# Auto Alarms



## Tai Pan (Mar 24, 2006)

Mine went off a few times but only from static or fault. Did anybody actually work a distress from the Auto Alarm going off


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## freddythefrog (Dec 15, 2007)

Taipan
Yes I worked a couple of distress's from autoalarm going off and also some man overboards.
Distress's always seemed to be hundreds of miles away though and also suffred the usual false alarms from static etc usually at 3 in the morning---yawn! cheers ftf


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

Same as you FTF, hundreds of miles away, static, or power outage.
One thing I always wondered though, is why they had to make the r/o's cabin bell so flipping loud, honestly, it would frighten the life out of me when it went off in the middle of the night, my first instinct was to dive under the covers and figure out what on earth was going on !!
= Adrian +


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

I had it go off one night. Rushed up to the radio room only to find it was an actual distress but about 2000 miles away!. On another ship the 2nd mate
woke me up to tell me the alarm was going. The bell was just above my head but I just slept through it.


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

> The bell was just above my head but I just slept through it.


Aha!! Now we know who to blame for those flipping fire engine bells !!


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

This topic has just reminded me of an amusing moment. On the later JRC gear they installed what they called buzzers, but they emitted a high pitched (and loud) note, and instead of a "Bells Off" pushbutton there was a "Buzz Off" pushbutton, which used to illuminate on reception of each correctly received dash. Now I had the Captain with me for some reason, possibly waiting for a phone link or something, and the A/A was always on on that station as the 500khz watch receiver as the reserve rx was pretty good too and usually tracking traffic lists, so the button was illuminating frequently as ships tuned up, I was used to it, but the o/m noticed it and did query as to whether I was trying to tell him something 

= Adrian +


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## sven-olof (Jul 12, 2008)

Here there will be some sound clips. 
AA from Lands end

http://www.family-richards.org.uk/bryans_world/oban_radio.htm


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## holland25 (Nov 21, 2007)

Mine went off on the Corbrae,North Sea Collier,the 2nd mate caught me trying to stop it by stuffing a sock in the bell. The distress was a long way off in the Baltic.


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Has anyone else experienced a problem with the link provided by Sven-Olof?
The 'Landsend' link deteriorates into 'motorboating' after a couple of minutes and caused my computer to completely lock-up necessitating an emergency power-off and re-boot.
Pity as otherwise it's a good site.


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

To answer the original question:
Yes, a couple of times, but in both instances we were half a day distant and others effected rescue.
Like everyone else I experienced the false triggering by static, but also once had an SAIT AA which had a defective capacitor in the input tuned circuit from new which caused random triggering and drove me nuts for several months until I figured it out.


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## Billieboy (May 18, 2009)

Naytikos said:


> Has anyone else experienced a problem with the link provided by Sven-Olof?
> The 'Landsend' link deteriorates into 'motorboating' after a couple of minutes and caused my computer to completely lock-up necessitating an emergency power-off and re-boot.
> Pity as otherwise it's a good site.


Just played it through with no problems. Perhaps the add-on is causing the problem. Or did you have your computer set up for Radio monitoring/listening?


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## Graham P Powell (Jun 2, 2007)

On one occasion when I was on nights at GKA a ship called up ( Greek ship
I think) and said that he was off the W.Coast of Africa and had picked up an auto alarm signal to which nobody had responded. Neither coast station or ship. We got him to rebroadcast it and I seem to remember that this time he got some response. It turned out to be a ship which was badly on fire. They had sent the auto alarm signal and then had to evacuate the accommodation and head up into the bows for safety. They were all rescued thanks to the alert operator on the Greek ship but it was a close run thing.


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## Tai Pan (Mar 24, 2006)

On a certain Glen ship, the radio room was next to my cabin and I had the bell, it went off, dashed in, only to find a certain deck officer and a young lady using the room. she had leaned backwards and had leant against the motor knob, (type M) this stopped the syncronus motor and off went the bells. red faces all round. no further use by them.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

That Deck Officer must have been proud of his nickname - "Motor Knob"!

John T.


