# Crew radio



## Harry Nicholson (Oct 11, 2005)

I think it was on Brocklebanks 'Mawana'1958/59 that I sometimes serviced an Armstrong radio unit in the Indian Crew quarters. I cannot recall whether this was a repeater driven from an Armstrong base station in the radio room, or whether the crew had control of the tuning. According to an enthusiasts site, Armstrong built EXP 125/3, a 14 valve all band rx, about that time - with 15 watt output - perhaps enough power to drive slave remotes on the poop. Anyone have experience of such arrangements?


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

Not specifically replying to your request.
In the '60's-'70s I sailed on several ships with crews from the Sub-Continent.
Many of them bought cheap Soviet-made receivers that had turret band changing.
As R/O I serviced plenty of those for them, tricky job!


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## tunatownshipwreck (Nov 9, 2005)

I remember a lot of ships chose their lounge radios wherever the ship was built, very nice Grundigs on German-built ships, Japanese flagged ships had very nice consoles with a stereo record player, sometimes a reel-to-reel deck with the lounge radio, a Nivico.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Ships with Marconi radio stations often had huge Dynatron broadcast receivers in the radio room. Your could tune them in and they could be listened to on speakers in public areas. Unfortunately, just cos they were really big wirelesses it wasn't always possible to pick up Luxembourg in Japan, even though they could on the last trip.

John T


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

You sure wouldn't want to carry one of those with you from ship to ship as your personal radio.


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## Harry Nicholson (Oct 11, 2005)

trotterdotpom said:


> Ships with Marconi radio stations often had huge Dynatron broadcast receivers in the radio room. Your could tune them in and they could be listened to on speakers in public areas. Unfortunately, just cos they were really big wirelesses it wasn't always possible to pick up Luxembourg in Japan, even though they could on the last trip.
> 
> John T


That's interesting, John. It means that the radio room would be responsible for the programme diet. For Asian crewed ships, the r/o would bear a responsibility to make it suit the taste. My visits to the secunny quarters usually involved a dollop of switch cleaner around a scatchy potentiometer. The poop might send a message: 'Bollo-bokiss tigh nay' (speaking box no good).


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

I can relate to the MIMCCo/Dynatron receiver/amplifiers. Big heavy beast.

There was one on my first ship TSMV CITY OF PORT ELIZABETH /GPLC.
It was in the R/R by a porthole looking aft down the boat come sports deck.
It was invariably tuned to the BBC WS.

We had arrived from the UK with passengers, a lot of them left at Cape Town.
Other Southern Africans would join at CT and various other ports up to Beira for a mini cruise and back to CT.

I was piping the news of Southern Rhodesia unilaterally declaring independence, with my elbows on the radio looking out over the deck.

All the Colonials were cheering while all the Brits were tut-tutting!!

Funny how one remembers events from so long ago and yet can't remember what one had for breakfast.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

On E&F's Golfito the Master, G M Roberts, demanded that the Dynatron be kept tuned to the BBC Light Programme -predecessor of BBC Radio 2 - which was then broadcast on the long wave (200kHz) whenever we were in range. To ensure that the maximum possible range was available, he personally ran a long wire antenna from the bridge to the foremast and insisted that we use it for the Dynatron instead of the much shorter vertical wire suspended from the triatic. We used to be able to hang on to the Light Programme as far as the Azores on the outward passage but by then the signal was rubbish. Our complaints carried no weight with GM and the signal had to disappear altogether before we were allowed to retune to the HF frequencies used for the BBC's Overseas Service (now the World Service). Painful to listen to.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

I would let the non-ALERT do the 500 watch while I tuned into the BBC on 200kHz. 
The MERCURY was a very fine Rx on the main Ae for LW.
It was quite amazing how far one could pull it in. Night-time was duff due to an Algerian stn on/near the same freq.
There was some sort of soap prog every afternoon that I was following. Sad.

In Cyprus and Baghdad in the 50's the Home Service (or whatever it was called then) on 200 kHz was easily picked up during the day on an ordinary bcst Rx.


