"It's an RACAL RA17 Mr Bond"

Unfortunately the subtitles were switched on otherwise I'd have people going onto the internet after thinking 'I'm sure that's not what Auric Goldfinger said to Bond".
But he's right, that thing in the the square, yellow, box is indeed a Racal RA17 radio receiver. They can be seen in many Bond films, a lot of them in Dr No in the Secret Service radio room at the beginning, and many others in films after that.
This is continuing my recent theme of reminiscing about my Telegraphist trade in the Royal Air Force.
I used to operate these excellent radio receivers, first of all at RAF High Wycombe, which was Headquarters Bomber Command when I was stationed there in 1966 to 1968. During that time the main job was communication with the V-Force (Victors, Vulcans (the Valiant's had already been scrapped) Canberra Photo Reconnaissance squadrons). Position and target reports of bridges, dams, factories, airfields, where the aircraft Air Electronics Officer would send the message, in morse code, ONCE. If you didn't get it all, and correctly, it was frowned upon. Luckily I was pretty good at morse code at about 22 words per minute.
Following on to Masirah, Oman, the communication was mostly to Salalah, to the south of Oman, near the Yemen border, Sharjah in the UAE and Muharraq in Bahrain. Also ship to shore, the LSL ships would send reports to us when they were on the way, and I even had a voice call on the RA17 from RFA (Royal Fleet Auxiliary) Pearleaf, a MAYDAY when they lost a sailor overboard. I passed this message to operations and they scrambled a Canberra and a Shackleton that were on detachment to Masirah but they never found the body. This was the Arabian sea so I wasn't surprised.
I rarely came across the RA17 again until 1972 when I was posted to Malta, RAF Luqa, where I also operated the Flight Watch radio equipment, can't remember what that was called, particularly with the Marine Craft Unit search and rescue launches. Photograph of me with it when I was at RAF Gan, Maldives, as an extra. I know it was Gan because I have my Corporal tapes on my shoulder.
When I was in Gan you can imagine spending 7 months in the Maldives, and getting paid for it, was hell, but someone had to do it. I even had to go to work sometimes!!!!!!
Happy Days,