# End of GBR VLF masts



## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

Lawrence Bennet who runs the GKA newsletter posted the following youtube snip showing the demolition of Rugby/GBR's VLF masts where the famous GBR time signal was transmitted from. 
My memory says 18 kcs and 23 kcs, station RX on the main aerial, remember picking up the time sig well into the Red Sea even thru much QRN (static).
Demolition cost? The scrap value of the masts which were considered a hazard to aviation. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx2lhSUuGqU


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## Ian (Mar 27, 2004)

I seem to remember the time sig was on 16kc/s...but I've been wrong before.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

*GBR Signals*



BA204259 said:


> I seem to remember the time sig was on 16kc/s...but I've been wrong before.


This time you are right. That's where they were in the 1950s and 60s. Some time later they were moved to 19kHz and as far as I know, they stayed there for many years. There were also other broadcasts at higher frequencies (e.g. 60kHz) from Rugby with the callsign MSF.

All the best


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## Ian (Mar 27, 2004)

Thanks Ron. I believe that the MSF 60kHz time signal is now being transmitted from the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) VLF site near Anthorn in ***bria. Not sure when the service moved there, but it certainly keeps the radio room clock on my wall accurate.... 'tho of course R651400 won't be able to get that!!


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

Now there's a thing!
Thinking back, how did we get the time signal to the bridge to correct the chronomoters? 
Blue Funnel in their infinite wisdom/stupidity kept their radio rooms as far from the bridge as possible. 
Remember holding the bridge phone against the receiver loudspeaker or synchronising with the radio room clock and pressing bridge telephone buzzer exactly on the 60th second dash, another.
Similarly "World Peace" and liberty ships had voice tubes requiring a sharp puff down the tube to blow the bridge whistle exactly on same.
At least with GBR it was easy with the dots and one dash but WWV JJY and other stations a lot more tricky... 
Any other methods?

p.s. Pse no ribald remarks about Greek or foc flag shipping running astray because of badly adjusted chronometers..


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

I found that there was nearly always a headphone jack socket in the chronometer box that had to be plugged into the main receiver in the radio room. 
Handy when you wanted to keep a boring 500 watch and chat to one of the mates at the same time.
Some had a small hatch between the radio room and the chartroom.
I could've sworn GBR was on 16kc/s as well. Must stir the grey cells more often.
Legend has it enough power for a local farmer to charge his car batteries from a metal wire fence until they wondered why reception was down in that direction.
I cheat with my radio room clock and set it from the PC after using Atomic clock sync. Which reminds me. Sunday. Time to wind the clocks.


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

Marconi Sahib said:


> I found that there was nearly always a headphone jack socket in the chronometer box that had to be plugged into the main receiver in the radio room.


Never came across such advanced technology on any Bluey (GTZB), Kris, but rattling the RAM a bit, I do believe there was such on "World Banner," actually a loudspeaker at the bridge end, though I wouldn't admit to providing the eight to twelve with some "bouzouki" picked up direct from Greece whilst in the PG.

On the question of modern day accuracy, my thirty-quid Casio Wave Ceptor watch gives me world wide to the umpteenth thousandth of a second, a lot more than this old R/O will ever need....


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## Degema (Oct 31, 2006)

When I was in SS Malmo back in the 60s the Radio Room opened directly into the Chart Room so I use to take the time signal for them when they were busy. One day I was resting my elbow on the protective glass screen above the chronometer when the ship rolled and my elbow went straight through the glass. No injuries but the old man came running in from the bridge thinking one of his plants had fallen over.


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## mikeg (Aug 24, 2006)

Marconi Sahib said:


> I found that there was nearly always a headphone jack socket in the chronometer box that had to be plugged into the main receiver in the radio room.


Most of the Shell ships I was on had a speaker in the chart room for the time signal. The speaker had its own volume control and I sometimes used to leave it tuned to the world service between watches so the watchkeepers could catch up with the news.. (quickly turned down if the old man was due on the bridge).

Mike


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## K urgess (Aug 14, 2006)

I seem to remember always being the one to take the time signal and fill in the chronometer book. 
Maybe I was just always suckered into it.[=P] 

It was always a bit hit and miss in certain areas to find a reliable time signal at a convenient time. World service was always good when you could get it.

On one memorable occasion the chronometer decided to go nuts and we had to have time signals every hour. Not easy to do in the middle of the Pacific.(EEK)


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## Trevorw (Jun 5, 2006)

GBR was on 15 Kc/s. One day without QRN and with the main aerial connected, I got the time signal at 10.00am GMT in the Malacca Straits!

Incidentally, we in Blue Flu' were'nt all that naive, we had a link from the time signal to the chronometer which logged the correction factor, and that was in the sixties!


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

I always remember GBR being on 16 kc/s, right up until they turned into kHz.

The low frequency ground wave could be picked up thousands of miles away, even by submarines under water I believe. I think the transmitter was used a lot for submarine communications.

One morning, on Regina Oldendorff,at anchor in the Mississipi during a New Orleans dock strike, I was sprung watching cartoons by the Old Man. Livid at finding someone not gainfully employed, he exploded: "Have you got a time signal yet?" "Why, are you going to take a sight?" I replied with aplomb. Off he stomped with smoke coming out of his ears. Funker 1 - Kapitaen 0.

John T.


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## King Ratt (Aug 23, 2005)

GBR was on 16 Khz and latterly sent time sigs at 0255-0300, 0855-0900, 1455-1500, 2055-2100 (all times Zulu).
Source of info 1993 edition Handbook for Marine Radio Communications.
GLO (Ongar) was the 19 Khz back-up transmitter.


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

Trevorw said:


> Incidentally, we in Blue Flu' were'nt all that naive, we had a link from the time signal to the chronometer which logged the correction factor, and that was in the sixties!


