# So what did you fix it with?



## Vital Sparks

There were occasions when something broke and you just didn't have the spares. So what did you fix it with?

Main transmitter suddenly refuses to tune one morning, crackling noise breaking through on main rx, distinct smell of burning insulation and a puff of smoke emerging from the tx final stage. 

Opened up the cabinet and inspected the damage. Interesting problem, a flat spring component, part of the "anode" variable inductor rotating joint had split apart causing an open circuit. Due to this, a small piece of insulating material which previously held two metal components at the same potential briefly experienced the full HT voltage and promptly went up in smoke.

Need to replace the insulator and the spring but of course no mechanical spares held. I didn't have any brass strip but there was some copper earthing strap left over from the installation of the bridge 2182 monitor. Cut bent twisted and drilled the copper into an approximation of the original. Being too soft it won't last as long as brass but it should do until the real spares arrive. Made a second just in case it didn't.

Now for the insulator, paxolin bush being in short supply I used a section of PVC cut from the nozzle of a tube of glue. Made a spare for this too.

Fired up the transmitter and it worked prefectly however was of the opinion that we shouldn't really be sailing around for long with the main tx in this state but head office disagreed so in the end it was three months before I received the "urgent" spares. Would any survyors care to comment.


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## mikeg

Remember fixing a compression cap trimmer with mica from the boiler spares. When an IF interstage tranformer went in a receiver I just used a capacitor bridge instead, the receiver never worked so well! 
Plenty of make do's especially when power supplies went down, can't remember how now but got things going again.
I think all RO's had to think outside the box because of lack of spares.


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## david.hopcroft

Main HF Tx wouldn't tune. The tuning knob outside the case refused to move. 

The coil frame - a 'pot' type construction had cracked and the coil shifted causing the flanged contact wheel that ran across the top bar of the frame to jam up, mangle itself and refuse to move.

Fix - a bit of araldite or the frame and a new flanged wheel contact runner made by the Oz 3rd Eng - a brilliant fitter. Worked like a charm and all restored within 24 hours.

David
+


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## Gareth Jones

Radar failed during a storm - the plastic cover on the parabolic scanner horn had cracked and crumbled allowing ingress of water. when it dried out. I cut a double thickness of plastic tablecloth to shape which, when screwed in place worked perfectly for about 3 months - spare never arrived - so Ch steward gave me a tablecloth of my own to cut bits off as required !!!


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## Ron Stringer

*Spares*



mikeg said:


> I think all RO's had to think outside the box because of lack of spares.


If you ever sailed on a ship where the radio/radar equipment was on rental from MIMCo, you wouldn't forget the boxes of spare parts. I can't remember the numbers for sure but the spares kit for Crusader ran to several hundred items and filled several large cardboard boxes. Similar for Hermes/Argus radars.

Very few of the items seemed to get used; on every ship I worked on you spent more time shifting boxes of spares around, to find the item that you wanted, than you did fixing the fault.

In the mid-1990s, in one year we wrote off over £1.2M of unused spares in the Central Stores at Chelmsford, dating back to Oceanspan and even before. The original policy had been to order 10% of each order for new equipment to be supplied as spare parts. Of course only a very few components ever failed (and as they did, they were replaced by normal stock control) while the vast majority sat in stock for ever. That procurement policy was changed later, but the mass already in stock remained.

We eventually reached a position where our limit on capital invested was saturated by the book value of the stockholding of bits for kit that was no longer on ships, and we couldn't order essential spares or other capital items. No Financial Director was brave enough to bite the bullet by declaring the majority of the stock to be obsolete and surplus and writing it off. Eventually we had a combination of MD and FD that came in together and they wanted to clear the decks and load all the bad sh*t onto their predecessors in Year 1 so that their performance in subsequent years would be seen in a much better light. (Seem to have heard something like that again in the media recently). (?HUH)

We were ordered to go through everything and identify anything that would not be used in the next 6 months and select it for disposal. Had a hell of a job making a case for any spares, even the new stuff still in production - if you knew which items were going to fail in the next 6 months, you would change the design and fix it so they didn't fail. They took the big hit and from then on spares were more difficult to come by but the Profit-to-Capital-Employed Ratio was fantastic and the Directors for big bonuses. (Gleam)


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## trotterdotpom

I seem to recall some sort of official requirement for shipborne spare parts - so many replacement valves for however many were in the equipment and so forth. 

A lot of ships would have boxes of these with "used but good" written on them. It was very tempting to fault find by swapping valves - I wonder how many "used but good" valves were actually damaged that way. The spares box should have been re-named "The Old Curiosity Shop".

Every ship, I used to religiously go through the spares lists, check what was there and order missing items. Of course, there was often no spare for the bits that went wrong and I often amazed myself by proving that Ohm's Law was actually right - very satisfying when you were able to do that.

I developed a technique for not dropping small screws and seeing them disappear into inaccessible places - a small piece of snot on the end of a two foot screwdriver worked a treat and I never ran out of it! I called it "green tack". Unfortuately, someone called Mr Blue beat me to the Patent Office by a nose.

John T.


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## mikeg

Used to take a good meter and few tools with me, especially screwdrivers with grips to hold screws - one blade shown below.


