# Hello from Poland



## avide (Mar 1, 2013)

Hi OMs, 
This Forum is a great source of nostalgia, a view of the world that will never be the same again. I'm a ham, who is also a techie - journalist (so I'm hungry for information, as You might notice  ). I started collecting good deal of information about R/Os and their radioshacks.
I'd like to add something to this great Forum. You folks know a LOT about R/Os that sailed on vessels from the same side of Iron Curtain. I'd like to add something from the other side.

The first Polish seagoing vessel that has been built here after WW II was s/s Sołdek (link here) – named after a leader of workship who was a tracer in Gdansk Shipyard. She was in service from October 1949 until 1980, now she is a museum ship in Gdansk Maritime Museum.
In the 50's and 60's no company in Poland could just order a TX and RX from a company outside Eastern Block. There were only a few exceptions from this rule and marine communication was one of them.
Radioshack for Sołdek was bought from Danish brand Elektromekano, 500kHz transmitter was S105 series that had two 807 valves in parallel in finals. Then a main crystal controlled CW HF transmitter was bought also from Elektromekano with 3x807 in PA stage (so power output was similar to famous Oceanspan).
This transmitter was later replaced by a first Polish one called Mewa (a seagull, a bit about this TX later) visible on the left hand side of the photo– it had two good 4CX250 valves driven from a similar pair. At proper settings it could really deliver some power  Frequency was crystal controlled. It's first version of Mewa transmitter. Later versions were far way better.








As a rule, on all Polish ships, main transmitter was installed with very good ground connection, so R/Os have never had any problems with burning headphone cables and so, even at kilowatt-range output power. So no copper band for grounding a kilowatt was needed. I've heard about burning old insulators and some power switch failures at this power. So "tune for maximum smoke" option also applied here sometimes

Main antenna was connected with a short cable to an insulator just outside of R/O's cabin, so transmitter with such a power could deliver really strong signal. It was at least 10dBs stronger comparing to other, larger ships that have been fitted with the same TX but not situated nearby aerial output. Although she has never sailed far outside Europe she had quite powerful TX, so R/O could easily reach SPA (Gdynia Radio) or SPE (Szczecin Radio) on CW or voice at any given time. R/Os from Polish ships contacted SPA directly, Portishead was rarely called for delivering messages from sea.
First main receiver was Elektromekano M84, unstable and noisy, but better than Russian set of that time (I have complete diagram and service manual, valves used: EF 9, ECH 3, EBF 2, ECF 1, CL6). M84 had 7 bands covering from 15kHz to 26MHz at sensitivity of 0,2 to 4 µV, provided three settings of IF bandwidth – 7,2kHz, 3,6kHz, 2,2kHz and fixed CW filter 250Hz near 1000Hz, it used also simple AGC. 

The M84 receiver








You could compare it with CR300 but M84 had good sensitivity. One of the R/Os I talked with told me that he was invited by one of the British sparks and have tried CR300, his impression was that Marconi's CR300 was deaf as a (censored) post but a bit more stable in typical temperatures in Europe. Really!

In early years as an emergency receiver for 500kHz band Elektromekano P-78 was used :







Unfortunately I don't know much about it.

On some ships (mainly liners and cargo) well known receiver duos of Mercury + Electra were installed, sometimes they installed Siemens S11 and S12 duo, unfortunately I know nothing about it. Redifon's receivers were extremely rare here. So was Atalanta. m/s Batory (SPEE, link here) had Mercury + Electra and a 1,5kW main TX.

On some ships foreign HF receivers were replaced by Polish one, mostly Radmor OK-106 (solid state): 







OK106 wasn't bad but it resembled Redifon R408 in mechanical stability – in foul weather CW tone could be quite musical.

Some ships that have been build later had new Polish Mewa series main transmitters (more than 1 kW out) that had simple frequency synthesis circuit controlled by decade switches and reserve crystal (at least 2182kHz & 500kHz). Final output was provided by the same PA on 4CX250s. There is one of the Mewas at exhibition in museum ship Sołdek at Gdansk Marine Museum (this one with crystal sets), another one is on sailing frigate Dar Pomorza that is a museum ship in Gdynia. Here's a station with Mewa main TX and two RFTs receivers - as seen in Maritime Museum in Gdansk.








At this time they used main receiver EKV series from East German RFTs but that rig was considered awful and was replaced with Racals, Macays or Saits. 
Reserve 5 ton transmitter was Polish one, from Radmor, 50W rated. Station was completed with Polish autokey AKSA (_automatyczny klucz sygnałów alarmowych_ – automatic alarm keying device) and an autoalarm receiver for 500kHz (always turned on by default) and a set of two 24V batteries charged by automatic charger. Most Mewas finally had J3E capability, some of them after receiving an upgrade or module retrofit.

My investigation on R/Os in Polish merchant fleet still goes on.
Cheers!


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Excellent, thanks.


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## hawkey01 (Mar 15, 2006)

Avide,

welcome to SN. Thank you for your interesting post. Enjoy the site.

Hawkey01


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## avide (Mar 1, 2013)

This key is a Soviet military key, heavy and reliable. It was used on some shore stations. It can be fixed to a table and work in Radio Room at sea as well - so I suppose it was just screwed to a table. Some stations used a bit different keys, there were a few models quite popular. 
First one comes as a surplus from RBM military low power HF station:














This key is well insulated because transmitter in RBM used HT keying. This key is handy and reliable.
Another one comes from Hungary to be used in East Block countries - link here.
Third one is famous TK and TKF (link here). Made in Ukraine, still available as new. These keys have also optional LC filter.
Any of them could be fixed to a table by a few screws if needed.
A few sparks used their own bugs. Japanese bugs were more popular than a famous Vibroplex - this is one of them, by Hi-Mound.







