# radio watchkeeping on board



## 7woodlane

Further to comments on headphones v loudspeaker. Headphones were not supplied as a cosmetic add-on to be worn when one felt like it. They were to be worn during the watchkeeping hours at all times. Those Ericsson phones weighed a ton and uncomfortable they certainly were, but distress watchkeeping was your primary duty. Weak signals from lifeboat radios would have slim chance of being detected via a loudspeaker (as if a reason be needed). The loudspeaker watch receiver to be used only when operating on working frequencies (copying traffic lists, weather forecasts, etc). Apart from the requirement to wear the phones, the advantage to the rest of the world meant because of that they did not have to put up with the racket coming out of the radio room. This also applied to shore stations. Finally, it is a great pity that some of us cannot go about our business in the world without selfishly impacting on those around them.
David Whitehead.


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## Trevor Clements

Oh dear! I must have been a very naughty boy, because I often had the main receiver on loudspeaker. 
I used to put the headphones on for GKA weather each evening or NSS, and that was because the Captain had a habit of standing looking over my shoulder while I was taking it down, and making distracting comments. When it was NSS, they went plenty fast enough without added distractions.


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## Vital Sparks

I used the speaker because I didn't like the feeling of claustrophobic isolation induced by the headphones. It's a great pity some of cannot go about or business without unnecessarily imposing our viewpoint upon others.


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## charles henry

[QUOTE=7woodlane;394954 They distress watchkeeping was your primary duty. Weak signals from lifeboat radios would have slim chance of being detected via a loudspeaker 

A very puristic attitude but the first sentence is true. 

However the facts of life were that the minute there was a distress situation you notriced it immediately by the bedlam of idiots sending "QRT distress"
Having been involved I found that by reverting to my 50 watt quenched spark gap emergency transmitter I had no problem in handling the situation.

If you have to revert to headphones to hear a spark transmission then you need a hearing test. (Tongue in cheek, nothing personal)
de chas


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## Gareth Jones

I have to take issue with this - I worked at GNF in the early 60's, and 500, 2182, ch 16vhf, and Thames Radio ch16 vhf were all monitored on speakers. The only exception being weekdays 0800 to 1200 when a W/T working point was opened up and the man watching 500 only had to give qry's to the calling ships, he was continuously on 500 so the speaker could be shut off.

In fact an extension speaker on 2182 was supplied in the landline room since the R/T man at night (10pm till 8am) had to cover all landline duties as well as all R/T.

GNF in those days was a busy station and at times the operating room could be an absolute cacophony with all those speakers on and the staff bawling into the microphones.

At sea I used headphones through preference - I felt it more professional - although I was once told by an old man that he liked to hear morse coming from the radio room - it made him feel that his ship was part of the seagoing maritime community - I said it told him the sparkie was in there and not on his bunk studying the backs of his eyelids !!!


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## Ron Stringer

-


Gareth Jones said:


> I have to take issue with this - I worked at GNF in the early 60's, and 500, 2182, ch 16vhf, and Thames Radio ch16 vhf were all monitored on speakers.


Oh, and didn't it show? Spent more time calling GNF on 500 (without response) than all the other UK coast stations together. Dreaded getting the Pernis/Shellhaven run when I was with Joe Shell - easier to give a TR to PCH when leaving for Rotterdam than to raise GNF. The only other station to run it close was GLD from south of Ushant but I believe that was a consequence of the location of the GLD receiving antenna locations.(Jester)


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## Gareth Jones

Ron Stringer said:


> -
> 
> Oh, and didn't it show? Spent more time calling GNF on 500 (without response) than all the other UK coast stations together. Dreaded getting the Pernis/Shellhaven run when I was with Joe Shell - easier to give a TR to PCH when leaving for Rotterdam than to raise GNF. The only other station to run it close was GLD from south of Ushant but I believe that was a consequence of the location of the GLD receiving antenna locations.(Jester)


 I couldnt have been on watch when you were calling !!! (Jester) 

Although in fairness it was a busy station then - and you will remember what the QRM was like on 500 in those days dont forget we had PCH OST OSA FFB all on our doorstep 500 was sometimes a continuous wall of meaningless sound. I can remember opening up 2381 R/T watch at 9 am and going straight up to qry 15.
Having said all that i must admit there were some guys there - well - (MAD) best keep my mouth shut - what is done is done and cannot be undone.


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## charles henry

Part of the reason for GLD being busy was probably partly due to homeward bound ships from the south trying to get a TR in long before there was any need, there was a general feeling that once you officially contacted GLD you were almost home. (It used to be called having the Channels).

de chas


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## Ron Stringer

*Contact from the Bay of Biscay*



charles henry said:


> Part of the reason for GLD being busy was probably partly due to homeward bound ships from the south trying to get a TR in long before there was any need, there was a general feeling that once you officially contacted GLD you were almost home. (It used to be called having the Channels).
> 
> de chas


Charles, take your point but never had trouble working GLD because of traffic levels, only difficulty making contact from the south. From the west or the north, all was fine but from the Bay and the west of the Channel it was often difficult to raise him. GNI on the other hand was much easier to raise from there, but of course the GPO in its wisdom always discouraged you from working anything but the nearest coast station, the one they had designated as covering the area that you were in.

Apparently the problem at GLD was a technical one, not operator-related at all. The siting of the receiving antennas was such that they were screened from the south and so coverage was restricted in the Bay. Oddly enough if you were further west, out towards the Azores, or even off the Spanish coast at Finisterre, the range at which you could raise GLD was much longer. However if you were much closer in, approaching Ushant from the south or having rounded it and heading up Channel, you seemed to be in a 'dead spot'.

I used to work GNI instead and to hell with GPO procedures. Sometimes got negative comments from the GNI operators when they asked for my QTH when setting up R/T link calls, but most of the time cleared the traffic without too much trouble.


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## Naytikos

I agree with the general consensus with regard to using headphones; the only time I did was when taking the greek press from SVA whilst listening to ball-by-ball on the World Service.
Gareth's description of GNF is interesting: I once set up three separate simultaneous R/T QSOs with other company ships in the Arabian Sea, one on VHF, one each on 2 and 4 Mc/s, all on loudspeaker. At the time, I thought "it must be like this all the time in coast stations"!


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## Mimcoman

At Stonehaven Radio in the late Eighties, when there was still a large amount of traffic on 2182 kHz, it was necessary to wear a headset to be sure you could distinguish who was calling. (We kept a loudspeaker on 2182 kHz as well, of course.) Later on, when BT started demanning various sites, GND and GLD were responsible for the UK 2182 watch, with multiple loudspeaker outputs, but the amount of traffic on 2182 had died away to a pale shadow of the earlier cacophony and you could manage with a loudspeaker watch. GND listened to 2182 kHz receivers at GLV, GPK, GHD, GNK (in Shetland), GKR, GND and GCC. Initially, the BT installation engineers had all the signals coming out of one speaker, but we built our own system with individual speakers - much better.

When I was at sea, I usually kept a loudspeaker watch, unless I was working traffic, as a headset was too restrictive while doing maintenance etc. I did, however, have a headset with an extra-long cable, which I used to keep a distress from the boatdeck if the a/c had packed in again!


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## Naytikos

Mimcoman said:


> I did, however, have a headset with an extra-long cable, which I used to keep a distress from the boatdeck if the a/c had packed in again!


Useful trick.

When I had a long QRY and a meal-time came up I used to patch an Rx through the ship's PA system and turn off all of the loudspeakers except the one in the officers' mess; did that on several ships and no-one minded.


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## Troppo

I never used phones.


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## trotterdotpom

Troppo said:


> I never used phones.


Troppo, you bad, bad, boy!

Re one of your other posts, "Ariake" was supposed to be my last ship after the night of the long knives in 1992. Went aboard in Brisbane - looked like a good job, but I ended up doing a round the world yee ha swansong on "Australian Venture".

Did we ever meet?

John T.


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## Troppo

Hello John

VJAV would have been more interesting, for sure.

We may have met. 

I did a lot of time on Wiltshire/VJEK.


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## majoco

I always used phones, to the extent that I carried my own around from ship to ship. Those SG Brown type "F" that Mimco supplied were awful things. The best thing that I came across was on an ex-Maersk tanker that was bought by Safmarine - the radio gear was by Pedersen or something like that - and it had a 'mixer' that had all the radio audios fed into it from all over the ship - including the PA/Broadcast and the bridge VHF - so that you could select what you wanted listen to and how loud. Switchable to a loudspeaker too, so that you had one radio in the headphones and one on the speaker but could instantly switch from one to the other. Marvellous!