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## david.hopcroft

After many treks from the wheelhouse to the radar room trying to get a BTH RMS2 to stay on, during a roll, the door slammed with an almighty bang. 'That's it Sparks, great job' called the 2nd Mate from the wheelhouse. 

I said nothing !!!

David
+


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## gwzm

BTH RMS1 radar on SS Malakand failed after an especially heavy tropical downpour. After a lot of searching, it turned out to be water in the waveguide. Traced to cracked paintwork and broken solder on the mitre bend on the waveguide beneath the scanner. The tool kit included a humungous soldering iron that resembled a cricket bat so not too difficult to remove the faulty bit of w/g, clean it up, and resolder. Worked fine afterwards.


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## Naytikos

My first trip (not counting a trawler) was on Benmacdhui where the chief R/O had got his ticket before WWII and been on that ship since the maiden voyage in 1947. She had a Nautilus VHF which had a range of only half a mile. Having nothing much to do, with the ship at anchor off Port Swettenham (Port Kelang today) I asked if I could 'fix it'. 
Big joke to everyone, it seemed, first trip R/Os were not held in very high regard in Ben line.
What happened to the antenna? I asked, noticing that there was no vertical stub rising from the ground plane on a stanchion at the aft end of the radar platform.
Red faces and 'can you do anything with it?'
1' 6.4" of copper tube and a jubilee clip later and we had a 25 mile range.
'How did you know how long to make the tube?' was the next question.

I couldn't think of a polite answer!


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## Radiomariner

I recall back in 1967 on the British Mariner a fault developed on the small Kelvin Hughes radar display. Can't remember the model, it stood on a plinth so that the visor was at eye level. The whole thing slid out on a rack for maintenance.
Cant remember the original fault but it only took a few minutes to repair. Portishead traffic list was on the loudspeaker and when it passed the "GL's (GLTA), i went through to radio room to switch off speaker. In that very short time the 2/O decided to slide the display unit back into its cabinet, I was just re-entering the wheelhouse as he did so. It made a noise like a machine gun. It was not correctly ligned up on its rails and the range change switch consisting of about a dozen wafers had caught on the cabinet and every wafer was snapped in half. No spare.
Rebuilt switch wafers using carboard from back of "Marconi" message pads and the good old Araldite. Worked a treat. KH kept sending the wrong type of switch as a replacement. The day I paid off the "third" replacement arrived again the wrong type but this time with instructions how to modify it. My relief simply said "Lets wait until it goes wrong" and put it away in the spares drawer.
I never did find if it was ever repaired properly


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## Radiomariner

On the Varicella 1975 we did a lot of grain lightering off Karachi. One of the ships we lightened was "Ephasos". The radio operator was unable to repair one of his two main receivers, cant remember the make think it was a Skanti, and asked for my help. It was quite dead, he had replaced every single printed circuit card and the motherboard. I eventually found the problem to be the 5V stabalising transistor for the master oscillator which was mounted direct on to the chasis. He had no replacement for this. I connected up a 5V supply from the audio board to the MO. This worked fine as long as the audio volume was not turned up too far when the receiver would become unstable. I gave him the details and a list of all the equivalent transistors for him to order a replacement. I took back half a case of Ouzo to the Varicella.

About two years later I was on a different ship, at Curacao I Believe, and the Ephasos was on the same jetty. I met the R/O (a different one) ashore and he told me he had a problem with instability on one of his receivers when on loudspeaker, but ok on headphones. None of the shore technicians could find the fault. I could hardly contain myself, but I kept stumph. I offered to have a look. Went with him back to the Ephasos, identified that my "link" was still in place, and that a new stabaliser transistor had been fitted. Two snips and my link was removed and the receiver returned to it's pristine glory before the first beer was consumed. This time I returned to my ship legless with four bottles of "Famous Grouse" and a promise of a well paid job from the Greek Captain.
I never of course mentioned that I had done the original mod!!


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## Billieboy

In the engine room one day the motor of one of the main engine Lub. Oil pumps started to rattle. The lower roller race had failed and come loose from the shaft. Stripped the motor down and skimmed the journal/shaft until it was cleaned up, the finished diameter was under the shaft diameter so a shrink fit sleeve was proposed, an old sootblower element was about the right size, bored out the sleeve and rough turned the outside diameter. Warmed up the new sleeve on the superheater outlet, then dropped it over the shaft and let it cool. Finish turned the sleeve and fitted a new roller race. The repair lasted 9 months until the next drydock when a new motor was fitted.


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## 40907

Vital Sparks said:


> Main transmitter suddenly refuses to tune one morning, crackling noise breaking through on main rx, distinct smell of burning insulation and a puff of smoke emerging from the tx final stage.


Rule of thumb...

When the magic smoke escapes, its poked! (Smoke)

(OK! I'm going! Don't push!)


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## mikeg

Reef Knot said:


> Rule of thumb...
> 
> When the magic smoke escapes, its poked! (Smoke)
> 
> (OK! I'm going! Don't push!)