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## John Briggs (Feb 12, 2006)

And the young lady was known as "Ring the Bell'!


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

Several false alarms but even more real deals.
Only once in a position to assist and that was in the North Sea. Got a bit like the M25 at rush hour. Did a bit of searching but really just because we were in the area. Mostly worked by the bridge officers on VHF.
Only one I worked on 500 I've reported on before. Bloody chaos.

We had an alarm clock at home that sounded just like the AA bell and I was out of bed and halfway down the stairs on several occasions before I decided enough was enough and got a radio alarm. [=P]

Did something like 72 hours on the trot when the AA went on the fritz once. My fault, it took me that long to fix it. (Sad)


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## hawkey01 (Mar 15, 2006)

As others have said there were plenty of long distance alarms. Always in the middle of the night!
On the Blanchland when en route from Houston to Panama we had the auto alarm activate. It was a Greek vessel in distress off the Yucatan peninsular. I acknowledged the SOS and advised the bridge, as we were within striking distance the Capt immediately gave me instructions to acknowledge that we were proceeding. The distress was being coordinated by if my memory serves me correctly NMA or one of the southern USA CG stations. We advised our position and eta etc and proceeded at all possible speed. Worked with the CG and also a German vessel who was proceeding. They were obviously nearer than us and eventually they arrived and did the necessary. We were then released by the CG and the German vessel and proceeded en route to Panama. Seem to remember this going on for many hours during the night. 
As an aside to this I activated a few auto alarm Sig's from the shore side when at various coast stations. 

Hawkey01


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## hughesy (Dec 18, 2007)

*AA ctts*

I remember swatting up on the ctts for the lifeguard N. We all thought it was Star Trek stuff, seems like the stone age now, when you look at todays technology.
I bought a radio room clock from Cookes in Hull it has the silience periods marked out on it. Also dashes marked out in 4 second and 1 second space.
All the gate ctts came back to me. Guess all that studying payed off? lol

all the best(Thumb) 
Hughesy


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## Mimcoman (May 18, 2008)

The tropical QRN gave lots of false alarms in the Caribbean, but I remember best one 500 kHz alarm when I was about a day from Port of Spain on Thos&Jas' Dalesman. The radio room was just across the corridor from the Sparkie's cabin and the bell in the cabin was right over the bunk. When the alarm went off, I sat up quickly and (unthinkingly) grabbed the bell - not sure what I hoped that would do. Anyway, the shock I got certainly woke me up properly.
The broadcast was by GCC.....

Mimcoman


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## M29 (Apr 20, 2007)

Hi All
Same as most of you, lots a false alarms due to static and one or two geniune alrams but at a distance. Agree about the bells, far too loud and usually the 3/o's and 2/o's cabins were next to mine, so they got woken as well.
In the tropics, was in the habit of sleeping in the buff. Alarm goes off and used to jump up and run for it, grabbing a dressing gown on the way out of my cabin. On entering radio room, cancel alarm, slip dressing gown on and wait for the distress message. 
Did this one night and passed the 2nd mates wife who was just leaving the bridge. Didn't think about it at the time, but she saw my full gruesome front and possibly my even worse rear as I tore by. Made for good laughs at breakfast next morning(Jester) . I hope she has recovered from the experience by now(==D) 

Best Wishes

Alan


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

There were of course regs about how far from the radio room the RO's cabin should be. However, spare a thought for those on midships accomodation tankers. Film nights were usually down aft in the saloon or somewhere like. It was keep fit time one dark and stormy night being turned out for a mad dash along the flying bridge only to hear nothing but static !