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## Troppo

Fascinating thread.

To those of you who used phones - how did you keep 5 ton when you were up on HF?

Split audio to the phones?


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## K urgess

As it says in the log (L/S 500). Resumed 500 (Res500) when done.
Regs required a loudspeaker watch on 500 when using headphones on any other frequency, I believe.


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## Ron Stringer

Marconi Sahib said:


> As it says in the log (L/S 500). Resumed 500 (Res500) when done.
> Regs required a loudspeaker watch on 500 when using headphones on any other frequency, I believe.


Did that too, Kris, but as I mostly sailed with the 'Alert' as L/S Watch Receiver, there was no risk of being distracted unless someone was virtually alongside. (Jester) 

Only on a couple of ships where I did short trips was I lucky enough to get 'Mercury'/'Electra' pairings.


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## K urgess

Mostly just a paper exercise I must admit, Ron.
Definitely not as good as a proper watch on 500 but then, in those days, there were enough ships around to make sure nothing was missed.
The only thing I've found in the bible so far is Section 28 aobut log filling. 
"(xii) A positive entry when beginning or terminating loud
speaker watch on the distress frequency, or when watch 
on the distress frequency is discontinued to enable the 
operator to persorm other essential radiotelegraph duties 
which make it impracticable to maintain the watch."


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## Troppo

I find this whole phones thing facsinating.

As I said, I never wore them. There was no requirement on Aussie ships, or even on G ships I sailed on. My first chief never wore them, either.

I used to use the Lifeguard N A/A as a 500 watch rx, as it had a BFO, and was just as sensitive as the main rx.


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## K urgess

The only times I used the loudspeaker rather than the phones during a normal watch was if I had to do some work in the radio room that involved moving about.
Otherwise it was the usual "Feet up reading a book". [=P]
Faint signals could easily be missed no matter how sensitive a receiver was because the volume had to be kept reasonably low to avoid disturbing others especially irate captains during an afternoon siesta. (EEK)


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## Troppo

Of course, I never, ever read on watch....

(Jester)

I remember when this stupid zealot relieved me....he was horrified to think that I read on watch...I remember saying to him..."_so what do you do, mate, sit there with pen poised, waiting for the CQD from MGY?"_....

Another nutcase sparkie....there were certainly a few of them....


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## Ron Stringer

Sailed on a couple of ships where the ambient noise in the radio room was such that it was hard to hear signals with the headphones clamped to your head, let alone on a loudspeaker. (Jester)


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## K urgess

Old habits die hard.
My trip as junior involved working in a radio room directly above the Old Man's bedroom and, of course, I had all the late watches.
If I so much as moved a chair.......(EEK)
At least it meant no late night, last minute messages that involved firing up the DC 'Span. [=P]


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## K urgess

Ron Stringer said:


> Sailed on a couple of ships where the ambient noise in the radio room was such that it was hard to hear signals with the headphones clamped to your head, let alone on a loudspeaker. (Jester)


Having the steam whistle pointed directly at the radio room coming up the Channel in fog didn't help either, Ron. [=P]


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## Naytikos

I always found that Captains and everyone else within earshot liked hearing noises from the radio room, be it static, morse or r/t. A couple of captains got upset when I closed the radio room door for that very reason. When I got sitor the 'new sound' ('kainourgio shma' in greek) was a hot topic for discussion.


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## Rhodri Mawr

Ron Stringer said:


> Did that too, Kris, but as I mostly sailed with the 'Alert' as L/S Watch Receiver, there was no risk of being distracted unless someone was virtually alongside. (Jester)
> 
> Only on a couple of ships where I did short trips was I lucky enough to get 'Mercury'/'Electra' pairings.



Ah - the ALERT RX. Brings back memories. We used to refer to it as the 500 Ghetto Blaster. Can anybody beat this? Once heard WCC on 500 when in the Meddy while keeping the 4-8 morning watch on the Reina del Mar. I admit I did have a few on decks the previous evening but, NO, I was not hallucinating.:sweat::sweat::sweat:

Re the loudspeaker v phones debate. I always grabbed the old SG Brown headphones when I first joined a ship and arranged for them to become split phones. One headpiece jacked into the main RX, the other jacked into the watchkeeping RX. Guess that made me a goodie.

Cheers
Rhodri


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## Trevor Clements

Its quite comforting for me to find how many of you used loudspeaker as norm.

Also to hear comments about use of speakers at GNF. My first port of departure was Ijmuiden, and my Chief R/O sat next to me while I nervously sent our TR to GNF and to PCH. At college you had very little opportunity to learn to distinguish signals for you, from the cacophony of stuff which was on 500KHz in the early 1960s in home waters. How they managed at GNF with all those speakers going beats me.

I liked the Alert because its band pass was so wide that I could hear my own morse on it and I always thought it improved my keying no end.


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## david.hopcroft

I used to use a speaker if possible but at a low level as possible. On a tanker, the Radio Room and my cabin were the only other occupants of the Capts deck. He used to like the 'burbling' of morse. Said it was comofrting.

I was also at GKZ. The WT point was normally by headphones but on speaker when on wkg freqs. On the RT point though, it was speaker for 2182 H24, headphones for 2381 9-5, and speaker for VHF - 4 ch's 2GY, GKZ, 2BA, 2OF. Not forgetting working calls, reading Wx etc......... easy when you got used to it.

The headphones did tend to wear a bald patch though !

David
+


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## 7woodlane

david.hopcroft said:


> I used to use a speaker if possible but at a low level as possible. On a tanker, the Radio Room and my cabin were the only other occupants of the Capts deck. He used to like the 'burbling' of morse. Said it was comofrting.
> 
> I was also at GKZ. The WT point was normally by headphones but on speaker when on wkg freqs. On the RT point though, it was speaker for 2182 H24, headphones for 2381 9-5, and speaker for VHF - 4 ch's 2GY, GKZ, 2BA, 2OF. Not forgetting working calls, reading Wx etc......... easy when you got used to it.
> 
> The headphones did tend to wear a bald patch though !
> 
> David
> +


And that's the truth ( re GKZ). I was there at that time.


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## david.hopcroft

This is what I mean by Multi-Tasking, the 2182 Speaker is just by the the telephone dial which dates it to about late 70's I think.

David
+


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## hawkey01

As my ex coast station colleagues will vouch - multi taking was part of the job. It would have been totally impossible to have one man monitoring each separate frequency. The only exception at GKA was on HF WT which always had a dedicated man on each search point during normal watch keeping hours and in some cases two on the search bands. Nights varied as the number of staff were limited. Back in the 70/80's it was possible even then to have a search point on night shift due to the level of traffic during those years.
If you care to look in my gallery under GKA aeronautical/point to point you will see we had nine speakers to monitor, two transmitters and two receivers, I think that would classify as multi tasking. At GND during the height of the oil traffic the rig channels were in constant use and you would always have two or more in operation. Plus multiple VHF channels. 
I can say that I very rarely used headphones whilst on watch at sea, only when sending or receiving traffic. Far to uncomfortable.

Hawkey01


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## Graham P Powell

Hi Neville,
"double search on sixteen, they're coming in over the top!!....
rgds
Graham


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## Klaatu83

One good reason for headphones: I sailed on one class of container ships where the radio shack was placed right next door to my stateroom. The noises that came out of that place at all hours were pretty hard to take. Actually, in all fairness, the regular radio wasn't the primary annoyance, which emanated from the SITOR, which sounded like a field full of angry locusts. Just to make matters worse, since there was no air conditioning in the radio shack, Sparks invariably left the door open!


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## hawkey01

Graham,

Now who was it who used that term? Possibly best not mention the name in print.
Still remember Ian Ben and myself on double 8mcs one Christmas period giving QRY 68 or more, those were the days. Excellent reunion on the 30th.

Neville - Hawkey01


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## RayL

Has anyone got an explanation to offer for weird propagation effects I used to experience in the Marseilles area of the Med (late 1960s)? It was as though most of your signal strength was being absorbed by something (fog or some other weather feature, perhaps?) so you were barely heard by the local coast station - sometimes not at all.

Whatever it was, it seemed to be peculiar to that part of the world.


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## Gareth Jones

RayL said:


> Has anyone got an explanation to offer for weird propagation effects I used to experience in the Marseilles area of the Med (late 1960s)? It was as though most of your signal strength was being absorbed by something (fog or some other weather feature, perhaps?) so you were barely heard by the local coast station - sometimes not at all.
> 
> Whatever it was, it seemed to be peculiar to that part of the world.