Don't want to make an issue of this as you haven't exactly said what this link was and how it logged the correction factor? 
Perhaps by the time you joined, BF had moved into a higher technological strata from my own experience on some of their golden oldies.. 
Melampus/GMBZ (no radar right up to scrapping in 1957), Ajax/GJXM, Orestes/GFPQ all company senior citizens in the mid fifties with only a basic telephone between radio room and bridge.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

*GBR Time Signals*



King Ratt said:


> GBR was on 16 Khz. GLO (Ongar) was the 19 Khz back-up transmitter.


Ah that explains it. Remember reading in an ALRS correction in Notrices to Mariners that transmissions were being suspended on 16 kc/s and would be replaced by time signal transmissions on 19 kc/s. All transmission times to be unchanged. Perhaps there was some refit or refurbishment to be done on the 16 kc/s transmitter or antenna configuration.

I just assumed that it had been a permanent transfer of frequency, rather than just a temporary arrangement.


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## athinai (Jan 18, 2006)

Dont forget the good old BEEB., - BBC LONG Wave 200 Kc/s, With GBR 16 Kc/s, And WWV SW. R/O's Usually Kept The Book Updated or was it flogged. ? (as I noticed some enormous errors over the years) - Sweet Memories.

Klm Gm


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## Ian (Mar 27, 2004)

athinai said:


> or was it flogged. ?


klm/gm

Shame on you....perish the thought... as if... who would ever have done anything like that?(Jester)


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## RayL (Apr 16, 2008)

The tall masts at Hillmorton, Rugby, were removed years ago, of course, but the array of shorter ones were still in existence just a few months ago. However, on a rail journey last week I looked out for them in vain, so it seems that the last trace of GBR has gone at last. I gather that the land was wanted for a new housing estate.


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## Paul Braxton (Jul 21, 2005)

In poor old overcrowded Blighty, what else?


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

Methinks Radio Officers young, old and very old prefer to keep this SN Forum to matters on our respective wavelength so to speak...


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## sparks69 (Dec 18, 2005)

Where did Criggion VLF Radio Station come in all this ?
Call Sign ?


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## Basil (Feb 4, 2006)

> the masts which were considered a hazard to aviation.


But The Shard is OK 

p.s. Some of the radio room/wheelhouse comms, of which I know naught, does sound a bit like 'standing up in a hammock'.


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

That's a point I take well. The only detraction from flying to London City (apart from a growing sense that the more one does it the more likely one is to become statistical) is the man made scenery when approaching, either side and at flight level the bloody same.


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## IAN M (Jan 17, 2009)

I've heard GBR, very faintly, on 16 kc/s as far as the south coast of Japan.

I served on three Liberty Ships over a continuous period of three years. They had a buzzer in the Radio Room which connected to the Chart Room. The Radio Room was on the port side of the bridge deck and the Chart Room was on the starboard side, just opposite. 

When I was at Portishead, we asked Criggion for the use of their transmitter and at 2am every morning sent QRU? I believe the service was introduced principally for ships which sailed up the Amazon, e.g. Royal Mail, but, during my time, the call was never answered.


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Driving up or down the M1 I was never able to work out which was Daventry and which Rugby. I would have loved to be a passenger and thus able to follow a map to know which masts I was looking at, but never had the opportunity.

Apart from the 1600grt Shelldrake, where the radio room opened off the chartroom, every ship I sailed on had a loudspeaker somewhere near the chronometer box.

The whole business of taking time signals seemed like overkill to me. Chronometers were expensive pieces of equipment because they were supposed to be consistent, either gaining or losing the same time interval each day.
Periodically they were 'rated' by a specialist company who issued a certificate stating the gain or loss rate, i.e. +2sec/day; -1sec/day etc.
So if the rate was constant, why take a time signal each day? Even the average second mate could work out the correct time by applying the rate to the previous day's error.


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## barramore (Oct 22, 2011)

*End of GBR VLF time signals*



BA204259 said:


> I seem to remember the time sig was on 16kc/s...but I've been wrong before.


Was the 16KHZ signal used for communications with submarines

when they were submerged. Think I can also remember also

Tfc lists being transmitted on this frequency.


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## RayL (Apr 16, 2008)

Naytikos said:


> The whole business of taking time signals seemed like overkill to me.


I guess where many, many lives are at stake a bit of overkill is well justified. Take the Scilly Isles rocks as your example.


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## RayL (Apr 16, 2008)

barramore said:


> Was the 16KHZ signal used for communications with submarines
> when they were submerged. Think I can also remember also
> Tfc lists being transmitted on this frequency.


I think Criggion Radio in Wales was used for communicating with submarines.


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## ernhelenbarrett (Sep 7, 2006)

Most of the vessels I sailed on had a speaker from the Radio Room to Chart Room except for the old Tweedbank/GBYC which had nought and the Radio Room/my cabin was held down by 4 large bottlescrews and two wire strops abaft the funnel so to pass a t/sig to the bridge I waved my hankie out the port
every second and a big downwards slash on the minute and it seemed to work
mind you it took us 35 days from Panama to Bluff !!
Ern Barrett


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## TABNAB (Mar 28, 2006)

HF transmitters for Portishead were also sited at Rugby when I visited the station in the early sixties. I understand that the cost of dropping the masts was more than covered when they suddenly discovered all the underground copper earthing cables.


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

Farewell to GKZ March 2003. De Dah De Dah Dit time !!

The earth mats are probably still there as it would cost more to recover than scrap value of small gauge copper wire.

David
+


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## Basil (Feb 4, 2006)

> radio room/wheelhouse comms


Sorry, should have said: radio room/chartroom comms.


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