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Topic: Booth Clocks

Brad Miller
Administrator

Posts: 17775
From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall)
Registered: May 99

posted 11-30-1999 03:27 PM

Awwwww, those infernal talking trash cans are still around?

I opened the Hollywood USA in Garland, TX and we had the first ones there. Sooooooooooo annoying!

How did you convince your managers to use channel 2 for the booth? ALL large theaters with radios should do that.

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Erick Ojeda
Film Handler

Posts: 26
From: Vineland, NJ
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 11-30-1999 05:08 PM

We use walkie talkies at the theater I work at. Usually what happens is the box office employee has one walkie talkie, and I have the other. She calls up to me if we have sold for a particular movie, so I can go get the particualr projector running the film ready. The walkie talkies are also used when we have problems. Usually during a walk in, I am upstairs threading, and it is up to the box office employee to call up in case there is a problem, or someone needs change. It works out pretty well. I work at a four screen theater, so I'm sure larger theaters have more people running around with walkie talkies. : )

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Wallace Logan
Film Handler

Posts: 26
From: Ottawa Ontario Canada
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 11-30-1999 06:40 PM

I am also time obsessed thanks to Rick Long
and his instatlation of three CPA 10 and
four SPA 7s. I set my watch to the National reasherch council of canadas atomic clock.
this is a Cineplex Odeon theater and we run
at any one time up to 15 minites of trailers.
I always start on time for thoughs early bird
who watch their watches.

------------------

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 11-30-1999 07:03 PM

That other non-900 phone number is for the National Inst. of Standards & Technology. (N.I.S.T.) It is in Colorado, I believe. I don't use it becasue it's farther away from me. Also, I don't know if they have the phone switches that minimize the delay in the lines. (They probably do.) I figure by the time I'm done paying long distance phone bills, it all balances out.

Who decides what time to start the movie? Well, quite often, it's a "manager" who just went out an bought a $1000 Rolex but who's too stupid to set it to the right time!
Seriously, all of our 'guys' keep pretty accurate time on their watches. They don't hassle us much about it.

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George Roher
Master Film Handler

Posts: 266
From: Washington DC
Registered: Jul 99

posted 11-30-1999 10:59 PM

I have worked in a couple of theatres that used Walkie Talkies. At one place, they are a very helpful tool. At another place, they were a huge annoyance, because the floor staff abused them.

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Jim Ziegler
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 753
From: West Hollywood, CA
Registered: Jul 99

posted 11-30-1999 11:37 PM

Actually, we started using channel 2 for booth when we opened..

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-01-1999 12:25 AM

As far as I'm concerned, radios are just a big pain in the butt. All of the ushers and concession kids try to talk at once. It makes nothing but noise. When you want to call somebody for an important message, you can't get through all the cross-talk. The booth is noisy enough for me wothout all that dumb chatter! I just turn the volume down and tell people to call me on the phone, sometimes.

It's not the radios. It's the people on the other end who don't know how to use them...

For example:

...OOTH!...prob...<squack>...theater...<buzz>teen!!!!...<BUZZ>McDonalds.

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Michael Cunningham
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 186
From: Anchorage, AK
Registered: Nov 1999

posted 12-01-1999 02:47 AM

Radios can be very helpful, if used correctly and kept out of the hands of idiots. At my theatre, channel 1 is used for the management staff while channel 2 is reserved for the booth. The only persons who are issued a radio are the projectionist, of course, any managers, at most two, the box office and the concession supervisor. Anyone who needs to reach someone else has to go through one of these, supposedly, responsible people.

-Mike

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Stephen Jones 1
Film Handler

Posts: 62
From: Tulsa, OK, USA
Registered: Aug 1999

posted 12-01-1999 06:14 AM

We use walkie-talkies here at my theatre and they work out great. Of course the rule here is if you have to ask more than one question or require more than one answer you have to use the phones. I hate it when people carry out conversations over the radio. Also, don't say anything over the radio that you wouldn't say to a customer. We also have the talking trashcans and every once in a while you'll here a "Yummy, Got any more?" over the radio.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-02-1999 12:01 AM

We used to use Ch. 1 for 'downstairs' and Ch. 2 for 'upstairs' but people would forget what channel they were on and couldn't get hold of people. People just stopped using Ch. 2 except when they want to have a longer conversation without a lot of crosstalk. Sometimes they use Ch 2 for 'privacy' but one of our booth guys figured out that you can make your radio scan both channels.

I really do like having a radio but it's all the people who don't know how to use them that make it a pain. Besides, people can call you up and bother you with stupid questions!

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Jim Ziegler
Jedi Master Film Handler

Posts: 753
From: West Hollywood, CA
Registered: Jul 99

posted 12-02-1999 12:27 AM

Randay, do you guys have the SP-50s? If so, how do you get them to scan both channels?

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-02-1999 01:00 AM

I'm not sure.

The left button on the Motorola SP-50 (Radius) is supposed to turn the "PL" feature on and off. That's the "subaudible squelch" (C.T.C.S.S. for radio geeks.) If that's on, your radio will only receive other transmissions that have the same "PL Code". ("PL" is supposed to stand for "Private Line", or something) That way 2 or 3 different people can carry on conversations simultaneously. If the yellow LED stays lit for about 5 seconds after you transmit, PL is OFF (We can receive the Wal-Mart down the street when it's off.) If you take your radio to another Cinemark, both of you should turn it OFF. Cinemark has the same freq. for all it's theatres but different "PL Codes".

The right button is supposed to be the "Option" key. Pressing it will cycle you through all the options programmed into the radio. (High / Low transmit power, normally) Our guy was fooling around with his radio and he says that he held the option button in for about 10 seconds. After that, pressing the button makes the green LED flash continuously. When it does, it will receive both channels. I'm not sure, but I think it will transmit on the last channel that it received on. I'll have to experiment on that one. I'm not sure that's the whole story, though. I think this radio was mis-programmed by the dealer, somehow. He just stumbled into it by accident.

We don't tell anybody about it. Somebody will want it for themselves if they find out.

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Ken Layton
Phenomenal Film Handler

Posts: 1452
From: Olympia, Wash. USA
Registered: Sep 1999

posted 12-02-1999 01:10 AM

Gee, I can sit in the parking lot and listen to your walkie talkies or phones on my scanner radio.

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Randy Stankey
Film God

Posts: 6539
From: Erie, Pennsylvania
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-02-1999 01:43 AM

MAYBE you can. These radios are FM. Your average scanner is AM. My guess is that you have one of those really cool 'trunk tracker' scanners. (I'm jealous) If you do you might be able to snag a transmission and save it to memory.

You STILL may be able to snag a transmission, however. There's such a thing as "envelope detection" that might allow you to get a lock on an FM signal with an AM receiver. It uses a peculiarity of the way FM is transmitted to allow it. It works only at short range.

I could tell you more but that'll take all day.... Besides I love telling people just enough information to drive them nuts, sometimes!

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Tom Ferreira
Expert Film Handler

Posts: 203
From: Conway, NH, USA
Registered: Jun 99

posted 12-03-1999 08:07 AM

We have a set of four Motorola radios that we couldn't do without on weekends-one for the manager, one for the projectionist, one at the box, and one at the door. Nobody abuses them, and we're able to relay to the box when a late show is ready to seat, the manager can tell the booth to hold a show for a few minutes if there's a logjam at the stand, and if there's a disaster in the booth, the projectionist can call for help. I also know that our frequency can be picked up by scanners, but who the hell would want to monitor it?

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