 I remember not being able to raise Bahrain Radio on M/F late one night from a distance of about 60 miles. 500 was very quiet and I shouldnt have had any problem. Heat and humidity at the time was monstrous, like a fog, all metal surfaces of the ship running with water.
Next day the 2nd mate told me he'd seen my transmissions as corona discharge around the insulator above the Radio Room. Silly bugger hadn't the brains to tell me at the time !


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## Vital Sparks

I experienced "ducting" once while in the middle of the Indian Ocean, weather hot and dry with a flat calm sea state. Karachi Naval was booming in on VHF and the coast of Karachi was showing up "rock solid" on the radar at an apparent distance of 20 miles, while both, in reality were thousands of miles away.


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## RayL

Thank you Gareth and Vital Sparks for these insights. Makes me wonder if I was remiss all those years ago in not going outside to see whether arcing was taking place across my insulators. Ah well, they can't touch me for it now!


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## david.hopcroft

One steamy night on a tanker gas-freeing and steaming along at the same speed and direction as the wind, the Mate burst into the Radio Room 'quite excited' about flash-over at the insulators. I shut down fairly quickly needless to say. 

David
+


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## Graham P Powell

Hi Neville , longest QRY I saw was 102......
Jumping Jack was always keen on a double search. Eric Rocket operated a double search on his own. No let up when he was on nights.....


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## Graham P Powell

Hi Neville, You win. My 102 was total QRY on the station one lunchtime. I got given QRY 45 once at sea but I don't think that was unusual.
rgds
Graham


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## Ron Stringer

Received a QRY52 one evening. I think it was an on GKG but the memory fades.


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## garwatts

*Happy Days*

I can just about remember getting QRY 40ish on GKG at about QSA3 mid Pacific at about 3 in the morning and waiting, waiting and as my turn approached, GKG was getting weaker and weaker......Then trying to work him at QSA0/1.


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## Dutchy62

RayL said:


> Thank you Gareth and Vital Sparks for these insights. Makes me wonder if I was remiss all those years ago in not going outside to see whether arcing was taking place across my insulators. Ah well, they can't touch me for it now!


If you'd have gone outside to look, Ray, the transmissions would have stopped because you'd gone outside to look, so no arcing!!

Puts me in mind of a ship I was on where they complained from time to time about spoking on the radar but when I was summoned, it was never spoking. Turned out that it was caused by the main aerial being close to the radar scanner and the latter was picking up the morse causing spoking on the PPI. This of course stopped when I went to look!!

Speaking of Marconi issue phones, how many people out there fell victim of the wags who liked to put black shoe polish on the bakelite caps so you finished up with a smart pair of black ears?


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## 5TT

> Makes me wonder if I was remiss all those years ago in not going outside to see whether arcing was taking place across my insulators


This reminds me of a ship I joined in Durban SA where the radio gear was in quite bad shape, the autokey was not working at all, the main rx, a Redifon R408 wouldn't calibrate across all of the h/f bands, and the main tx, ITT as I recall, about 1.2kw, was only putting out a couple of hundred watts on h/f. I also noticed that the safety cage around the main antenna, one of those squirrel cage vertical things, had been recently installed and manufactured from wooden planks with steel nuts and bolts holding it all together. It also had a blanket of asbestos draped where the wire feed to the antenna went over. 
Fortunately I had a few days in port before we sailed and was able to fix it all up before we sailed. The fault on the tx was a short circuit cathode decoupling capacitor in the i/f amp, easily traced because the anode of that valve was glowing bright orange.
The evening we sailed I had a telegram to clear to Tokyo, no problem on 12mhz, and that was that until the next morning the Captain burst in to the radio room and asked me to follow him. I recall wondering why on earth we were going upstairs and was absolutely shocked to see the antenna safety cage was missing. There were a couple of dozen or so steel nuts and bolts rolling from side to side, maybe a piece of charcoal here and there but otherwise no evidence of the structure that had been there just the day before, the whole thing had burnt down and nobody noticed.
I guess they'd got away with it before as the transmitter power had been so low for goodness knows how long, but now with a kw plus it jumped the gap to one of these steel bolts easily. 

= Adrian +


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## RayL

<<If you'd have gone outside to look, Ray, the transmissions would have stopped because you'd gone outside to look, so no arcing!!>>

Dutchy, please! How thick do you think I am! I left it unsaid that I would have enlisted the help of a colleague to count to twenty and then press the key if I had gone out to look.

[Aaargh!]


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## trotterdotpom

You would have had to find someone who could count that high, Ray.

John T.


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## BOB GARROCH

I experienced this counting problem when commissioning a radio system for the Local police force, I requested one of the African officers to drive to a specified place for a range test . When he arrived, I requested that he count one to ten for a speech quality test. He duly replied one, two, ten. "No" I said one to ten please count again". he replied "one, two, Ten". "No No one to ten. ' he replied "But Baas I am counting one two ten". 

i was banging my head against the wall


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## keithsparks

what was the longest msg/qtc you ever sent.Whilst on the salvage tug Statesman off Tristan I was sending three msgs daily of at least 350 to 400 words daqily to Capetownradio for the three South African news reporters we had on board they wouldnt have HF link calls due to lack of privacy from the other two journalists, also sent 1 msg of 725 words for the on board salvage officer .


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## Larry Bennett

Seen quite a few QTCs of 1000+ words from GKA, although these were few and far between.

However, I can recall taking QTC15+ on a daily basis from Troodoship vessels working in the Persian Gulf during the Iran/Iraq war. Each message would have been over 400 words and mostly (but not all) the same text with subtle changes. Used to hear audible groans when callsigns like 5BMT or H2WE appeared on our screens....

Quite a few of these vessels were damaged during the conflict so not surprising that the standard of cw from a few of their R/Os was not that great.

Wonder if we ever got paid - their vessels were regularly on and off the 'stop list'......

Larry +


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## Ron Stringer

Oh dear Keith, you have reminded me of the trip I wanted to forget. I did the maiden voyage in 1965 on Texaco/Regent Petroleum Tankships’ newest and trendiest building from Vickers' Walker Naval Yard on the Tyne, ‘Regent Pembroke’. It had problems with almost every part of the ship except the galley and the radio room. Weren’t we lucky? The problems affected the engine-room control systems, the alternators and their control systems, the cargo control system, the bridge control system for the engine and a serious vibration problem. If you are interested you can read some more about it at http://www.tota.co.uk/index.php?ship_id=46

As a consequence of all the problems, we carried all sorts of ‘specialists’ from equipment and systems suppliers – Bailey Meters, GEC, and many others. Each was desperately unsupported since the systems seemed all to be the first of their type in such an application. They had worked well ashore in power stations or refineries but not at sea. So not only were spares in short supply, but since we were under way in the Atlantic or Indian Oceans, the systems could not be taken down for them to work on, the poor onboard reps could only carry out some tests and get things prepared for when we arrived in port and their real job began.

They all had to talk to their offices each day in order to discuss their specific problems and possible solutions with the designers; lots of HF R/T calls had to be pre-arranged and put through (in the days before direct-calling to Portisheadradio). And they all had to report results of tests, measurements and observations in long, long, messages sent by Morse on the standard Marconi key. They each ran to many hundreds of words but I think that the longest ones were just under 700 words. But there were very many exceeding 500 words. Of course they all received replies of the same length or more. For the first 6 months I never worked less than a 16-hour day – in the days before paid overtime!

Had I not been asked to work ashore for Marconi when I signed off that ship, I would never, *never *have agreed to go on a maiden voyage again. Nothing could have been further from my imagined dream ship where the equipment was all new and shiny, immaculately installed and totally reliable. A sort of rest cruise. *NOT!*


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## trotterdotpom

Ron Stringer: "....For the first 6 months I never worked less than a 16-hour day – in the days before paid overtime!"

When did the days of paid overtime begin?

John T


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## Ron Stringer

trotterdotpom said:


> When did the days of paid overtime begin? John T


I believe in the 1970s, about 10 years after I needed it! (Sad)


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## trotterdotpom

I was around in the '70s and never heard of anyone getting overtime on British ships.

John T.


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## Ron Stringer

Can't really comment as I left the sea in '65 but there are plenty of posts on the site where R/Os make reference to their overtime claims. Have a look at the last paragraph of Post #21 here http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=8378


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## trotterdotpom

Thanks Ron - just read it. It seems that that was some sort of private deal that was negotiated from a position of strength. That could happen - I did a "run job" on ACT1 from Tilbury to Liverpool and, after finding out that everyone else was on double pay (Run Money), I refused to sail until I got it too. That was a freelance job though - if I'd been working for IMR (the contractors) I probably wouldn't have got it.