Reminds me of Southampton College where one unfortunate students fault finding caused smoke to emit from the transmitter during an exam. Thereafter one lecturer used to say 'tune for maximum smoke'(Cloud)


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## 5TT

> Thereafter one lecturer used to say 'tune for maximum smoke'


I recall a chap at college who'd touch the antenna terminal on the Salvor 3 after tuning up, sniff the burnt flesh on his finger and proclaim "Yeah, that's about 50 watts" ...

I often wonder if he's still alive !!

= Adrian +


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## Ron Stringer

5TT said:


> I recall a chap at college who'd touch the antenna terminal on the Salvor 3 after tuning up, sniff the burnt flesh on his finger and proclaim "Yeah, that's about 50 watts" ...


On occasion while crisping up the crackling on the Sunday roast pork, things have got a bit too crisp. The smell when the oven door is opened immediately brings back the memories of the results of touching high voltage/RF terminals of one sort or another. Over the years I seem to have left bits of skin on several radars and radio transmitters.

Once smelt, never forgotten.


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## BOB GARROCH

Naytikos said:


> My first trip (not counting a trawler) was on Benmacdhui where the chief R/O had got his ticket before WWII and been on that ship since the maiden voyage in 1947. She had a Nautilus VHF which had a range of only half a mile. Having nothing much to do, with the ship at anchor off Port Swettenham (Port Kelang today) I asked if I could 'fix it'.
> Big joke to everyone, it seemed, first trip R/Os were not held in very high regard in Ben line.
> What happened to the antenna? I asked, noticing that there was no vertical stub rising from the ground plane on a stanchion at the aft end of the radar platform.
> Red faces and 'can you do anything with it?'
> 1' 6.4" of copper tube and a jubilee clip later and we had a 25 mile range.
> 'How did you know how long to make the tube?' was the next question.
> 
> I couldn't think of a polite answer!


As a radio engineer for Pye telecom based in Wales. I was called out to
the Dembyshire ambulance service, which was off the air. I traced the fault to a remote radio site with no UHF link. It was middle of winter and snowing. On arrival at the site I noticed the Yagi had broken away from the mast, due to metal fatigue. The only way to get back on the air was to climb the mast and strip the coax to about 5 inches of inner and pointing the iiner down the valley to the other radio site. The system worked the entire winter, until the riggers could replace the antenna. 
Another time in the middle of the Karoo desert on a 7000ft site my antenna where being broken by Baboons swinging on the yag boomi. I fixed this problem by hanging cassete tape on to the mast. As the tape blew in the wind it looked like snakes. Baboon problem sorted out.


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## Ron Stringer

Marconi's 'Oceanlink 400' was a 400W, 1.6-30MHz, solid state transmitter/receiver where the transmitter antenna tuning was fully automatic. The transmitter RF output was fed via a 50-Ohm coax to a remote ATU, fitted out on deck at the base of the transmitting antenna. One such installation gave a lot of problems and complaints because the transmitter frequently failed to find tune.

After various service agents and Marconi depot staff had made unsuccessful service calls to the vessel, it was clear that someone from Head Office would have to go and sort things out. Because my right-hand man was on leave and the only other guy available with experience of that transmitter was the one that had supervised the original installation, I sallied out from the Ivory Tower of Chelmsford and visited the vessel in a UK port. Sure enough the transmitter antenna tuning was very unstable, sometimes achieving a match within a second or so, at other times hunting up and down but never getting on tune. 

Having tried it on MF and every HF band, I went above deck to check out the antenna and the external installation. I quickly found the problem. The ATU earth connection to the ship's superstructure had been executed by means of a Jubilee clip fastened around one of the stanchions of the ship's railing around the monkey island. Having replaced that arrangement by an earth bolt screwed into the deck and some copper strip, all was sweetness and light. Believe me, on my return, there was one very red face in the team.

For some years that Jubilee clip hung on a peg, back in my office, as a reminder to my staff that earthing was a vital component of any transmitter installation. It now sits on a shelf in my garage, having retired with me.


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## BOB GARROCH

i was requested to check on a radio system at a site called "MAC" at 8000ft in the 'Bavianskloof" (Baboon range of hills) . This is an extreme hostile environment in winter and summer, extremes of weather, snow, ice and summer 45C+ . Also wild animals including lots of Baboons and leopard and I would normally request an airforce helicopter to drop me off on top of the mountain. However the airforce where not available, So I had to plan a field trip, which included survival gear for 5 days, water, test equipment, weapons (For protection against wild animals) and field escourts to carry the test equipment and survival gear.

I had to leave home with my landcruiser at 3.00am (After advising mountain rescue of my intentions, project times, radio channel number of people. Drive for three hours to pick up the field escourts and then drive through the bush for two hours, then two hours up the mountain track as far as we could get, and then walk for another two hours to the radio site up the edge of the mountain. I found the fault in the transmitter and pulled out my trusty 12vdc soldering iron to replace the part and discovered that I had no solder. I normally wind the solder onto the cable of the soldering iron. 
After spending 5 minutes sweating and cursing I scratched around on the ground looking through the pebbles and rocks and found 1 inch of solder. It was just enough to replace the TX PA . Someone was on my side that day. In fact it was one of those special days, lovely weather and the wind was trickeling over the rocks sounding like water. Which did not exist in that environment. From that site I could speak over 300km on VHF ( The joys of a Radio Engineer in Africa)


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## Naytikos

Bob, if you ever need an assistant for a field trip like that, let me know!