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## duncs (Sep 8, 2008)

The beauty of the Dynatron was that it had a115V AC to DC converter. When your room was next door to the shack(Bank boat), easy to drill a hole through the bulkhead and take a tap and power your own music machine.

Duncs


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## duncs (Sep 8, 2008)

Sorry, that should be DC to AC.

D


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## Baulkham Hills (Jul 11, 2008)

One of my first ships there was absolutely no entertainment, no movies, very few books ,captains bond which made booze very expensive but it had a Eddystone receiver in the radio room and output from this was fed to various places including Officers lounge (for want of a better word), in those days, BBC World service would quite often do radio plays football games and classical music. It was challenging to keep it tuned so the listeners could hear it through the various interferences typical of sw. Sometimes it was successful and sometimes you would be getting a great signal, then just before the program started there would be an announcement that the frequency would be closed down. A scramble to find another frequency would ensue. I never understood how people would listen to classical music when even in the best conditions it sounded distorted. But if you went to the Officers lounge there would always be someone listening to it through the whistles and static.
Years later I sailed on a ship with a early totally defunct satellite system, when I ever passed the OM's cabin there was the tv on and no signal flashing, as if it would magically burst into life.(it never did). I suppose hope springs eternal.


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## searover (Sep 8, 2007)

pippin said:


> I can relate to the MIMCCo/Dynatron receiver/amplifiers. Big heavy beast.
> 
> There was one on my first ship TSMV CITY OF PORT ELIZABETH /GPLC.
> It was in the R/R by a porthole looking aft down the boat come sports deck.
> ...


Harry, like you my first ship was the almost new GPLC - but in 1953/4. I replaced an experienced 2nd R/O so it was tough on the elderly chief when I was sea sick in Biscay - on watch with bucket between knees. Looked after a Wardroom Dynatron on my first solo ship, a wandering Tramp and had no problems with it. Like you, Never heard of OC within P&O, which I joined in 1957 until 1963. Like you, my memories are clear of those great days but the past few years are cloudy.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

pippin said:


> I would let the non-ALERT do the 500 watch while I tuned into the BBC on 200kHz.
> The MERCURY was a very fine Rx on the main Ae for LW.
> It was quite amazing how far one could pull it in. Night-time was duff due to an Algerian stn on/near the same freq.
> There was some sort of soap prog every afternoon that I was following. Sad.
> ...


198kHz from Droitwich is still going strong....all 500kW of it.

Not my video.....some good views of the antenna.





.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

It's hanging on by a thread - they have run out of spare valves.
When the one now in use fails then the stn will close down for good.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

The City of Lucknow had a MIMCo 'Oceanic' broadcast receiver in the Radio Room; it fed speakers in the Saloon and various mess rooms around the ship. It wasn't too great on HF and the tuning arrangement was pretty crude but it did the job. Spent a lot of time tuned to LM Radio while coasting South Africa and East Africa.
Not popular with me because we didn't have Aircon, the small Radio Room only had just one porthole, in the port bulkhead, and the receiver only operated from 110V dc. The ship's supply was 220V DC so a big wirewound dropping resistor, in a metal cage, was mounted on the side of the cabinet to provide a suitable receiver supply. It got far too hot to touch and was a very unwelcome addition to my environment in the tropics.
Not too bad WNA though.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

pippin said:


> It's hanging on by a thread - they have run out of spare valves.
> When the one now in use fails then the stn will close down for good.


Ha! What BS (not from you, from the Beeb)....


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## Zl2axh (Oct 2, 2016)

Early sixties almost every crew member (NZSCo) had their own broadcast receiver, same model but can't remember what it was. They were no use most of the time away from land. On one ship the CRO and I built a small MF transmitter, taped BBC and replayed it locally. Thought that it only had a couple of hundred yards range until a Blue Star ship passing 100k away asked us if we could pick up the Whakatane Times Broadcasting Station on MF when we were in the middle of the pacific. He hadn't clicked that we were MV Whakatane. (The Whakatane Times was our ship newssheet.)