Like everyone else, I remember doing umpteen hours of unpaid and unheralded overtime. As far as I know, the only officers on British ships who received overtime were signed on "B" Articles. Mates and Engineers had that option with some companies, but I never heard of an RO signing on anything but "A" Articles, ie no overtime. Not that I'm an expert on every company of course, there may have been some firms that paid it, just I never heard of it.

I'm quite sure that under normal cir***stances, with the Marconi company, there'd be little chance of getting overtime - they didn't even like paying Sundays at Sea and all those other crappy payments that were in the Articles, but replaced by superior agreements for people in Direct company employment.

John T.


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## Ron Stringer

trotterdotpom said:


> Thanks Ron - just read it. It seems that that was some sort of private deal that was negotiated from a position of strength.
> 
> Like everyone else, I remember doing umpteen hours of unpaid and unheralded overtime.
> 
> I'm quite sure that under normal cir***stances, with the Marconi company, there'd be little chance of getting overtime - they didn't even like paying Sundays at Sea and all those other crappy payments that were in the Articles, but replaced by superior agreements for people in Direct company employment.
> 
> John T.


John,

Sorry if I chose a bad example. You will find any number of other references on the Radio Room forum (have a look at some of Marconi Sahib's posts about the Texaco Northumberland) that indicate that there was no private deal involved. As I said, I was ashore by that time and had no involvement with R/Os other than occasional contact on technical matters.

To refer to overtime worked is rather misleading since for both those on A Articles and for those paid by Radio Companies, the terms and conditions of employment included a provision for overtime, amalgamated within the rates. i.e. the basic rates compensated you for overtime whether or not you worked any. Marconi could have claimed that those who did no overtime were benefiting from the overtime provision without earning it.

Sundays at Sea were charged to the shipowner, who demanded proof that they had been claimed and approved by the Master. Hence Marconi had to demand that proof from the R/O or else it would not be paid by its customer. Their customers did not rely on the honesty and good faith of the claimants and accept and pay all claims on trust - they were Shipowners, not Clerks to the House of Commons.

Marconi (and the other operating companies) were between a rock and a hard place when it came to pay and conditions. They could only pay NMB-agreed rates to R/Os because their customers refused to accept charges based on higher-than NMB rates. Their customers were the shipowners. The shipowners were the major power on the NMB since although they were balanced in numbers by the various union representatives, they had the ear of the government who formed the other major participant on the Board.

The shipowners in effect determined the NMB rates for R/Os, and were thus well aware of Marconi's true costs of employment, the margin charged and the profit being made. Any attempt by Marconi to exceed the terms and conditions of their R/O employees was used by the shipowner to argue against any future increase in the rates charged for the supply of R/Os. If Marconi was able to pay more than NMB then they must be ripping the shipowner off by their charges!

So Marconi had a choice between paying the NMB rates or reducing the margins and penalising their shareholders. A Managing Director that puts his shareholders' interests below those of his employees and customers may be an admirable citizen but does not last for very long in his post. That the model worked for over 100 years (until the UK market disappeared with containerisation and the GMDSS displaced break-bulk carriers and Radio Officers) suggests that it was not too unfair to any of the participants.


----------



## trotterdotpom

Was the Managing Director of Marconi aware that there were ROs working for the company? It seems I've been unfair to MIMCo, sadly, after a couple of years, I abandoned the shareholders and voted with my feet on the gangway. It wasn't only about money either, the company doled out some pretty shoddy treatment to its employees.

John T.


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## Moulder

I seem to remember 'overtime' payments for sea-going MIMCO R/Os around early to mid 70s. The claim forms had to be countersigned by the Master (a green form if I remember rightly) and extra payment was made for hours in excess of 10 per day. I think these payments were consolidated into salaries by the end of the 70s.

Steve. (Thumb)


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## harry pennington

trotterdotpom said:


> Was the Managing Director of Marconi aware that there were ROs working for the company? It seems I've been unfair to MIMCo, sadly, after a couple of years, I abandoned the shareholders and voted with my feet on the gangway. It wasn't only about money either, the company doled out some pretty shoddy treatment to its employees.
> 
> John T.


I had just over 3 years with Marconi as R/O 1954-57 and had rung up some 100 days leave due with just a few days between trips with little or no chance of getting any more. The only way to get them was to leave.It was better with IMRC.


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## Ron Stringer

trotterdotpom said:


> Was the Managing Director of Marconi aware that there were ROs working for the company? It seems I've been unfair to MIMCo, sadly, after a couple of years, I abandoned the shareholders and voted with my feet on the gangway. It wasn't only about money either, the company doled out some pretty shoddy treatment to its employees.
> 
> John T.


John,

Until the late 1960s, all the MDs of MIMCo had served at sea as R/Os and during that time (and extending up to the 1990s) all the personnel managers in Chelmsford, all depot managers and all technical staff working at MIMCo service offices had served at least 5 years sea time as an R/O. So I think everyone was pretty well aware of the existence of R/Os. How does that compare with the company/companies that you worked for after leaving?

I don't believe that shareholders in Marconi or any other company differ greatly from each other (mostly they are investment companies, pension funds and their members). They do not have horns and tails, they are just people that lend money to the company in order to receive an annual dividend payment that is higher than they would get from a bank savings account. The job of the management is to make enough profit to enhance the company's assets and also pay a substantial dividend. Should the management fail to achieve such returns, they are replaced. Fact of life that you should be aware of.

As the UK's R/O business was already well in decline in the 1970s, causing significant redundancies, it may be that the Marconi shareholders were not too traumatised by your departure.

I am sure that Marconi valued some employees less well than those individuals thought they were worth. I know of some such cases and some where able people did not get just recognition and rewards for their efforts. I also know that some employees were paid more than I thought that they were worth, or kept in employment long after they should have gone. I know for certain that some people were treated less than sympathetically and that others were treated very well and taken care of in adversity. Can you name me another company where such things did not happen? 

Some decades have passed. The appraisals (of your performance and behaviour) sent to Marconi's by the Master of each ship that you sailed on, are not available. There is no one alive from your former employers with the knowledge to comment on your personal performance or contribution, or to justify the way that you were/were not treated. On the other hand, you consider that you did not get the treatment or respect that you deserved. I suggest that it is time you got over it.


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## mikeg

Ron Stringer said:


> _never _[/B]have agreed to go on a maiden voyage again. Nothing could have been further from my imagined dream ship where the equipment was all new and shiny, immaculately installed and totally reliable. A sort of rest cruise. *NOT!*


It's the luck of the draw Ron. I went on six maiden voyages and apart from the sheer mass of people aboard and sleeping on a canvas bed in some corridor or the radio room etc. I actually enjoyed the majority of them. The workload was much higher but very satisfying. Much equipment was incorrectly installed or badly set up but thats what the trial was for. A lot depended on the quality of shipyards, my worst experience was with the French and Irish yards and best was definately Japanese with Canadian inbetween.
One ship was so reliable that I helped out with the huge workload of comms, unbeknown to me the yard R/O's had been booking my (very long) hours and at the end of the maiden voyage handed me the equivalent of £700. Now that was a pleasant surprise.

Mike


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## trotterdotpom

Thanks for explaining things Ron. How disappointing to find that shareholders are so mercenary.

It seems that Marconi treated you well. I consider that they treated me and many others extremely poorly. There were opportunities around for better working conditions, so I took advantage of that.


John T.


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## Ron Stringer

trotterdotpom said:


> It seems that Marconi treated you well.


I didn't ask for anyone to treat me well, just fairly. That is what MIMCo did. If they hadn't I would have left them - there were lots of other jobs available in those days.



trotterdotpom said:


> I consider that they treated me and many others extremely poorly.


Not sure you can speak on behalf of ''many others'' John. When I was an R/O they employed over 3,500 other guys (who could also have gone elsewhere), so they must have been doing something right.



trotterdotpom said:


> There were opportunities around for better working conditions, so I took advantage of that.


And good for you.


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## Ron Stringer

R651400

I didn't go to sea seeking fair treatment. I believed I was taking a job that would take me to parts of the world that a Lancashire lad from a working class family would otherwise be very unlikely to visit. The job that I took did just that, in relative luxury (not many of my relatives or friends had jobs where they received 'free' board and lodging, were provided with three good meals a day and attendants who would clean their accommodation) and also paid me a wage that was comparable with what my father was earning as a process worker in a factory.

So I was happy with the job, didn't bother comparing my salary with that of others on board but got on with enjoying the life. I knew that I could have left at any port in the UK and got another R/O job within a week or so. As someone who worked with non-British companies, you will be well aware that there was a big world outside the Red Duster. 