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## 5TT

Ron, Mr Google hasn't turned up much on the Oceanlink 400. 
Do you still have any info on it, photos etc?

= Adrian +


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## Ron Stringer

5TT said:


> Ron, Mr Google hasn't turned up much on the Oceanlink 400.
> Do you still have any info on it, photos etc?
> 
> = Adrian +


Sorry Adrian, nothing at all. By the time that series of products came out (Oceanlink 800/400/810/EMX) the 'Marconi Mariner' in-house magazine had been discontinued so that is not a possible source as it was for the older products. There may be people with copies of the brochures (which were quite flash by MIMCo standards) or with handbooks, but I'm not one of them.


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## John Lyne

While serving as the second mate on the Mobil Endeavour yonks ago we had a Captain ( Anthony was it ?) who would insist on the radat scanner being aligned athwartships when not in use...consequently when coming onto the bridge he would pulse the scanner controls until it was so,after all this misstreatment the tufnel gearing in the servo motor gave up the ghost and the ppi would show on the screen leaping around on different bearings instead of head up.
Consequently being quite a distance off the coast a load of extra work would be involved in taking sights to fix our position instead of using the radar.
My 'repair' was to take the servo motor from the radar scanner unit lash it to the side of the wheelhouse console and attatch a small handle to the mangled gears (I can't remember what re-wiring was involved but it was very basic ) then by carefully rotating the handle one could get the ppi to point head up plus or minus a couple of degrees so it would be easy to identify points of land and get a good position by means of distances off....I attatched a 'What the Butler saw' label to the assembly..!


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## radioman1969

*Freelance*

After 20 odd years with 'organised' UK flag vessels decided to see how the other half lived and joined UME. They sent me to a small Italian flagged LPG tanker. Not a spare part onboard (not even for the gas side/engines !!). On my side the guy I relieved was drunk in bed so I was on my own to do 'handover'. Good start, eh?

I always take my own testmeter, soldering iron and basic spares kit (notably Decca Radar scanner motor brushes) just in case; fortunate in this case as ship had two TM type Decca radars, one of which was permanently switched off as it had ceased working some months before and the other radar could only be used on Relative Motion mode. 

The inop one only required scanner motor brushes fitted (my spares came in useful again !) and in the other case, the shaft of the synchro motor had come unstuck - araldite solved that. 

The Italians were 'gob smacked' that both radars were up and running within 24 hrs of me joining !

UME were rubbish to work for; it took me ages to claim my wages when I left as they had held back one month's salary in case I 'jumped ship'.

The lads on there were great to sail with even though we had to supply much of our own food (I survived on cereals and water for the whole 6 months and in port stocked up on fresh milk) The company supplied very little foodstuffs - we even had to buy our own soap ! I lost about 5 stone in weight.

It was a real eye opener after the luxury of UK flagged vessels. Still worth the experience.


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## radiotech

So many ! Start with the first two. Leknes 1970, problem talkback system bridge-engineroom, signal-to-noise from engine room too high. Solution reduce sensitivity of engine room mic, this was done by a relay so when e/room talked it reduced sensitivity. Worked a treat, I was so proud of this fix I drew the mod out on the back of a used chart, used all the space on the back of a chart !
C/E commmented how much I must wanted to be remembered !
Second, same ship; emergency rx failed, found screen resistor on I.F. valve open circuit - replaced - worked a treat. 
At the time I was jnr R/O; Snr R/O was gob smacked - how did yo do that ? In fact it was pure logic fault finding training from Brunel. I always had a gift for fault finding but on same ship missed a msg from GKZ - my morse was my weakness, but it did get better!


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## Graham P Powell

I heard about one BP tanker where the eht supply on the radar display broke down. The R/O on board ( Kelvin Hughes I think) used the eht supply from a TV to get it working again. Ingenious I thought.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## trotterdotpom

Well, you'd expect Kelvin to be pretty switched on I suppose. I didn't know he went to sea.

John T.


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## mikeg

trotterdotpom said:


> Well, you'd expect Kelvin to be pretty switched on I suppose. I didn't know he went to sea.
> 
> John T.


Who would look after the factory (Jester)


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## Baulkham Hills

I was on an old wreck of a ship in the middle-east, there were quite a few a/c units onboard, two for the bridge and engine control room one for the officers mess and another for the crew mess all different makes. 
The unit for the crew mess failed and after opening up the unit found the problem was a starting capacitor for the compressor which was totally destroyed.
Of course there were no spares and the shipowner would not supply spares because the ship was due for scrapping. I had a look around for something I could use to get the system working, the crew was really suffering in the heat. In the workshop there were drawers of spares for the fluorescent lighting, including dozens of small capacitors used for powerfactor in the fittings.
The maximum voltage of these capacitors was 600V which was ok for the a/c unit but obviously the capacity was too small.
I made up a pack of ten capacitors connected in parallel and tried in the unit. With a clampmeter I seen the current flowing through the capacitors was too small to start the compressor. I made up another ten and then another and finally ended up with about 35 capacitors all in parallel. Finally the compressor burst into life. Cooling down beautifully. It remained working until I paid off a few months later.


