I mean, was there no radio or small walkie-talkie that existed back then that would have enabled easy communication between climbers and ground crew? Compared to what climbers use today, it all just seemed so 19th-century, the way they had no electronic devices working for them.
But at least Hemlock carried that Swiss army knife with him. Thank God for that! lol
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when the English couple ask to rent/borrow George Kennedy's telescope, it sure looks like there's a HiFreq antenna behind him - for shortwave radio, satellite phones, etc.
Obviously, there are no cellphones (or towers on mountains!), but you might've thought the same radio gear the army used at the time might've been available - mobile transceivers, etc
^That's exactly what I was thinking: stuff the Army had, like field radios or "walkie talkies" for lack of a more technical term. I mean, the ascent as depicted in the story was so high profile, you'd think they would have found a means to have the climbers keep in touch with base camp and vice versa with some sort of radio comms.
1975 radios weighed a lot. In frozen conditions batteries go dead quickly.
So possibly the could have carried radios but it's also possible it would have added another 15 to 20 pounds of weight to carry around for a radio and extra batteries.
Exactly right .. people seem to forget this was shot/set in the mid 70's...
The world's first portable cellular phone was demonstrated to the public in 1973 and the world's first commercial portable cell phone was released in 1980.
As for hand held radios, the ones available at the time of this movie weighed 1kg or more not including extra batteries which would have stopped working in the very cold temps as well as the radios not having a very long range without repeater stations.