As I said, I was happy doing what I did. When I got fed up with things at sea, I left. I certainly didn't blame anyone else for my dissatisfaction - it was up to me to change and I did.

I learned what capitalism was about at school and never expected my employers to do me any favours. I understood that I was selling my efforts and knowledge in exchange for a salary. If my efforts fell below the boss's estimation of their value, he would either cut my pay or get rid of me. Similarly if the job did not satisfy my needs, I would leave. Loyalty or sentiment didn't enter into it, it was a simple financial transaction.

So if I got a crap ship, or a crap Master, I put it down to the luck of the draw and moved to another ship. After all, someone had to be assigned to the crap ships as well as to the good ones; I didn't consider myself so special that I deserved only good ships and shipmates. I took my chances with the other 3,000-odd.

If I wanted leave but there was no relief (only happened once) I had to put up with it. It wasn't personal and I had done a fair amount of making myself hard to contact while on leave to appreciate that reliefs couldn't be magicked out of thin air. For me to go on leave at short notice meant some other guy was dragged back before he had enjoyed his full quota.

I was generally co-operative and feel that I received fair treatment. When I wanted study leave, I asked well in advance and received it. When I asked to go on tankers, I was assigned to one. When my father was taken seriously ill, a Marconi staff clerk arranged for my relief at very short notice, arranged for me to be paid off on the Sunday that we arrived in port and came down to the ship with a taxi, money and my travel warrants to get me home without delay.

On the other hand when another R/O was taken ill, I was asked to take a ship only a few weeks before what was going to be my first Christmas at home in 5 years. I agreed, so getting a different staff clerk out of a hole. That turned out OK anyway, as we got back to the Tyne on Christmas Eve.

Surely no one is suggesting that all (or even a substantial minority) of Marconi R/Os were badly treated and dissatisfied with their employment but stayed on because there was no alternative? 

While it may be tempting to blame all one's troubles onto the employers, the shipowners, the government. I suspect that a more objective appraisal of the situation and the contribution of one's own decisions, actions (or failures to act) might bring more reality into play.


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## Ron Stringer

R651400 said:


> Since you nailed your flag to one mast I think you missed the point of my input which was not intended to draw out any lengthy discourse on the merits or demerits of MIMCO employ just simply to show there were others who preferred to go a different route.


May I point out that I did not start that ''discourse'' but simply submitted a posting, in line with the subject of the thread, regarding the length of messages sent from ships? 

John T asked whether British ships paid overtime to R/Os and I answered him to the best of my ability, directing him to other posts in SN where references to such payments had been made. He was disbelieving of my reply, perhaps because he had never received any overtime payments when he was with Marconi's. But he then made (unfairly in my opinion) some disparaging remarks about MIMCo, based on unsupported claims of general dissatisfaction amongst their R/Os. 

I was not prepared to accept unsupported claims of that nature without comment. Since Marconi employed some 80% of R/Os on British ships and fishing vessels, over a period lasting several decades, there clearly had to have been some dissatisfied or disillusioned employees. Whether or not their proportion of the total was greater or less than those of other companies in the industry, I don't know but common sense suggests that it would most likely be similar. Lots of men stayed at sea with Marconi from boyhood to retirement, others left after one trip (or, more typically after having completed the mandatory supervised 6 months sea time that they couldn't get elsewhere). 

I find it unlikely that R/Os in direct-employed companies were all most excellent, were always happy with their lot and did not experience unsatisfactory ships, unsatisfactory shipmates or unhelpful office personnel. Such ships and owners existed under all flags, not just the Red Duster where the vast majority of MIMCo men sailed. From SN forums outside the Radio Room, I can read plenty of posts about unreasonable owners, sub-standard ships and dodgy senior officers and shipmates. Bear in mind that the radio companies did not own the ships that Marconi employees worked on - crap ships belonged to crap owners. Over the years I met many serving Marconi R/Os aboard their ships and did not find that a large number of them were discontented with their lot or resentful of their employment. I did meet a handful of people with complaints and I also met slightly more alcoholics and a couple of substance abusers. 

Maybe I was lucky only to meet mainly the contented ones but my experience would not support John's claim that Marconi's ''treated me and many others extremely poorly''. I can accept, without question, that he might have been treated extremely poorly - it certainly could happen. If it had happened to me I would have left, as he did. But no details were given to support his claim that ''many others'' that had been treated similarly.

Mention is made of ''the ignominy of Marconi's monthly pocket money concession'' which I take to refer to the amount that you could opt to draw aboard ship (in my day £4, £8 or £12). Many people chose to leave the rest of their pay with Marconi in the manner to which you refer and draw it at the end of the voyage. Personally I preferred to have all my basic salary (ignoring variable extras such as Sundays-at-Sea) *less *the amount that I opted to draw aboard ship, paid into my savings account at the Midland Bank in my home town. When I signed off I paid up my bar bill etc. and submitted my Pay Book to the local depot to have my 'Sundays' settled. My pay was already at home and had been for months. I asked Marconi's for that arrangement and it was done. If anyone chose to arrange things differently, that was their business.

We are all free to write about personal experiences, good or bad, with Marconi or any other employer but I reject broad brush, unsupported slurs from malcontents claiming to be one of many 'victims' of a demon employer. The job wasn't what he wanted, he wasn't paid what he believed he was worth or he wasn't treated how he thought he should be treated so he left. Good for him - that is how it is supposed to work. I would have done just the same in such cir***stances. But I wouldn't have bulled it up, trying to make out that I was one of many abused victims. You had a row with the boss and left. End of story. 

I did the same thing twice, while working as a labourer before I went to sea and came close to repeating it several times after I came ashore, but I wasn't a crusader against oppression - I just wanted something different than my employer was prepared to give me. And I didn't go around sla gging him off afterwards. He was entitled to decide what he wanted to pay and to whom. I respected that and chose to go elsewhere.


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## trotterdotpom

Ron: "John T asked whether British ships paid overtime to R/Os and I answered him to the best of my ability, directing him to other posts in SN where references to such payments had been made. He was disbelieving of my reply, perhaps because he had never received any overtime payments when he was with Marconi's."

I was not "disblieving of your reply" and didn't indicate that I was as far as I can see. I simply said I'd never heard of overtime payments. Someone else (MikeG?) said that overtime payments commenced in 1975.

Ron: "Maybe I was lucky only to meet mainly the contented ones but my experience would not support John's claim that Marconi's ''treated me and many others extremely poorly''. I can accept, without question, that he might have been treated extremely poorly - it certainly could happen."

Unfortunately, I did meet "many" R/Os who shared my opinion - "many" being more than one and less than 3,500.

Ron: "We are all free to write about personal experiences, good or bad, with Marconi or any other employer but I reject broad brush, unsupported slurs from malcontents ..."

Actually, I don't consider myself a "malcontent" - many (more than one and less than 3,500) people seem to find me quite a cheery cove.

Ron: "I did meet a handful of people with complaints and I also met slightly more alcoholics and a couple of substance abusers."

At least the booze was keeping a few of the moaners happy!

It's true that it wasn't all beer and skittles with every company. One company I worked for is under regular attack from members of the site due to their poor conditions years ago. By the time I worked for them they were excellent, even caring, employers. I have leapt to their defence several times. Unfortunately, they didn't keep up in the salary stakes, so I left them too.

John T.


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## harry pennington

Ron talked about the pocket money paid on board to R/Os . I went for £8 a month, and it was one of the best things I could have done. The rest was paid into my bank, making me save and not leaving it on foreign shores. When paid off one time, having settled my bar bill, i only had 7 shillings and 6 pence to get home. Good job i was returning the next trip and the 2nd mate was handy for a loan. No ATMs in those years.


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## sven-olof

Reading this im sitting watching 2182 at Globaltuners. Its quite quiet now,
Anyway are there any soundclips on the internet with recordings from the busy days?


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## gwzm

Hi Sven-Olof,
Check out www.seefunker.de - lots of R/O nostalgia recordings.
= salaams es bv de gwzm + VA


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## Terry Roeves

*Gbcn*

One radio on 500 kHz 24/7 and the other working/listening coast stations. 
GBCN ss Iberia, plenty of traffic of course, but headphones only used for weak signals, like GKA from southern Australian waters. Hot, sticky and itchy in the tropics. Horrible!