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## Robert Hilton

In the far off days when a weekend in port was not entirely unknown the coaster I was mate on the Sea Thames. The place was Whitstable and we had arrived with the auto pilot out of action. The master/owner, Hugh Williamson, had found a relay to be faulty, but with no detectable electrical fault. I said, "Then it must be mechanical."

Hugh went home for the weekend having called a technician to fix the auto pilot. When the technician arrived I pointed out the offending relay. It turned out that a steel rod about five inches long had broken in two. 

The technician said a new relay would be needed to be sent from Germany. I said, "What about a new rod?" He said that would have to come from Germany too. 

ME "What about a five inch nail?" TECH "Not hard enough."

So I got him to cut the blade off the appropriate sized good quality screwdriver which was perfect. He Proudly wrote on his repair report, "Spare obtained by cutting down screwdriver."


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## freddythefrog

Graham Powell
Yes the guy you mention about fixing the radar on a BP tanker with the EHT from the TV set was a KH R/O his name was Keith Roberts, a great guy, he also used to give me a lift home at weekends from courses in Hainault as we both lived up north. A great fix! cheers ftf


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## harryredvers

In MIMCO I joined a Souter bulker (Sheaf Field) in Newport, Mon. c.1964-5 and crossed the Atlantic to load cargo in Victoria, Newfoundland (I think that's what the place was called - it was in a bay tucked round from St John's). During the crossing and round about the Grand Banks we became virtually becalmed in thick fog and drifted for about two days. The reason we drifted was because the radar packed up and the old man wouldn't proceed till he could see where he was going. It was autumn. I don't know what the iceberg situation is like in autumn or the likelihood of encountering any in those waters. I do remember big fishing boats, probably Russian factory ships, so there would probably have been a considerable risk of collision from them. So we floated waiting for the mist to clear, or the radar to work. I didn't have a radar ticket then so I don't imagine I did too much probing about. Mind you I did know why it wasn't working and i did tell him. So he blamed me for its defectiveness. I'd been there three weeks anyway. It was simple - the alternator wouldn't run. How did I fix it? I told the lecce and he gave it a look over. He told the chief, and he gave it a look over with the lecce. Then they stripped it down and the lecce took it below and skimmed the armature on a lathe. The lecce reassembled it and it worked. About two days and we got under way. Thirty minutes later we emerged from the fog. The Captain stopped blaming me when the lecce explained to him that there was no way I could have skimmed the armature - or was it the chief who told him? They had their meals separately on that ship - well the old man did, I'm not sure now about the chief.


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## NoR

John Lyne said:


> While serving as the second mate on the Mobil Endeavour yonks ago we had a Captain ( Anthony was it ?) who would insist on the radat scanner being aligned athwartships when not in use...................


Like the Mate I sailed with during my apprenticeship who made us scrape the paint off then polish the DF Loop. Nothing like getting your priorities right.


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## Moulder

NoR said:


> Like the Mate I sailed with during my apprenticeship who made us scrape the paint off then polish the DF Loop. Nothing like getting your priorities right.


He was right - any paint on the insulator shim that separated the loops from the base assembly would have rendered any bearings completely useless. 

(Thumb)


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## harryredvers

Nr.36
wrt. ps: In what way?


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## les.edgecumbe

ps Seems to be a bit of elitism crept on to the forum with "Super Sparks!"
*Nr.36
wrt. ps: In what way?*

Yes indeed, a supercilious term ~ I would like to hear the definition of this term. Most R/Os, REO's, ~ even Mates and Engineers had their strong points and weaknesses~ but I never met a Super one from any of these.


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## NoR

Moulder said:


> He was right - any paint on the insulator shim that separated the loops from the base assembly would have rendered any bearings completely useless.
> 
> (Thumb)


I didn't know that, but then I don't suppose he did either.


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## sparksatsea

*Kelvin Hughes Radar*

After spending ten years at sea, I came ashore as a Marine Electronics Engineer. I was tasked to attend to ex Channel Island ferry's having been sold to the Italians. On one of them the heading marker on the main radar set was not functioning. When I got there and removed the aerial casing I found that the heading marker assembly had disintegrated. Contacted KH who advised that they no longer had them in stock.... hmmmm what to do next??

Removed the fixing plate and took backto the workshop... cut a BIC biro case in half, the same height as the original unit... inserted a reed relay into the casing, fixed two long wires from the bottom and sealed 
with lashings of araldite... When dry put ohm meter in extended wires and run a magnetg over the relay... short circuit obtained.... Re-visit vessel, fix plate assembly back into circuit, attach wires and fire radar up.... hey presto now have a good heading line again.


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## minty

my cheif R/O was Alex Gordon a real MIMCO veteran (anyone recall the great man ?) - his advice was to always have a hammer on hand for quick repairs !


