# Who "named" the Marconi gear?



## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

One thing that always amused me about Marconi gear was that it (almost) never used boring type numbers, but rather imaginative names...like 'Apollo", "Conqueror", "Crusader", "Salvor", "Lifeguard", "Argonaut", "Reliance", etc, etc..

My question is this - who, in Marconi, dreamt up these wonderful names?

Was it some marketing wallah, or was there some classic Greek scholar lurking about the hallowed corridors of Chelmsford?


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## Moulder (Aug 19, 2006)

Bet it was Ron ............(LOL)(*))

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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

No, not me sir! I fit neither of those categories.

I wasn't working in the hallowed halls at Chelmsford in the heydays prior to the 1970s, when Marconi's were introducing whole ranges of equipment, so I can't answer your question. 

As you say, the main W/T equipments were given names from Greek mythology. R/T equipment for fishing vessels were named after birds, originally seabirds (Seamew, Albatross, Gannet) but also, later, birds of prey (Kestrel, Falcon, Merlin). I was involved when the successors to the Crusader were developed (Conqueror, Commander, Commandant, Challenger) and the names were picked from suggestions made at one of the monthly development meetings. All departments - sales, engineering, installations, service, procurement etc. - were represented. Various suggestions were bandied around the table and the name came from a consensus of those present. 

My contribution of Challenger was chosen for one transmitter but although the design passed type approval with flying colours, easily surpassing all the requirements, it never got beyond a pre-production run and sea trials. So perhaps it was a good thing that I never got to name many products. It was the last high-power, stand-alone marine transmitter that was designed for MIMCo along traditional "radio room" lines. 

Thereafter all designs were transmitter/receiver types intended for use by unskilled operators.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

I sailed with the last generation of Conqueror with the LED freq display.

I saw a couple of Challengers on Aussie ships, but never sailed with them. As you say, they were the last stand alone traditional tx. So, they did get into production...

Fame!

(Pint)


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Troppo said:


> I saw a couple of Challengers on Aussie ships, but never sailed with them. As you say, they were the last stand alone traditional tx. So, they did get into production.


Not really, we just did a pre-production run of 25 but not all were sold. I believe it was 11 or 12 that entered service. For the life of me I can't remember who bought them or on what terms. 

About 5 years before the Challenger came out in 1982, we had produced a design concept for a solid-state, self-tuning transmitter/receiver, with remote ATU and operating on CW/SSB/NBDP transceiver with 400W output. It would operate from AC mains and 24V DC, was fully automated and could be operated by anyone that knew how to use a telephone. Studies showed that it would outperform a Conqueror HS by a factor of 2 - 3 because of the remote external ATU and the absence of any RF at the operating site. However the sales department demanded a traditional radio room with a comms receiver and a 1.5kW transmitter. So after a lot of delay while minds were made up as to which way to go, our design was spiked and instead, we produced Challenger and Apollo 2. As I say, only about a dozen Challengers were sold and only two Apollo 2 receivers were made. 

By 1982 it was clear that GMDSS was the way forward and that there would be no radio officers to operate such designs. Skanti and others were already producing 250W skipper-operated equipments and selling them by the thousand. Starting some 5 years late, our sales department decided that the minimum power that customers would accept was 800W and the result was the Oceanlink 800 main transmitter/receiver and the Oceanlink EMX reserve MF CW transmitter. The challenge of producing a reliable 800W from the solid state devices available at the time was enormous and the development over-ran by many months. 

Eventually sense prevailed and it was agreed to revert to the design proposals of some 10 years before and Oceanlink 400 was the result. An excellent product that gave performance greater than any Conqueror/Apollo installation, could be operated by anyone and, with its mains/battery power supply took up no more room than the old Mercury/Electra receiver combination. We even produced an 800W version of that which was just as reliable but more powerful. But it was all too late. The home market had gone with the loss of the UK fleet and during the 1980s our export markets had sourced their kit elsewhere, since Marconi could only offer traditional radio room kit rather than that which was going to be suitable for GMDSS requirements.

With MIMCo having been involved in GMDSS at technical and operating levels from its very inception, it is ironic that MIMCo's management ignored our advice and listened to sales people who resisted all involvement with that project but still insisted that they knew what their customers wanted - i.e. more of the same thing that they had bought for the past 80 years. 

British shipowners have always been reluctant to embrace new technology and could normally be expected to resist the changes we outlined but this was not a normal scenario. This was a total reversal of the traditional carriage requirements derived from Titanic. No longer were ships to alert other ships as their first point of call in emergency, they would alert the shore and only work other ships involved in the rescue. And this was to be done using traditional shoreside office communications methods - telephone and teleprinter. No morse code and no Radio Officer. The long-term plans of INMARSAT made it clear that most routine communications and even emergency communications would be handled via satellites, obviating the need for high-power, long-range HF comms. Low power HF sets would met what operational demands remained.

The sales people said (and their customers may indeed have given them that impression) that shipowners would never stand for that and would carry on as before. _We_ knew that the marine world as represented at IMO were determined to drive the changes but management backed the salesmen. As a result by 1990 we saw the end of MIMCo as a supplier to deep-sea shipping.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Fascinating!

There were about 5 Challenger stations installed on Aussie ships. They used an "Oceanic" rx - probably badge engineered from someone else. The reserve tx was the Salvor 4 and the rx was the venerable Sentinel (painted white with different knobs).

The console was vertical, as opposed to the lovely sloping one used with the previous generation Conqueror/Salvor 3 - a hark back to the old Crusader/1097 clankey clankey autokey and Valve Lifeguard generation...

Yes, I saw first hand the fantastic efficiencies that could be realised with external ATU mounting. We did a series of FS tests on 2182 at a nautical mile from various GMDSS ships.

These were all converted from W/T ships, so some used the existing antenna switch box, and some used an external ATU. There was at least 20 dB difference!

Probably the best W/T station I saw was the Sait one using two Skanti TRP8000 series radios - with CW, etc.

My last ship had an STC "Senator" system.....awful...

About 95% of Aussie GMDSS conversions used the Skanti TRP8250/8400 radio. Very nice. Simple to use. Worked well.


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## trotterdotpom (Apr 29, 2005)

Ron, good to hear that it wasn't only us seagoing chumps who were living in the past.

John T


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## hughesy (Dec 18, 2007)

I always thought too many switches on Marconi gear to change freq on the commander about 6 switches, I thought SAIT gear was much simpler to operate. From what I can recall and that ledex switch to fancy???
just personel preference

all the best

Hughesy


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## Naytikos (Oct 20, 2008)

Conqueror, Challenger etc etc.
All sound like battle-tanks.
Given MIMCo's earlier close association with various government agencies there must have been subliminal influence somewhere.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

hughesy said:


> I always thought too many switches on Marconi gear to change freq



Yes, but changing bands on a Conqueror sure impressed female visitors to the radio room....

(*))


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## YORKYSPARX (Mar 31, 2006)

Reference high power tuned transmitters. At SAIT london Noel our
Aussie inspector regularly QSO'd with Sydney on TRP2500, just 200
watts. He maintained that with this set up it was easy to QSO with
only 100 watts.
The TRP 8000 series were designed with Thrane & Thrane telex's which
worked superbly. HOWEVER SAIT Brussels decreed that the SAIT XH series
of telex had to be used. These were not bad, but were not a patch on
Thranes Telex. Management interferes worldwide it seems!!!!
Yorkysparx


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

Yes, the TRP8000 series was a wonderful little radio...and, when paired with the TT telex, it was even better.

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