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## Graham P Powell

Larry mentioned long messages from Troodoship. I took thousands of words off a ship one evening. One of those A7.. call signs. As luck would have it I only needed to take the address followed by "text same" which with the computer system was easy. One guy worked GHZB for 7 hours and in the old days it was nothing to pick up the Southern Harvester at 11pm and still be working him at eight in the morning. ( Before my time). Also naval taffic could be quite long some times though that was all in code. In fact we used to put teleprinter rolls in the typewriter.
I worked for Marconi and BP but looking back wished I stayed with Marconi.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## hawkey01

Long messages.

We certainly had lots of those during the Falklands war. Endless groups of code.
Many QSO´s lasting hours. I think we probably have some of the ex RO´s who are members.

I have a memory of taking over or handing over one of the Navy vessels at another time which was sending huge press releases. Cannot for the life of me remember for what reason. Think it was probably the Navy Ice patrol vessel Endurance or possibly the RRS John Biscoe. Another one that used to come up in the night was the Chandris liner Patris who was one of the first doing fly cruises out far east . Often with QTC 100+. The days of the true liners always gave you plenty of work. Orcades/MABA SLT 100 - or similar around Christmas or when heading in after a run back from Oz. 

You could guarantee these would always be at the end of a busy night shift when the eyes were hanging.

Neville - Hawkey01


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## Glyn Howell

This is a fascinatating conversation. I was master of a James Fisher vessel passing the Humber when the vessel sudenly heeled over and settled at a dangerous angle, the wind force was force 8 and it was pitch black. I put out a Mayday on 2182 and many ships raced to the scene, the coastal stations were Humber and North Foreland. Any way we eventually got into the shelter of the Humber, although I could scare you with the real story. Eventually my wife was listening to the BBC TV when she heard that a young man on the Isle of Wight had switched his record player on and heard my Mayday, he phoned Niton Radio apparently. According to all the papers he was the only one who heard an SOS and so saved 18 peoples lives. Good job he had his earphones on!


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## Graham P Powell

Hi Glyn, We certainly would monitor the distress frequencies if somebody rang us and we didn't have a distress watch being HF only. I don't think anybody was ever given the brush off after all it was the work of seconds to punch in a new frequency to listen to. I worked a Greek ship one night who was the only one to pick up a distress off W.Africa. We got him to send the auto alarm signal but still got no response. It was a small coasting vessel and by time the rescue came the crew were in the bows, the rest of the ship was on fire.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## ZUT444

No earphones whilst guarding 500 kc? Surely you jest! Okay, so I was a U S Coast Guard radioman. I would have been court-martialed if found phoneless, unless the guy standing watch on H/F was covering for me. Shame on you merchies.


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## Gareth Jones

Glyn Howell said:


> This is a fascinatating conversation. I was master of a James Fisher vessel passing the Humber when the vessel sudenly heeled over and settled at a dangerous angle, the wind force was force 8 and it was pitch black. I put out a Mayday on 2182 and many ships raced to the scene, the coastal stations were Humber and North Foreland. Any way we eventually got into the shelter of the Humber, although I could scare you with the real story. Eventually my wife was listening to the BBC TV when she heard that a young man on the Isle of Wight had switched his record player on and heard my Mayday, he phoned Niton Radio apparently. According to all the papers he was the only one who heard an SOS and so saved 18 peoples lives. Good job he had his earphones on!



Perhaps I misunderstand your story Glyn, but am I to believe all the Coast stations who could have heard your Mayday call, i.e. Norddeich, Schevening, Antwerp, Ostend, Boulogne, Humber, Northforeland and Niton (besides others further away) plus all the ships at sea monitoring 2182 all failed to hear you? 
Yet a man on the Isle of Wight heard you on a Record Player ? to which he was listening with headphones ?
Methinks that young man also phoned all the papers besides Niton Radio !!!!.


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## keithsparks

All I was enquiring about was the length of msgs sent by r/o s not received msgs anyone can receive msgs for ever but transmitting long msgs is quite a different story especially with a convential key not a fancydan bug.anyhow it ended up as a thread about overtime and the rights and wrongs of different radio companies oh for the rights of free speech ha ha ha.


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## Graham P Powell

I sent a 1000 word stores order message to ZSC. Eighty watt main tx and hand key. The stores all arrived as well....
rgds
Graham Powell


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## Glyn Howell

*Misheard Mayday on 2182*

No Gareth, everybody heard my call and attended, but my wife listening to the TV News heard that my ship had only been saved because a young lad switched on his record player and phoned Niton Radio, I lived in Hamble area. This led the press to query how it was that seamen could only be saved by accident. Indeed both Hamber, North Foreland and Niton Radio took the press to task. I am supposing that the young lad lived in Ventor, IOW, and was swamped out by a Mayday Relay from Niton Radio. I have never really had it explained how such a frequency transfer could happen. Glyn


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## david.hopcroft

Glyn's story reminded me of that we had a spate of hoax distress calls once while I was at Humber. One reported he was sinking 18 miles north of the Humber. I went out on 2182 to confirm details and ask for a name........nothing......so we began a Distress broadcast. A reply came from a Hull Trawler xxxx who said I heard it too, but thought he said north east of the river. Next morning in the local media, all Humberside was incensed about reports of the Hull Trawler xxxx sinking 18 miles north east of the river !!! 


David
+


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## Gareth Jones

Glyn Howell said:


> No Gareth, everybody heard my call and attended, but my wife listening to the TV News heard that my ship had only been saved because a young lad switched on his record player and phoned Niton Radio, I lived in Hamble area. This led the press to query how it was that seamen could only be saved by accident. Indeed both Hamber, North Foreland and Niton Radio took the press to task. I am supposing that the young lad lived in Ventor, IOW, and was swamped out by a Mayday Relay from Niton Radio. I have never really had it explained how such a frequency transfer could happen. Glyn


 I'm testing my memory now but I believe its called I/F breakthrough - it happens when cheapy domestic broadcast receivers are close to a relatively high power transmitter, which, although not transmitting in the broadcast band, the transmissions are picked up by the wires and components of the intermediate amplifiers within the cheap receiver and are then carried through the rest of the amplification process and out of the speaker. But the range of this happening is quite small just few miles I believe. It would not happen on a good quality communications receiver.

Ventnor is a bit too far from Niton for that to happen so my guess is that the young man in question probably heard your Mayday on a Short wave receiver, failed to fully understand what he was actually hearing then let his imagination take over !

In my days at Northforeland I know it was a popular pastime for local youngsters to stay in bed on Saturday mornings listening to our link calls!!! Illegal but it couldnt be stopped.


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## Vital Sparks

Breakthrough can occur in any electronic device, not just receivers. If the transmitter is close enough and the power is high enough any diode can serve as a detector and if there is an amplifier in circuit then signels could be heard. It's not impossible that a stereo was invloved. I worked for a while in a TV camera factory in Wick and GKZ transmissions could often be seen interfering with video circuitry.


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## Glyn Howell

*Frequency Breakthrough.*



Vital Sparks said:


> Breakthrough can occur in any electronic device, not just receivers. If the transmitter is close enough and the power is high enough any diode can serve as a detector and if there is an amplifier in circuit then signels could be heard. It's not impossible that a stereo was invloved. I worked for a while in a TV camera factory in Wick and GKZ transmissions could often be seen interfering with video circuitry.


Thanks Sparks,

Between you and Gareth a mystery has been solved, I didn't really want to believe such wizardry and mundane things like young lads hanging around Sandown Airport getting their kicks from listening to landing planes, or surreptitiously listening to link calls as Gareth suggested, my wife and I dined out on the original story of just being darned lucky some one switched their record player on in 1978 and saved my life. All the same, although I am deck side, I spent many happy years with various radio operators on board, and it is interesting to read the various threads. Glyn


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## Billieboy

Now I know the name of the effect of my combi-boiler switching on my computer when it's in sleep mode, the computer is less than a foot from the casing of the boiler.


----------



## 5TT

Gareth, 



> In my days at Northforeland ....


The pirate radio broadcasters, Radio Caroline and others, were often accused of causing interference on maritime comms frequencies, and they were pretty close to GNF ..

Do you remember any problems with them?

= Adrian +


----------



## Gareth Jones

5TT said:


> Gareth,
> 
> 
> 
> The pirate radio broadcasters, Radio Caroline and others, were often accused of causing interference on maritime comms frequencies, and they were pretty close to GNF ..
> 
> Do you remember any problems with them?
> 
> = Adrian +


 Not at GNF itself no nothing - I think the implication was that ships sailing near the Pirate stations themselves might have been susceptible to interference, but the sophistication and design quality of Marine radio gear makes this unlikely in my opinion. I think the accusation was more a case of governmental attempts to portray the pirates in an irresponsible light.