There was a copy of that key (engineers in East Germany used to be brilliant in precise machinery and radios these days) but I don't have a photo of it. Original Vibroplex keys were expensive comparing to Polish R/O's salary. *)

In the 70s you could find a electronic key made in East Germany by Lorenz AG, it was EMT-567 (link here). These keys used to have problems with contacts after a year or two of use near salt water. Instead of resolving that small problem, they got rid of these keys and replaced them with a Polish model made in a hurry by Unimor company. Simple and reliable. Later the same company developed a solid state paddle key K2216, quite popular in marine TXes. 







Fast, accurate, for operators who wanted dits and dahs to just fly off the key. It almost completely replaced straight keys in the last years of CW at sea. Still seen on Polish ham market.

Now it's all a part of history. Sometimes I can hear a distant and weak TFC LIST on HF.

*) Polish R/Os were never leased from a communication company or whatever company you can think of. They were employed by a ship company. I've read some stories on SN about unhappy sparks on Italian and Greek ships - it was something like that in $$ but no problems with food  and even average salary in $$ was a good deal of money in old Polish złoty (internal currency in Poland, unofficial exchange rate was extremely high) these days. So they earned good money comparing to our internal salaries (and ALL costs in Polish old złoty) but they were well below average freelance sparks that earned in $$. That made a great difference in 60s and 70s.

edit
Many thanks! I'm still digging through all the posts there. What a wonderful source of information it is. I wish I knew something like that in the 80s where HF was still full of CW. I used to have an ex military receiver R250M2 and listened a lot on HF in the 80s.







You folks transmitted way too fast for me! I had to set cw tone all the way high, record it to a tape and then slow down the tape to speed I could catch.


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## donald h (Aug 24, 2005)

I`m not an R/O, avide, but your articles are very interesting indeed, and well written.

regards, Donald


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## gdynia (Nov 3, 2005)

Welcome onboard to SN and enjoy the voyage


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## avide (Mar 1, 2013)

I do my best. 
Maybe this autumn we'll start a ham radio station with 3Z or HF callsign with special license for working on 5 ton band in CW. All paper work that's required for receiving special permissions has already started. In Poland it's possible to get 500kHz add-on for "special cases" ham station if a 1st class full power license is held. Procedure is straightforward but requires some permissions from our Bureau of Electronic Communication and that takes time.
Although it's possible to restore 500kHz Elektromekano's TX on Sołdek into working condition and then clank the key, I think we won't be able to do that (maybe with newer Oceanspan of some sort it would be easier?). And I think that station won't be allowed to use more power than say 5 or 25W. We'll see what permission we'll be given.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Sorry, but you will not get 500 kHz with your ham licence.

500 is allocated to the maritime service (again), for wideband digital data - used for broadcasting maritime safety information (weather and navs).

Amateurs have an allocation at 472 kHz.


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## avide (Mar 1, 2013)

Once more I'm too late....
It was one year ago on 14/15th of April when GB100MGY transmitted. I've heard them on 502 on a Sony ICF7600 and a primitive longwire in a village where my parents now live. Signal was very weak but I could get it (still the tape trick, I was a dit-counter at that time).
Now I found this thread at SN (link here).
I've discovered that some stations STILL have valid license to work on 500kHz (501-504kHz). Unfortunately I cannot listen to 500 - you couldn't believe the QRM level I have (at least S7-S9) in Warsaw.

I've something special - have you ever heard of a valve marine receiver that does not need anode HT? And, yes, there was one. No proper belt when doing some service work (Atalanta users, take care!).
First emergency receiver ever built in Poland, the OA-1, has come from MORS factory - mors means a walrus in Polish but also MORS = Morska Obsługa Radiowa Statków = marine radio service. OA comes from Odbiornik Awaryjny = emergency receiver.
I don't have a photo of this Rx but I've a schematic diagram and short user manual, in Polish. Volts, Ohms and Farads are the same all over the world  








This Rx was powered only from battery set (24V DC), there was no step-up vibrator or a rotary converter. Engineers in MORS factory have used UCH21 valves, produced in Polish Telam factory, very popular in Poland in the 50s and 60s as they were used in most popular home radio there, the Pionier (means a pioneer in Polish). These valves could work at 24V DC anode voltage, power for filaments was dropped a bit down on a resistor. Amplification per stage was worse than mediocre at this voltage but Rx worked. On final stage an American (!! yes - it was in the 50s -!!) valve 26A7 was used. At 24V anode voltage it delivered small amount of power, but enough to listen on headphones or a small speaker. How did they get a permission for using American valve in a marine receiver in Cold War conditions is still an unsolved mystery .
As seen on CR300, there was a possibility to do a detector receiving without any power supply. In OA-1 there was a had special part of first resonant circuit and a simple diode detector enabled by a switch named W2 on diagram. OA-1 was a simple direct amplification receiver.

OK that's all for a technical report. *I think You just wanted some nostalgia*. So here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4Q3zzOhqSA
Rx on this clip was OK-102/1 (OK - odbiornik komunikacyjny - communication receiver -102 mark 1), first main marine receiver made in Poland in the 60s that was delivered in more than a few pcs.


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