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## k9ljb

I was the ham r/o on the hospital ship Hope in Tunis in 1969, running phone patches for the crew and medical staff. An American sailing yacht came into harbor and asked if there was anyone on board who could make repairs to their auto pilot. I took a look at it. It used tubes, no surprise in those days. The B+ of around 250 volts was supplied by a dynamotor, surplus from a WWII ARC5 aircraft receiver. It was a 24 volt model with a large dropping resistor so it could run from the 32 volt battery system. The brushes were worn down and the commutator was chewed up so it was useless. The boats owner said that the autopilot was only used at supper time when the 6 people on board liked to eat together. I went back to the ship and dug through the junk box in the radio room and, along with a few spare parts I brought of my own, was able to cobble together a power supply so that the autopilot could function when the generator was running, as it was around meal time since the cook stove was electric. Problem solved and it got me an invitation to accompany them for their crossing to Barbados. Experience of a lifetime.

Later, in Casablanca the 15 KW Onan generator had brush problems. I had to file down some much larger brushes to replace the worn out ones.


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## vmr

re The Above,Our kelvin Hughes Radar Packed It In One Afternoon And Sparkes Came To Me While I Was Doing A bit Of Ship Modelling And Ratted my SPARES Bit Box For A Plastic Knitting Needle Something About Insulator!! It Worked Anyway Sparkes Said He Would Replace Knitting Needle Next Time In Port!. VMR.


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## YORKYSPARX

New radar fitted to a tanker, after sailing it failed, EHT rectifier diode. No spare, only a spare for original radar that was dismantled. This spare had diferrent heater volts.
RO altered socket of rectifier, got a lead acid battery, insulated and secured same,. switched on and good picture obtained.
Cannot remember the RO name but Radio Holland thought he was fantastic. 
Yorkysparx


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## mikeg

sparksatsea said:


> After spending ten years at sea, I came ashore as a Marine Electronics Engineer. I was tasked to attend to ex Channel Island ferry's having been sold to the Italians. On one of them the heading marker on the main radar set was not functioning. When I got there and removed the aerial casing I found that the heading marker assembly had disintegrated. Contacted KH who advised that they no longer had them in stock.... hmmmm what to do next??
> 
> Removed the fixing plate and took backto the workshop... cut a BIC biro case in half, the same height as the original unit... inserted a reed relay into the casing, fixed two long wires from the bottom and sealed
> with lashings of araldite... When dry put ohm meter in extended wires and run a magnetg over the relay... short circuit obtained.... Re-visit vessel, fix plate assembly back into circuit, attach wires and fire radar up.... hey presto now have a good heading line again.


Ingenious fix! Bet it'll cause some Italian head scratching when it eventually fails (*)) Questi englis inglesi sono geniale!


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## BobClay

I had two favourite fault fixes in the years I was at sea:
On this main tx; 
http://www.bob-clay.co.uk/Sea.htm

top picture, a large coil on the PA tuning burnt out. Got an old tangle of wire from the lecky and since the coil was about the size of a bog roll, I used a bog roll tube and was able to count the turns on the burnt coil so I just reproduced them. Had to run at low power, but stayed on the air until a spare arrived.

When free lancing I lost a couple of working frequences (8/16) and figured it was the crystal. Fixed in a plastic box about the size of a Swan Vestas box and when I opened it up, sure enough, a small gold connection wire in one corner had come away. No way to fix it back, so put the crystal between two paperclips and wrapped in an elastic band and soldered wires to the clips. GKB said the tone was ok, and this too served until spare arrived.

Always wanted to say I fixed something with a bog roll, paperclips and an elastic band ... !! Sounds far fetched I know, but absolutely true.(Bounce)


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## Techy

Apart from my own 6.5 volt elastic band - I saw two amazing repairs of RADAR.

The RO on a paper ship to and from the St Lawrence in foul weather, was confronted with the RADAR not working he dived in and diagnosed the delay line was burnt out. He made a replacement from a coil of heavy duty coax and two large capacitors - It worked he was praised all round. I had the pleasure of removing his work and fitting a replacement. The Captain had the RO's work mounted in a glass case.

I went on board a Norwegian cargo ship to fix RADAR (just a big blob in centre of CRT) I was peering up at the scanner and waveguide when the first Officer told me that a "piece of pipe from the radar" had been damaged in heavy weather and their excellent carpenter had replaced it. I couldn't see this work until the Chief pointed out one section of waveguide painted white like the rest but on close inspection looked a bit odd. The Carpenter had carefully hammered & filed a piece of copper pipe to exactly the same exteral dimentions as waveguide and then soldered the coupling fittings on each end. I got a repplacement and was allowed to keep the carpenters effort, a great piece of work.


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## forthbridge

minty said:


> my cheif R/O was Alex Gordon a real MIMCO veteran (anyone recall the great man ?) - his advice was to always have a hammer on hand for quick repairs !


Is that the Aex Gordon who used to be with Ben Line? Can't remember which ship I met him on.