David
=


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## gwzm (Nov 7, 2005)

Slightly different experience to M29. Sleeping au naturel in cosy cabin heated by an old fashioned cast iron radiator whilst proceeding up the English Channel on the Malakand in the middle of the night when the auto alarm bell went off. Grabbed Brocklebank kilt (aka a bath towel worn like a lungi), put on flip flops, and ran for the radio room. Problem! 'Twas a freezing cold January night and blowing a gale. Also,the radio room was three decks up behind the chartroom and all outside ladders. I was absolutely frozen and shivering uncontrollably when I reached the radio room. Fortunately the 2/O took pity on me and lent me his duffle coat whilst I huddled up to the heater under the desk and dealt with the proceedings. It was a real alarm but fortunately we didn't need to get involved and I was able to return to my nice warm pit before too long. We had as good laugh about it when I returned his duffle coat to the 2/O later on.
I also had the experience of wakening up several times at the other end of the house when the wind-up alarm clock at home went off.
Happy days,
gwzm


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## Tai Pan (Mar 24, 2006)

Further to my tale of the young lady, I also slept in a sarong ( most bluies did) however as per other replies, this did not accompany me tothe radio room, so i arrived bollock naked, the scene was most bacanalian.


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

Must agree that the auto alarm's false alarms were a pain in the butt. However my attitude was that it was part of what I was paid for.

I will add one personal note, On the one occasion I had to actually send a Distress message superceded with an auto alarm bunch of dashes at about 5:30 in the morning.
When 8am arrived and it became obvious the number of twits that had NOT had their auto alarms on. My personal attitude was that I would have enjoyed killing each and every one of them. I entered all their calls in the log with the notation AA obviously not set for the previous night.
I HOPE THEY ALL LOST THEIR TICKETS.

de Chas


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## 5TT (May 3, 2008)

Hi Chas, 
That's pretty scary indeed but from my experience not unbelievable, I once joined a ship and after the usual gear check discovered that, among other things the auto keyer wasn't working at all. Not just intermittent, it was one of the old motor and cam types and the cams were all loose on the shaft. If it keyed anything at all it was gibberish, so if he didn't test that daily as required it's reasonable to suspect that he didn't care much for the auto alarm either?

= Adrian +


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## IMRCoSparks (Aug 22, 2008)

david.hopcroft said:


> There were of course regs about how far from the radio room the RO's cabin should be.
> David
> =


I'm not sure what the regs were regarding distance/time from the cabin to the radio room ( 60 seconds?) but when I attended radio inspections as a tech in London during the 60's one inspector was constantly laughing to himself at the impossibility of achieving this on some ships we attended together. The Star boats and possibly Duquesa came to mind. Fortunately he never put me to the test with a stop-watch. He also carried a 1" nut with him and defied me to get the 1" adjustable wrench, compulsorily carried as radio room tools, around it. He was always right.

Ken


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

I've posted this before elsewhere but as an example of lax watchkeeping by others I always thought the attached took a bit of beating.
I didn't habitually type up the old proces verbal, I hasten to add. This was to attach to a letter of complaint to Marconi/whoever it might concern.


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## charles henry (May 18, 2008)

*lax watchkeeping*



Marconi Sahib said:


> I've posted this before elsewhere but as an example of lax watchkeeping by others I always thought the attached took a bit of beating.
> I didn't habitually type up the old proces verbal, I hasten to add. This was to attach to a letter of complaint to Marconi/whoever it might concern.


I notice on your attached log sheet he was using the abbreviation SPO for Silence Period Observed. 
Don't know when that came back into usage but using that abbreviation was disallowed in about 1951 !!!!

de chas


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

The lax watchkeeping by others meant the other ships in the area, Chas.
That's an extract from my log book.
I never had any complaints about using SPO.


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Sahib: I notice only one transmission of an AA signal, at 2342, did you consider sending one out yourself and doing a rebroadcast of the SOS?


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

If EAL hadn't picked it up I might have had a go or at least forwarded it to someone closer. As you can see I couldn't even get a reply from EAL.
The Old Man wasn't too keen on getting involved when he found out how far away she was.
Strange idea to send the AA signal after sending the SOS.
I've never been able to find a MARY P only a MARY built in 1968 that was changed to MARY E in 1997 and scrapped at Alang in 1998. (?HUH)


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Great stories!

I had a real AA from VIS, QSP of a fishing boat distress....worked the distress traffic in my nightshirt....

(Jester) 


Worked a real SOS off VIM - another Oz ship was disabled and drifting onto rocks.

Nothing like hearing your first real AA sig and SOS, eh!


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