# Plus ca change, c'est pas la meme chose!



## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

My cousin and her husband are presently anchored in the lagoon at Chesterfield Reefs awaiting better weather to continue sailing their yacht from Brisbane to Vanuatu.

Yesterday I received a three-page e-mail from her detailing the voyage so far in graphic detail.

When I first decided to stay ashore, some 28 years ago, I immediately became a ships' agent. Communication was difficult. I received QTCs on a teleprinter via Cable & Wireless, and the occasional direct telex from ships with HF Sitor. Replying involved compiling a QTC and telexing it to C & W with "via WSL/6YI/WNU" as the case required, in the preamble.
Sometimes the messages went through, sometimes they didn't and so the agency obtained an HF R/T transceiver and asked owners/charterers to include the frequencies in their voyage orders so we could establish direct contact and cir***vent the tedious public correspondence system.

Over the years telegrams and HF Sitor faded and for a while, everything was done by voice; ships used satellite systems to telephone their ETAs etc. No-one ever seemed to think of hooking up a teleprinter to a Marisat or, later, Inmarsat terminal.

Then e-mails were invented, the satellite providers offered cheaper rates for the reduced bandwidth of data links, and ships began fitting computers for communications. Now every message is tacked on to the preceding one so that the complete voyage orders and every exchange of information is repeated with every fresh exchange so that, by the end of a passage, even of only 3 or 4 days between islands, the last ETA message runs to several pages.

Which brings me back to my cousin. 
To me it is quite amazing that she and her husband have found their way safely through the reefs into a secure anchorage in waters where, when I first went to sea, merchant ships' crews feared to venture.
The weather was foul, 40 knot winds, the yacht on her side most of the time, thick cloud and heavy spray.

Of course, they used GPS.

Now they can lie at anchor and send all of the details at great length around the world at a cost of, perhaps, $5, by virtue of a lap-top computer and hand-held satellite 'phone.

It gives me a very funny feeling!


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

".... so the agency obtained an HF R/T transceiver and asked owners/charterers to include the frequencies in their voyage orders so we could establish direct contact and cir***vent the tedious public correspondence system."

Yes, amazing advances in a relatively short period of time. Just curious, was your use of a private transceiver in order to bypass the local system legal?

Hope your cousin gets to Vanuatu safely.

John T


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

John, I'll pass on your wishes, thanks.

Yes, quite legal. Anyone can take out a licence for a shore station (C.I.$25 p.a.) and use it to talk to their friends out fishing, ships on the horizon or whoever can hear them. I am 'Bamboo-bay radio' as it happens!


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## King Ratt (Aug 23, 2005)

For Naytikos. what HF
freqs are you on? May be able to hear you over in UK. I only listen-don't have a transceiver.


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## JoK (Nov 12, 2006)

When I was going to the Arctic, a 6 week old paper was recent news and movies were on a projector. Communication home was only on my last trip via a sat phone-hugely expensive.
Now our ships crews have a better email system then the business part of the ship!


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Posted by King Ratt


> _For Naytikos. what HF
> freqs are you on? May be able to hear you over in UK. I only listen-don't have a transceiver._
> 
> 
> ...


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## King Ratt (Aug 23, 2005)

Thanks Naytikos. These freqs are received ok in uk depending on time of day. I have often heard stations in the Caribbean, Uscg NEw ORleans and various others.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Naytikos said:


> Posted by King Ratt
> 
> 
> > _For Naytikos. what HF
> ...


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## signalman (Jul 3, 2007)

After all these years (seventy plus), I still don't know what this b----y French stands for - I loathed the subject at RMNS.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

The more things change, the more they stay the same.


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## signalman (Jul 3, 2007)

Like ignorance - Merci beaucoup! (did learn a bit all those years ago).


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