# Redifon AA1



## andrekik (Feb 28, 2015)

Anyone have a manual for the AA1, would love to have a copy of the diagram.
Back in the mid eighties we built an Autowatch to be installed in the wheelhouse. With this console ships could sail without R/O provided they had Satcom. We used the AA1 in this set up. We produced 40 to 50 of them on the special request of a couple of shipowners.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

Well, whaddayaknow - I actually have a working Redifon AA1 and manual.
I'm about to put them on a well-known auction site!


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## andrekik (Feb 28, 2015)

Tks Pippin, would you be able to copy the schematic and forward it to me?


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## Bill.B (Oct 19, 2013)

Hi Andre
I would have thought you had a complete ship in your shed by now! Hope retirement going well still. Enjoying mine a lot. Take care. Not much electronics in my shed. Atalanta, R1120, Eddystone 8xx and a couple of Eddystone EC10 Receivers. Gave most of my Sailor stations, from the cable ships, to Johan. 
Bill Bonner


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## andrekik (Feb 28, 2015)

Hi Bill,
That's a surprise. 
Will call u ltr today.
Andre


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## Bill.B (Oct 19, 2013)

Ok will Andre.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

andrekik said:


> Tks Pippin, would you be able to copy the schematic and forward it to me?


Will do!


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## Bill.B (Oct 19, 2013)

Reply to an old friend and colleague. Andre is one of the best. Ask any Radio Holland tech.


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

andrekik said:


> .... We produced 40 to 50 of them on the special request of a couple of shipowners.....


 Just as well as one wonders under this arrangement becoming commonplace how many distressed seafarers may have lost their lives.
Similarly how many PDRH RO's were privy to the fact their employers were plotting their downfall.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

andrekik - I have found the AA1 manual.

Problem - the Rx cct page is 90cm wide! The logic page is 60cm wide! The chassis cct is 45cm wide!

Do you need all of it copying?

= RGDS =


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

R651400 said:


> Just as well as one wonders under this arrangement becoming commonplace how many distressed seafarers may have lost their lives.
> Similarly how many PDRH RO's were privy to the fact their employers were plotting their downfall.


Appalling. As we all know, a machine has not yet been invented that can accurately read all "fists" - let alone mates being able to understand Q codes and morse abbreviations...

The regulatory authority that approved this was inept...if not criminally incompetent.


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

Please give an example of the lost lives brought about by GMDSS. Why is reading a fist needed if the machines are communicating using modern techniques.

There have been many fires caused by oil squirting on to hot exhausts of new fangled oil engines. Is this a reason to return to coal burrners?

On most ships R/Os kept a watch for 8 hours a day. What of the other 16?


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

Are you saying #1 is a Global MDSaritime Distress and Safety System?


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Varley said:


> Please give an example of the lost lives brought about by GMDSS. Why is reading a fist needed if the machines are communicating using modern techniques.
> 
> There have been many fires caused by oil squirting on to hot exhausts of new fangled oil engines. Is this a reason to return to coal burrners?
> 
> On most ships R/Os kept a watch for 8 hours a day. What of the other 16?


As per the blurb, the machine in the first post was used to decode traffic on 5 ton - so it had nothing at all to do with GMDSS. 

It was (I assume) used as the rationale to dispense with the R/O in some shonky exemption arrangement pre the 1992-1999 transition window.

Ships were either fully compliant with the GMDSS or the W/T systems....


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## Varley (Oct 1, 2006)

#13/#14

I ran away with myself.as Troppo says #1 can only be something produced when the various exemptions were about. It can not really be an attempt at a UMS radio room as it has no means of alerting. 

The only one of those that I knew of that dispensed with the R/O (and would therefore been relevant to the commentary on loss of life by depending on such a UMS Station) was applying R/T rules to a ship that conventionally should have been W/T.

That was a tanker joining us and changing flag from ? to Singapore. She had been built as an R/T vessel under whatever flag although much larger than the 1599 GT limit.

If giving that some thought why did the malicious owners not simply lobby to replace the limited number of W/T Stations with the R/T safety radio facilities of a 1599? These must have been far more numerous than W/T ships (I have never looked for that stat. so maybe not). I do not hear any widespread, or any, whining from the navigators of that sector being badly served having to add that to their watchkeeping. They, however, might well have complained that while a W/T ship could request help from them, until 'transition' started with the R/T Watch receiver, the only way for them to ask a W/T vessel for help was if she were alerted by NavWarning or relay. Perhaps there has been a vast difference in the loss of life brought about by this difference in communications ability those would be interesting stats.

I don't think we ever fully satisfied Singapore that the international regulations permitted such an equivalence. A flag could exempt its own vessels willie-nillie but to prove an equivalence when such a vessel changed flag was more difficult and generally had to be 'not without' IMO spec. For instance we took two Russian built vessels into management. Their ARPAs were rejected at Radio Survey as the screen size, which is IMO specified, was too small. (The Russian Radio Rooms were palatial a feature which the W/T enthusiast would have appreciated was the autokey. This included the ship's position as determined by a manual entry station on the bridge). 

The exemption that we favoured was the NW European Navtex Exemption. That did not dispense with the R/O but did allow him, to be released from watchkeeping if needed to practice his technical skills elsewhere on board.


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## andrekik (Feb 28, 2015)

pippin said:


> andrekik - I have found the AA1 manual.
> 
> Problem - the Rx cct page is 90cm wide! The logic page is 60cm wide! The chassis cct is 45cm wide!
> 
> ...