----------



## 5TT

Thanks Gareth, I've often wondered. It was Tony Benn in the '60s who used to bang on about ship/shore interference, or Anthony Wedgewood Benn as he preferred to be known then, he'd spent about 5 minutes working for the BBC before taking up a career in politics so probably felt he was properly qualified to comment on such matters ..

Calling at Tilbury in the late 70s, early 80s was probably the closest my radio room ever got to them and although they had a colossal signal I didn't have any difficulties either ..

= Adrian +


----------



## Glyn Howell

*Pirate Station Interference*



Gareth Jones said:


> Not at GNF itself no nothing - I think the implication was that ships sailing near the Pirate stations themselves might have been susceptible to interference, but the sophistication and design quality of Marine radio gear makes this unlikely in my opinion. I think the accusation was more a case of governmental attempts to portray the pirates in an irresponsible light.


Not quite true as when I worked for Trinity House Tenders we had interference when speaking on the ship to ship private channels when in contact with Sunk, Kentish Knock, Tongue Lighvessels and with Walton Coastguard Station. This could have caused much trouble in an emergency, I suspect that The Government latched on to this.

Glyn


----------



## Gareth Jones

Glyn Howell said:


> Not quite true as when I worked for Trinity House Tenders we had interference when speaking on the ship to ship private channels when in contact with Sunk, Kentish Knock, Tongue Lighvessels and with Walton Coastguard Station. This could have caused much trouble in an emergency, I suspect that The Government latched on to this.
> 
> Glyn


 Thats interesting - could you remember the frequencies these private channels used ?

I remember while once on detached duty at Anglesey Radio - the staff there had to record all the output of one of the Irish sea Radio pirates because they'd been bad mouthing Harold Wilson ! and apparently Harold was furious - So I dont suppose that helped their cause !

Presumably Liverpool would have been the target area for the pirate broadcasters and Harolds seat was Hyton? ( a Liverpool constituency I believe).


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## Gareth Jones

Thinking about it didnt the Coastguards and lightvessels work on frequencies around 1600 kcs ? this would have been right next to the Medium wave broadcst band and if any pirates were transmitting at the end of that band indeed it would have been so close (given their high power) as to likely interfere with Cg/lvessls working.


----------



## Graham P Powell

I had to monitor a pirate radio station one day at GKA. I think it was on 6mhz
and the person speaking "defied the Post Office " to shut him down ( which of course they did). I had to sign a statement that he was interfering with vital ship/shore communications. Not sure of the exact location but I do remember it being east of GKA on the directional aerial.
Anybody remember the station on RAF Masirah which played pop records interspersed with dirty jokes? Only low power but you could hear him around the Qoins.
rgds
Graham Powell


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## trotterdotpom

Gareth Jones said:


> Not at GNF itself no nothing - I think the implication was that ships sailing near the Pirate stations themselves might have been susceptible to interference, but the sophistication and design quality of Marine radio gear makes this unlikely in my opinion. I think the accusation was more a case of governmental attempts to portray the pirates in an irresponsible light.


Arriving in London (about '73?) I had to make a radiotelephone call via Northforeland (GNF). Tried everything but we always sounded like the Swedish chef according to GNF. My transmitter (forget the brand) was one of those new fangled (at the time) SSB ones and it was on the cusp of the changeover from A3 to A3J. I tried telling GNF to use SSB but he wouldn't listen. I can't remember why, but for some reason, I couldn't use A3. Try telling an irate Captain that you're right and the Coast Station is wrong!

John T.


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## rknibbs

I had the same experience - couldn't make an R/T call. This was in 1971 with a Redifon 1.2kw SSB transmitter on a BP tanker. Never did resolve the problem.


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## Glyn Howell

Gareth Jones said:


> Thinking about it didnt the Coastguards and lightvessels work on frequencies around 1600 kcs ? this would have been right next to the Medium wave broadcst band and if any pirates were transmitting at the end of that band indeed it would have been so close (given their high power) as to likely interfere with Cg/lvessls working.


Gareth,

I think we used 1651, give or take a digit, the trouble was Trinity House, at least on the Harwich District, used Walton Coastguard to send messages to the Head Office in Harwich. We used telegram type forms, giving the usual preamble and then the message in as few words as possible, counted of course. The trouble was one would get through half the message when suddenly everything was blotted out by Guy Mitchell singing She wears red feathers and a hully hully skirt, and so we would have to start over agian later. Walton also had trouble whilst working the local lifeboat. Glyn


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## Naytikos

A Thames pilot once told me that the duty roster was arranged between the cutter on station at Sunk and the Harwich office by radio just as Glyn describes.
This was done at a regular scheduled time which, of course, all of the pilots and their wives knew and tuned in their AM receivers accordingly.


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## Graham P Powell

We used to work trawlers on 8mhz R/T at GKA. I often wondered about this as they could have used Wick/GKR but an ex trawler R/O colleague told me it was because all the wives had Trawler band receivers and could monitor what was going on. If they wanted to talk to somebody they didn't want the wife to know about, they worked through us!.


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## M29

5TT said:


> Gareth,
> 
> 
> 
> The pirate radio broadcasters, Radio Caroline and others, were often accused of causing interference on maritime comms frequencies, and they were pretty close to GNF ..
> 
> Do you remember any problems with them?
> 
> = Adrian +


Hi all
Sailing regularly to Antwerp on Dart Container vessels, always avoided R/T with GNF at night because the interference from pirates was very bad in that area. I made a couple of attempts but these were always useless and the GNF R/O said it was a regular problem and would I make an official complaint, which I did. He could hear me ok but the interference was to his transmissions. The pirate must have been close GNF's working frequency or was producing a harmonic of it. If out of VHF range, I would use GNI, who although further away, was quite clear of interference.

Best Wishes

Alan


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## sven-olof

Could you listen at Broadcast and music when you where with paperwork?
Had You enough with receivers for that ?


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## ernhelenbarrett

I always used headphones at sea, reckoned you could read through the QRN better than on L/speaker, same at VIS and when at VIG used phones on MF, L/S
on small ships, also had L/S on Border Mapping mob in West Papua and also had to keep an ear and eye on the RX and TX R/t Channels down to Sydney so could get up and change freq when they started to fade.During Monsoon time the QRN/QRM could get pretty bad and at night only one R/O was on to do the lot.
Ern Barrett


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## Troppo

I never used headphones.

Never needed to.


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## Graham P Powell

Interesting to read about the interference at GNF. One day at GKA I was asked to monitor a pirate radio station operating on 6mhz. I heard the guy say that the defied the Post Office to catch him. I had to make out a proper report that he was causing interference to marine comms. Subsequently, I found out the bloke was in the Southend area and of course the Post Office caught him and confiscated all his gear. 
rgds
Graham Powell


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## M29

Graham P Powell said:


> Interesting to read about the interference at GNF. One day at GKA I was asked to monitor a pirate radio station operating on 6mhz. I heard the guy say that the defied the Post Office to catch him. I had to make out a proper report that he was causing interference to marine comms. Subsequently, I found out the bloke was in the Southend area and of course the Post Office caught him and confiscated all his gear.
> rgds
> Graham Powell


Hi Graham
Had a mate who worked for the PO interference department. As an ex R/O, he got the job because they wanted him to monitor amateur bands for pirates.
I remember him earning overtime by listening to a pirate pop station in Liverpool and recording the broadcasts on tape.

After a couple of weeks obtaining evidence and locating the pirate, a senior PO official with police support and a warrant, forced the pirates front door and caught him in the act.
Result, confiscation of kit and heavy fine.
We don't seem to here much about pirate radio stations these days.

Best Wishes

Alan


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## IAN M

Graham P Powell said:


> We used to work trawlers on 8mhz R/T at GKA. I often wondered about this as they could have used Wick/GKR but an ex trawler R/O colleague told me it was because all the wives had Trawler band receivers and could monitor what was going on. If they wanted to talk to somebody they didn't want the wife to know about, they worked through us!.


I worked at GPO coast stations from 1953 until 1956; one year at Wick and two at GKA. Almost all trawler traffic went through Wick, as a cheaper rate obtained. 

You may be interested to know that in the last, lengthy, part of my Kindle book, LAST VOYAGE AND BEYOND, I tell of my life at these Stations. 