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## Baulkham Hills (Jul 11, 2008)

I used to admire the owners of the Grundig Satellite receiver, it was the size of a small fridge and weighted a ton (I am exaggerating here). But humping it on and off ships was no easy task. There was also a Zenith radio of similar proportions. Then in the 80's Sony introduced the ICF-2001D frequency range 150khz - 30 Mhz, this to me was a serious radio indeed. It had a digital readout and was fully syntheized with keypad and had dial which had a low speed and a high speed and about 30 preset frequencies. You could get SSB and by slighting off tuning use it as a BFO the bandwidth of the signal could be reduced. Indeed I few times I sailed as an r/o in the eighties I could take a traffic list from the comfort of my cabin outside of my watch and additionally I could check the strength of a station I had failed to contact earlier. A lovely radio, the only disadvantage was it if you ran it on batteries it really chewed them up.
Then the ICF-7600D came out, gone was the dial instead was a key pad for entering your frequencies preset had been reduced to 10, But you could do basically the same as bigger Sony with less weight. I have had this radio for at least 35 years and I still use it daily for m/f am radio, The only thing that I changed with the power supply, I now connect it directly to where the battery used to be. The memory has a separate battery supply which I can't remember when I changed it last, Coffee and beer has been spilled on the keypad over the years, take it apart clean it up and good as new it has been dropped any number of times and is still going.
The big Sony had a sad ending, a former r/o who I was friendly with made me promise to give it him if I ever thought of getting rid of it. So when I bought the ICF-7600D, then next time home I gave it to him on the understanding he would use it.
A year or two later he was moving house, so I called in to see if he wanted a hand, there was a rubbish skip outside his house and sitting in pride of place on top of the rubbish was the Sony I gave him. Easy come easy go.
.


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## Nick Jones (Feb 13, 2006)

Baulkham Hills said:


> I used to admire the owners of the Grundig Satellite receiver, it was the size of a small fridge and weighted a ton (I am exaggerating here). But humping it on and off ships was no easy task. There was also a Zenith radio of similar proportions. Then in the 80's Sony introduced the ICF-2001D frequency range 150khz - 30 Mhz, this to me was a serious radio indeed. It had a digital readout and was fully syntheized with keypad and had dial which had a low speed and a high speed and about 30 preset frequencies. You could get SSB and by slighting off tuning use it as a BFO the bandwidth of the signal could be reduced. Indeed I few times I sailed as an r/o in the eighties I could take a traffic list from the comfort of my cabin outside of my watch and additionally I could check the strength of a station I had failed to contact earlier. A lovely radio, the only disadvantage was it if you ran it on batteries it really chewed them up.
> Then the ICF-7600D came out, gone was the dial instead was a key pad for entering your frequencies preset had been reduced to 10, But you could do basically the same as bigger Sony with less weight. I have had this radio for at least 35 years and I still use it daily for m/f am radio, The only thing that I changed with the power supply, I now connect it directly to where the battery used to be. The memory has a separate battery supply which I can't remember when I changed it last, Coffee and beer has been spilled on the keypad over the years, take it apart clean it up and good as new it has been dropped any number of times and is still going.
> The big Sony had a sad ending, a former r/o who I was friendly with made me promise to give it him if I ever thought of getting rid of it. So when I bought the ICF-7600D, then next time home I gave it to him on the understanding he would use it.
> A year or two later he was moving house, so I called in to see if he wanted a hand, there was a rubbish skip outside his house and sitting in pride of place on top of the rubbish was the Sony I gave him. Easy come easy go.
> .


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## Nick Jones (Feb 13, 2006)

I was one of those who hauled a Grundig Satellite during my career as an Lecky at sea in the late 60s. It was the only way to pick up any music. as for power on DC ships, I replaced the battery with a string of "D" cells, which usually lasted the trip. On the SS Matra it worked better then the ships VHF receiver, or was that due to the R/O. Eventually it died after corrosion from expired batteries onshore.
Cheers,
Nick Jones.


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