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## minty

forthbridge said:


> Is that the Aex Gordon who used to be with Ben Line? Can't remember which ship I met him on.


yeah, the very same - from Kirkcudbright still alive and kicking in Southend ! he spent all his Mimco time with the Ben Line which included being torpedoed twice in WW2 ! he swam to safety twice - I sailed with him twice as junior sparks on the City of Edinburgh (BenCoE)


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## Vital Sparks

On joining one ship there was an extra black box mounted next to the TV in the officers bar containing some electronics and a speaker. Apparently the official Bush multi standard set had failed and a replacement set had been acquired in the UK. That set could not receive
sound from Europen transmitters and so a previous R/O had taken the UK and European sound boards from the knackered Bush set and mounted them in a box with a speaker. A length of coax was fed from the boards into the new TV and placed near to the I/F transformer where the bared end of the cable acted as an aeiral. To prevent co-interference the sound boards were interconnected so that a board receiving a signal would shut down the other.


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## expats

I remember the Mk4 radars used to _supply me_ with spares....every time I fixed it I found a resistor/capacitor had fallen off from somewhere.

The capacitors used to leak oil over everything so you could never read values or find where they'd come from...

Mind you, I ended up with half a shoe box of redundant bits and the old Mk4 trundled on...

!"


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## hawkey01

Expats,

on behalf of the Moderating team welcome to SN. You have found the right home here in the Radio Room. Enjoy all we have to offer.

Hawkey01


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## expats

Thanks for the welcome...I stopped 'ROing' in 1982 ( later years working at Marconi Comms Chelmsford) My immediate boss was George Hill and he and I salvaged a few 'Signals' which were all that was left from umpteen years of publication. I still, occasionally,read the 'supplements' and find out where I was in the month's publication....


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## johnvvc

Went on watch one day and switched the Atalanta on and - nothing...no dial lights and no signals after the usual long wait...

After a bit of sniffing around with the AVO found that the thermistor in the heater chain had gone open circuit. Had a look in the spares box and picked out a largish potentiometer, fitted to a L-shaped aluminium bracket and attached onto the side of the receiver using a convenient screw. This was wired in place of the thermistor. Turned it up to max resistance, switched the receiver on then slowly reduced the resistance as the heaters warmed up, measuring the voltage across one of the valve bases to confirm all was well.

After that I used to leave the receiver permanently switched on turning the volume down when I went off watch....

Marconi sent a replacement but months later it hadn't arrived...


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## Naytikos

Why would one ever switch a receiver off? (except, of course, an Alert where it made no difference whether it was on or off). 
My point being that if the receiver was needed in a hurry it was already warmed up and stability would not be an issue.


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## Troppo

I never switched the main or em rx off....just turned them down when off watch...


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## tiachapman

one sunday morning after taking the soundings . i was in the workshop having a beer with the bosun. the mate came in . chippy fix these by diner time he puta hanky on the workbench and when he opened it up a set of false teeth or bits of them came into view . the Old Mans munchers in 6 bits

not having that sort of glue to fix them had to see the 2ng got a tube of iron cement . that done the trick with the jigsaw puzzle.we did enjoy the four bells he sent down after dinner.


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## Varley

Being unobservant until 'this' happened I didn't realise that the old man (George Leggett) had false teeth.

It was my teeth, therefore, that were put on edge when he borrowed a warding file from the radio tools, put it in his mouth and started work on a 'defect' on his porcelain pegs. Later in the trip he split the top plate and, without the skill shown #58, resorted to gums after a few days with an obviously reciprocating mouth.


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## Vital Sparks

One day an alarm clock appeared in the radio room which belonged to the Bandari. Not knowing anything about clocks I took the back off with a sense of trepidation but did notice that the pendulum wheel wasn't moving. Closer inspection revealed a spring jamming it which I prodded with a screwdriver. It jumped ringt back into place and the clock started ticking. Having fixed it with nothing more than beginners luck I sent it back to the Bandari and then the trouble began.

The problem was I discovered, that doing a favour for the Bandari was a bit like doing a favour for the godfather, honour required that it be returned, by the bucket load.

When arriving for a meal, the order in which diners were served was apparently a function of their arrival time, rank and how much influence they had with the Bandari. 

I could arrive five minutes after the old man and be served before him and I couldn't make it stop.


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## marconiman

An AVO crock clip attached to a metal sheet and punka louvres directed at it. This was clipped to a very hot and unstable F - V convertor, on the top pull out drawer of the main frame computer cabinet which controlled the monitoring and simulation of the un-manned engine room on board GTV Euroliner (Seatrain), one of Denholm's finest container vessels on N Atlantic run.

And it worked, staying cool, well fairly, but within parameters which enabled the ER to go UMS at night, which was very well received as there were only three engineers, all with chief tickets and they would be watch keeping if monitoring failed. Speed back up to 32 knots supplied by two Prat & Whitney gas turbine engines. Crew numbers were down to about 14 on the ship.

New module arrives in East Coast USA and I can stop sweating. Great ship but never saw the Radio Room had to leave it to Junior, had two other jobs to do Electrical and ship admin/paperwork as well as all usual ECO work on ER Automation, Radar and the like but extra pay for doing 3 jobs. 

Crew were GP, alternating between deck and ER. We were so thin on the ground as one watch on, one off and the other sleeping you hardly saw anyone.

It was a baptism by fire on there dealing with two shaft alternators and main switch board electrics of 4.5Mw capability. Happy days.
Picture of Euroliner in Gallery, fine looking vessel.


