[MrFixr55]

I see "Reproduktors" advertised on ePay often. I always wondered that since they were merely a transformer and speaker, was there a "listen" function during the USSR Period so that families could be listened to if "subversive" activity was expected. Could the "powers that be" know if the unit was unplugged?

Working in NYC and living in Suburban NY all my life, one of my more favorite movies was "Moscow on the Hudson" a movie that starred Robin Williams as a member of the Moscow Circus band, who defects to the US, finds support from fellow expats and Americans but also finds loneliness and longing for his family and paranoia that the secret police is tracking him for repatriation. The movie ends with the KGB agent that was tracking him defecting himself and becoming a vendor of the famous NYC "Dirty Water Hot Dogs (If you visit NYC, you must have one!!). I watch this movie, think of Dvorak's Symphony 9 (The New World), and the several conversations I have had with several emigrees to the US from the former USSR. I have serviced Clinical Labs in The Brighton Beach "Little Odessa" section of Brooklyn, and worked with 2 colleagues, one from Ukraine, the other from Belarus. They all talk of the relief from oppression conflicted with the longing for family and friends. I once bought a hamburger from a stand on the Brighton Beach boardwalk and the young lady who sold it, announced that it is American food served with Russian flair. I told her it was German food, made American and served with Russian flair, and that is what is so good about the USA. (she was very good looking too, which is likely why I remember this story.

My Irish ancestors fled the famine and anti-Catholic bias of the 1860s. My German ancestors fled Bismark and anti-Catholic Bias.

The above is meant to be history and not meant to be political. The hobby of collecting radios also involves the history of radio broadcasting in the cntext of world history, the good, the bad, and the ugly. My heart goes out to all of you!