Regards

Ian


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## Graham P Powell

Hi ian,
I didn't realise they had a cheaper call rate through Wick. I cannot remember working many trawlers except TPR's which were on the key. One I do remember was the Arctic Corsair which was a regular with us.
rgds
Graham Powell
(GKA 1975 - 1996)B\)


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## johnvvc

Gareth Jones said:


> Thats interesting - could you remember the frequencies these private channels used ?
> 
> _ I remember while once on detached duty at Anglesey Radio - the staff there had to record all the output of one of the Irish sea Radio pirates_ because they'd been bad mouthing Harold Wilson ! and apparently Harold was furious - So I dont suppose that helped their cause !
> 
> Presumably Liverpool would have been the target area for the pirate broadcasters and Harolds seat was Hyton? ( a Liverpool constituency I believe).



I worked at Anglesey Radio at about that time. We used an old Ferrograph open reel recorder and the recordings would have been used as evidence of the pirate's illegal transmissions. Incidentally it was Caroline North which was anchored off the Isle of Man. I never heard Harold Wilson mentioned tho.

We used to have a lot of people phone us wanting R/T link calls to the Caroline ship but of course we had to refuse - must have cost us a good few quid in lost revenue.

Caroline eventually went off air and the recording came to nothing. I wonder what happened to the tapes, there must have been hundreds of them, probably went to the skip like lots of the other stuff...


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## Brian Derksen

When working on deep sea vessels I used loudspeaker and when it was time to 
send a message or reply I used headphones.
When using headphones I placed them over my temples and not directly over ears as everything could still be heard perfectly well with resultant little hearing loss even after being r/o for 40+ years.

The last coast guard station I worked at - Inuvik MCTS/VFA (Marine Communication and Traffic Services - we were crossed trained in latter years in traffic services and at some stations we had to monitor ship movement via radar though not at VFA though we did provide navigational info via radio at VFA)

At this particular station we monitored about 35 channels or frequencies thru 3 speakers. By the sound of transmission and the fact that when a call came thru a green receive light would come up on the transmit select panel and you would select that module and the appropriate channel or line would be directed to the headphones and the remaining channels and lines would still be monitored in the speakers.
It was a bit challenging when you were called while working someone and you had to deselect and tell the calling party to wait etc or give them a queue number (qry)

We monitored vhf locally and at remote sites to the north and south (to the north about 70km and northeast about 1000km) and mf/hf from our VFA antenna site and remote sites on 2182/4/6/8/12 mhz ssb (and cw in the earlier years).
We were connected to the remote sites via satellite links.

It could become quite hectic at some stations especially if you were at a single-stand station (1 operator on duty) though most of the stations had two positions, one radio and safety, and the other vessel traffic.

And in earlier years at some stations the r/o had to also do the weather observations every 3 hours, starting, I think, about 10 minutes before the hour and entered into the met circuit before 7 minutes past the hour. (we had been crossed trained in meteorology)

Brian


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## Crippen

*Head Phones*

Never really used the head phones but on one occasion wish I had. Was taking the weather one day when the old man rudely came in the radio room with a relieving master (did a weeks trip for a handover) explaining something or other. Their ramblings were so distracting, I gave up taking it and threw the pen across the room.

On reflection I should have told them both to get the hell out and knock before entering. 

Easy to think that after the event!!


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## Mayday

I always found that the S.G.Brown type headphones had a characteristic
filter property at around 1 kHz. They could be quite selective when used properly.
This property didn't appear to be understood or appreciated by the younger generation using hifi type headphones with a flat response over many kHz, fine for listening to music but no good for the job in hand.
I still have a set and use them when I occasionally listen to the amateurs gossiping.

John Mac.


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## Varley

I never appreciated that the SG Brown's were 'tuned'. I am looking at my favourite pair now. The only liberty I took was to re-route the leads so that I had only one, less self-tangling, lead with the earpieces in parallel and the interconnection taped (black fabric insulating tape) to the headband. I never used 'split' headphones. Nor saw any that I recall.


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## trotterdotpom

R651400 said:


> Never knew the compulsory use of head-phones for watch-keeping was ever changed but any bridge or chart-room with the cacophony of morse emanating from an adjoining radio room loudspeak day in and day out at sea must have made you very popular.


That's because you were only at sea for a dogwatch. All radio rooms weren't on the bridge.

Also, how are you supposed to work an HF station while monitoring the distress frequency without one frequency being on Loudspeaker?

John T


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## Shipbuilder

You could equally ask why they put loudspeakers in the receivers!
If they were not there, you would have to use headphones. I used the loudspeaker for normal watch and always used the headphones whilst working traffic!
I also had a loudspeaker in my cabin, and left 500Khz connected to that all night in addition to the auto alarm. I found the general crackling quite relaxing, but did not have it on when my wife was travelling!(Jester)
Middle of the night off the Falklands, I was awakened from sleep by an XXX with no alarm signal. I scribbled the message on the formica bulkhead with a pencil. It was a call for medical advice that we were able to supply from our doctor, resulting in the fellow's life being saved.

The advice and response was going back and forwards for a couple of days before his condition stabilised. Interesting to note that the captain of the other ship sent a heartfelt thank you message to our captain and doctor for saving the guy's life - I didn't even come in for a mention!(==D)

Anyway, the point of the matter is that if I heard it on a loudspeaker when fast asleep in bad weather, I would certainly have heard it on a speaker when wide awake!

Bob


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## holland25

The Radio Room on he Ulysses was off the chart room at the back of the bridge,admittedly she was wasn't built as a Bluey.


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## trotterdotpom

#119. Good work Shipbuilder. "They also serve who only stand and wait".

Shades of the Met Office Awards.

John T


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## Varley

trotterdotpom said:


> That's because you were only at sea for a dogwatch. All radio rooms weren't on the bridge.
> 
> Also, how are you supposed to work an HF station while monitoring the distress frequency without one frequency being on Loudspeaker?
> 
> John T


Tut, tut JT, the clue is in the regulations. The alternative is split headphones. The 'other one' routed to 500, you understand, not the Beeb!


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## holland25

The Sam boats, of which there were one or two, when I joined BF,would have had their Radio Rooms just by the port bridge wing, off the alley way at the back of the bridge.


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## trotterdotpom

Varley said:


> Tut, tut JT, the clue is in the regulations. The alternative is split headphones. The 'other one' routed to 500, you understand, not the Beeb!


If you could be bothered pissing around splitting headphones, you're a better man than I am, Marconi Sahib.

John T


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## Varley

See #115, John T - but I did polished my copperwork!


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## trotterdotpom

Varley said:


> See #115, John T - but I did polished my copperwork!


So did I David but only during bouts of OCD. I left the receiver on loudspeaker while I did it too.

John t


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## Wismajorvik

Mayday said:


> I always found that the S.G.Brown type headphones had a characteristic
> filter property at around 1 kHz. They could be quite selective when used properly.
> This property didn't appear to be understood or appreciated by the younger generation using hifi type headphones with a flat response over many kHz, fine for listening to music but no good for the job in hand.
> I still have a set and use them when I occasionally listen to the amateurs gossiping.
> 
> John Mac.


Don't believe it was a filter, by adjusting the Rx bfo the headphone diaphragm could be made to self resonate producing a louder sound , if somewhat distorted. Definitely dropped some of the qrm.


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## richardwakeley

Blue Funnel A-Boats, built late 40s thru early 50s, had the radio room one deck below the bridge, on boat deck facing aft, with an inside door to R/Os Cabin and then to alleyway below bridge, and an outside door to the boat deck. Some were on Stbd side (e.g. Cyclops), some port (e.g. Laomedon). Very convenient for being naughty and doing the 500 watch by loudspeaker! On some, like Cyclops, the R/O cabin was converted to a Purser's office after 'de-passengerisation' freed up other cabins.
On the next class - M boats of late 50s - the Radio Room was miles away down below at the after end of the port alleyway. On the new Japanese M-boats of 1977, Radio Room was right next to the bridge, starboard side, with a 'serving hatch'.


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## Mayday

Wismajorvik said:


> Don't believe it was a filter, by adjusting the Rx bfo the headphone diaphragm could be made to self resonate producing a louder sound , if somewhat distorted. Definitely dropped some of the qrm.


Sounds about right, "A filter property".

John.


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## Trevorw

I used a combination of the two, depending on what I was doing. Having said that, the Marconi Alert 2nd Channel rx was useless - it should have been fitted with a modulator - the Italians, principally, closely followed by the Greeks, would insist on using CW, which immediately blocked out the signal on the Alert!


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## Troppo

Shipbuilder said:


> I also had a loudspeaker in my cabin, and left 500Khz connected to that all night in addition to the auto alarm. I found the general crackling quite relaxing, but did not have it on when my wife was travelling!(Jester)
> 
> Bob


Bloody hell....now THAT was dedication!

(Thumb)

(Jester)


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