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## J. Davies

Or conversely what did we not fix..
Late 80's a skipper asked me to have a go repairing his Sony Walkman. Remember those portable cassette players?
The thing would not play and just regurgitated many feet of tape in annoying tangled loops, with the cassette stuck inside. 
Carefully using the bench illuminated magnifying glass and a comprehensive selection of jeweller's screwdrivers I managed to open the casing, but it sprang apart suddenly and hundreds of microscopic springs and other bits flew accross the workshop. 
It took me ages to gather them all up. 
After a few days I plucked up courage and sheepishly handed the collection of bits back to the skipper in a plastic bag.


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## marconiman

Also unfixed. Apollo RX on Dart Atlantic, input staged wrecked by Crusader, must have been a momentary lapse of the de-sensitising. Neon arrestor probably saved most of it, though charred. Got some weak signals out of it by bypassing the blown input tracks and able to use to get a replacement RX air freighted to next port, New York. Powerful jobs those Crusaders and a great improvement on the 'span. Can't remember what the emergency RX was, probably an Alert which I think most would agree was a useless piece of junk and only 5TT.


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## joe-ei5ge

*so what did you do to fix it with*

Using a soldering iron the size of a bat triggered an interesting short story .... back in 1974 on board the 'Al Solabiah' ,Kuwaity shipping, bear in mind this was my first solo voyage , joining in Liverpool and heading for the Persian Gulf ( transiting the Suez shortly after re-opening) by the time we arrived in the Strait of Hormuz I had become really familiar and dare I say it confident with the Russian Gear in Radio Room, for one the Main Tx was putting out 1.8KW into a long wire antenna that went from funnel deck to fo'castle (or amidships tower)
anyway, passing Hormuz I was sending my last batch of QTC's to A9M and privately looking forward to off-watch duties, maybe a little bit MF/QSO but mostly VHF, when suddenly there was a massive 'Bang' and 'Flash' as I was sending which really shuck me to say the least, I sprang into action and switch TXMTR off and got to the bridge just in time to see the 'Freemantle' Bosun lowering the main antenna which lay firmly on the hatch cover..... words like cows dung streamed from my mount and a cold sweat trickled down my forehead as I returned to R/Room to check for damage... there was no damage and I breathed a sigh of relieve when I realised I still had my MF but there was a hollow in my stomach thinking ' traversing around the Globe requesting QSP's'. Before we arrived in Kuwait I checked out fuses and reported to Captain who said ' sparks you're in luck, ' I have requested the 2 services Technicians based in Kuwait'.
Fast forward 2 weeks where they fault-finded by replacing whole sections of the PA section etc etc and drew a blank. At one station the R/O from a sister ship in port ( a very tall Cork man) added his wiz-kid reputation into the mix and yes you guessed correct another 'Blank'....... now I had the chest fallen realisation that we were sailing the next day without Main Txmtr.... so I asked the Ch/Eng if he could sent 3 hefty Junior engineers to Radio Room and all four of us removed the massive Transformer and there was the culprit a completely 'Dry-joint' which turned out to be the 1500 Volt supply to PA anodes. out came the Godzilla of soldering irons and after cleaning off burnt end, re-soldered and heaved the Transformer back into the cabinet, and magically the Txmtr came to life again, you can imagine the delight and boost to my confidence. ( I must have told the Techs ( x12 times) that there was a loud bang and flash to the bottom rear of Transformer unit ( this obviously fell on deaf ears). To complete the repair I sent a few test Messages to A9M and GKA and I bought the beers that night and never looked back, happy days. when I paid off months later in Gulf State the Agent arranged my flight home via New York and a 10 day stay over (with my Sister Marie and family) was arranged by a Senior Guy in Aer Lingus ( a close friend of the family from my home town, Tipperary)


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## radiotech

Working for Tradax (Cargill) on OBO's built in Split Yugoslavia.
Was advised on take over of one ship, to keep a good supply of ground plane elements for the VHF aerials as they broke regularly from vibration. Aerial type was central dipole with 3 ground planes at 45 degrees down.
The answer was to put a piece of plastic tube over the ground plane element, cut down and spread the end to retain the plastic. This alterted the mechanical resonant frequency and no more elements broke. Told head office who thought I was I genius !!! It saved them alot of money anyway.
Then because of my 'technical expertise' I was sent to one of their ships in Novorossisyk (Russia) because no main transmitter working. Very quickly identified burnt out capacitor in RF PA stage. Remedy - found correct value capacitor in spares but not correct voltage rating. Went up on air (sitor telex) (very naughty) on very low power ordered new cap and can't remember if it came to Novorossiysk or Istanbul.


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## Ian Hay

marconiman said:


> Also unfixed. Apollo RX on Dart Atlantic, input staged wrecked by Crusader, must have been a momentary lapse of the de-sensitising. Neon arrestor probably saved most of it, though charred. Got some weak signals out of it by bypassing the blown input tracks and able to use to get a replacement RX air freighted to next port, New York. Powerful jobs those Crusaders and a great improvement on the 'span. Can't remember what the emergency RX was, probably an Alert which I think most would agree was a useless piece of junk and only 5TT.


Hi Marconiman, the emergency rx on GOOF was a Monitor and was probably as useful as an Alert!


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