Hi Pippin, have not been on this forum for some 10 days, sorry for that. That's somewhat of a problem. Do you have a digital camera? if so can you make a high def picture of the receiver and the logic circuit diagrams? don't need anything else. Is there possibly a one page blockdiagram in the manual, that may help too. 
Thanks


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## andrekik (Feb 28, 2015)

R651400 said:


> Just as well as one wonders under this arrangement becoming commonplace how many distressed seafarers may have lost their lives.
> Similarly how many PDRH RO's were privy to the fact their employers were plotting their downfall.


Ships with this contraption were allowed to sail without R/O, this was pre GMDSS, around 1988. As you can see from the suffix of the typenr this was approved by Liberia and Bahamas, the FCC (USA) allowed it coastwise (we had two versions, depending on flag, one required the unit to be fully backed up by 24V DC). And yes the morse decoder has some limitations, that's why there was a tape recorder which copied the received code. If the print out and readout was garbled by static or a poor fist, the tape could be played back via satcom to the USCG or other authority and be decoded by shore based radio operators. I am not aware of any lives lost as a result of this. If it would have led to any lives lost it would have been an immediate big stink. As someone else mentioned on ships with just one R/O 16 hours watch/per day was kept by the AA. Seen some systems installed by other companies with just an Autoalarm (Raytheon 1AAR/K), morse decoder and printer. No display and/or tape recorder.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

andrekik said:


> This was approved by Liberia and Bahamas, the FCC (USA) allowed it coastwise


Yes...why am I not surprised....(shakes head)


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## R651400 (Jun 18, 2005)

My Liberian ticket (on presentation of my PMG) cost me $10 and I signed articles in the middle of the Atlantic bound for Curacao two months after joining.
The only clause I remember from those articles...
I wasn't allowed to carry a knife.


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## andrekik (Feb 28, 2015)

R651400 said:


> My Liberian ticket (on presentation of my PMG)


Nothing wrong with that, that's the way it was supposed to be. 
There were however R/Os that had flag of convenience certificates issued on recommendation of the Master, with no official ticket as a backup. In 1970 was called to repair a main transmitter on a tanker at the Lago refinery in San Nicolas. The agent requested to bring a keying relay and a telegraph key. In the radioroom I found a variety of keys and R/O complained that he could not make contact with any station and that he suspected that the keying relay and/or keys were at fault. After verifying that no cargo operations were going on, checked the transmitter (Scandinavian high power unit A1/A2/A3, don't recall the type), worked perfect on all bands and both antennas. To proof that there was nothing wrong with the keying/keys called a couple of European stations on CW and made contact rightaway, he was astonished. Asked him to try it.......well..... his morse was absolutely unintelligible. Sat down with the poor kid and he told me that he had received his ticket on recommendation of the master of another ship. He had no problems copying code. Instructed him to start practising sending code counting out dots/dashes/spaces and keep at it. Then I broke the news to the captain. Had my service ticket signed and went on to the next ship.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

The should really have been called "Flags of Inconvenience"!
Convenient perhaps for the owners but inconvenient for everyone else.

When I was at college doing my PMG we had three adult students from a continent somewhere due south of UK.
They had been sent on the course simply because they could already read Morse.
Trouble is, it was railway Morse - clicks on sounders.
We dreaded being paired up with them in Morse lessons!
I don't think any of them passed the 2nd Class PMG but no doubt they received their tickets back home on the basis they had just been on the course.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

When I was at Brooks Bar in 1958 there was a fellow student from a West African country. He was a really lovely guy, great fun but making heavy weather of his PMG2 course. When asked about his background he said that his father was a very important chief with powerful political connections. In response to my next question as to why the son of such an important person was taking a PMG2, he said it was essential because following his return home he was to become Postmaster General, as soon as the country gained it's independence.

Sadly I didn't keep in touch - he was still there when I went to sea.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

andrekik said:


> Nothing wrong with that, that's the way it was supposed to be.
> There were however R/Os that had flag of convenience certificates issued on recommendation of the Master, with no official ticket as a backup. In 1970 was called to repair a main transmitter on a tanker at the Lago refinery in San Nicolas. The agent requested to bring a keying relay and a telegraph key. In the radioroom I found a variety of keys and R/O complained that he could not make contact with any station and that he suspected that the keying relay and/or keys were at fault. After verifying that no cargo operations were going on, checked the transmitter (Scandinavian high power unit A1/A2/A3, don't recall the type), worked perfect on all bands and both antennas. To proof that there was nothing wrong with the keying/keys called a couple of European stations on CW and made contact rightaway, he was astonished. Asked him to try it.......well..... his morse was absolutely unintelligible. Sat down with the poor kid and he told me that he had received his ticket on recommendation of the master of another ship. He had no problems copying code. Instructed him to start practising sending code counting out dots/dashes/spaces and keep at it. Then I broke the news to the captain. Had my service ticket signed and went on to the next ship.


Grounds for detention.


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## pippin (May 13, 2008)

andrekik said:


> Hi Pippin, have not been on this forum for some 10 days, sorry for that. That's somewhat of a problem. Do you have a digital camera? if so can you make a high def picture of the receiver and the logic circuit diagrams? don't need anything else. Is there possibly a one page blockdiagram in the manual, that may help too.
> Thanks


I have taken the photos but they are too big to send as email attachments.
I can send them via Whatsapp if you give me your details.
Rgds


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