general public, is that nobody knows exactly what’s in there. Not even the archivists!
Dozens of newsites and technology blogs rushed to tell their online communities about Eve’s Wireless resulting in a windfall of comments, Facebook wall posts and Tweets across the world.
You might like to read this information on the clip sent in from Simon Atkins an Ex-Royal Signals officer:
“The two ladies are using a small simple HF radio, probably a ‘Cat’s Whisker’ type. For it to work it needs to be earthed, which is why it’s connected to the fire hydrant. The antenna or aerial is the wire in the umbrella. On the receiving end the telephonist is using an HF radio and puts the microphone next to the record player. For the two ladies to hear she would be pressing the pressel switch.”
British Pathé are dependent on bloggers and journalists, particularly with knowledge in specialist areas, to find clips that are rare and special. Here in the archive we are eternally busy on our own projects. (For example this week, Wimbledon footage and great old Cricket matches on video – so look out for that)
We’re in a bit of a space age mood now, what with all this technology footage whizzing around the internet. Who else thinks it’s time to play a bit of System Addict by Five Star and have a groove? Just us? Ok.
Do you have a favourite clip in the archive? Perhaps related to you or your hobby? Make sure to tell us on Twitter or on our Facebook group ‘The British Pathe Film Archive’ and we’ll share the clip with our friends and followers.
British Pathé 
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