# Mcw & dsb



## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

For those of us who go back to WT MCW and RT DSB, then if you were QSO UK Coast Stations, this is what you would have been talking to.

The W5 was the standard Post Office Coasty Station Transmitter from the early 50's until SSB came along.

David
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Sorry - the Block Diagram is upside down - don't know how to change that !.
There are two more in the next post


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## johnvvc (Feb 8, 2008)

David,

I vaguely remember the W5.

At GLV we also had a Transmitter Type A103-PO made by Ajax Electronics Ltd in Southend-on-Sea. - we might have had more than one... Presumably the PO suffix meant it was a Post Office design?

1Kw
1.6 - 3.8 Mhz
A3A, A3H, A3J

and no - I don't have a good memory - just quoting from the Technical Manual that for some reason finished off in my shack when GLV disappeared...!!!. It bears the name of C. W. Waite - Bill Waite, an old mate of mine from the GLV days.


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Yes that would be nice to see. It is a bit of history.


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

It is not a full manual with circuit diagrams etc, just a description and operating instructions. I will copy a few more items and put them in a new post here. Only five at a time for each post so maybe a few posts. If anyone knows how to post a folder that can be opened and each item scrolled through, then please let me know. Meanwhile a few more views that will give an impression of the size of this thing and the PA1 valves that powered it. I think they were beamed triodes that had an impressive glow. They were made by Plessey at Paignton.

The Ajax's were introduced with SSB. They were single frequency, and went out to the aerials via a high/low pass filter that made sure everything went forwards, usually to a wideband mast. They were made by Ajax Electronics in Southend, by a one man band outfit. His name really was Jack Sprat. An apocryphal story goes that when the tender was floated, he turned up at the then St Martins-Le-grand HQ with his engineer. When asked if it could do this or that, the engineer whipped out his soldering iron and did it. Asked how much they were, Jack replied £1500. We'll have 37 please came the response. He also produced a drive unit for the H1000 standby Tx with all frequencies on it for a similar price. Marconi were asking considerably more !! 

David
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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Makes the old 807 look a bit piddling ... :sweat:


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## johnvvc (Feb 8, 2008)

R651400 said:


> Does the manual have any images you can post?


Not too sure whether your mail was for me or David, in any event I'm posting some scans from the Manual. It's a 50 page technical manual and sadly there are no pictures of the transmitter. I vaguely remember tho' it looked like one of those of the GKZ transmitters posted by David - ~6 foot tall and painted straw yellow...

On a different note I also seem to remember there was a similar outfit to Ajax in Southend called SPT, possibly one and the same thing company....

I had dealings with SPT in another life where we used some of their equipment for experimental cancer thermotherapy treatment. A story for another day maybe...


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## Wismajorvik (Dec 29, 2011)

Sound Powered Telephones, SPT, was I believe an offshoot of Redifon, and manufactured for principally the RN.


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

A few more of the W5 and others

The back of the Ajax was taken just after closure. Towards the end, maintenance obviously was scaled down. Part of the maintenance duty was to keep the cabinets clean. The glass chimneys would be routinely cleaned. There is a fan missing from the box under the valves - CV6174 ?). This blew air up through the chimneys. A problem with chimney breakage was easily solved by one of the Wick staff who knew someone at Caithness Glass in Wick, so a good supply was always available. 

As well as the Ajax's, there were two Redifon G424 fixed frequency transmitters.

David
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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

Great pix ... (Gleam)


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## BobDixon (Oct 17, 2008)

johnvvc said:


> On a different note I also seem to remember there was a similar outfit to Ajax in Southend called SPT, possibly one and the same thing company....


I was told that Ajax were too small for the PO ordering system so they were "taken over" by SPT to give them the financial credibility.


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

So what were our skills being able to use this gear in 1969 worth ??

Mind you, a pint in my local was 2/- then !!

David

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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

I seem to remember paying off my last ship as an engine room rating in 1967 then doing nearly 3 years at college to get my sparky's ticket and radar to join my first ship as a junior sparky in 1970 to find I was only slightly better paid than I'd been swabbing decks and polishing brass ... :sweat:


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## Wismajorvik (Dec 29, 2011)

My basic monthly pay was £38 17s 6p when I started in 1962. Increased to £40 10s shortly after. I seem to remember this was equivalent to an AB's pay.


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## david.hopcroft (Jun 29, 2005)

Wismajorvik - you must have been with AEI then. My first pay there in 1963 was £40.10.00 also. 

David
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## Wismajorvik (Dec 29, 2011)

Actually yes, but I believe the rates were the same across MIMCO and AEI.


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

Wismajorvik said:


> Actually yes, but I believe the rates were the same across MIMCO and AEI.


The minimum rates of pay for R/Os were established by a committee of the NMB on which sat the ROU, the Shipping Federation and representatives of those radio companies that supplied R/Os to the MN.

Any (radio- or shipping-) company was permitted to pay more than the minimum rate. 

When I was accepted by MIMCo in 1959 the rate was £36/calender month. It was still the same when they eventually found me a ship and I could go to sea. In the interim I worked on nights in a food factory and was paid £74.17s.6d every four weeks.


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## BobClay (Dec 14, 2007)

I did a couple of years with Marconi and a couple of years with Kelvin Hughes on miserable pay rates then went freelance via the REOU in 1974. I got £15.00 per day for that, mega-money after the radio companies !!

After an 8 month trip I was able to finance myself through the MED and General at Southampton but was stony broke at the end of it and crawled back to Marconi for one trip on the Mobil Pegasus (they paid me an extra £12 quid a month for the MED and boy did I have to earn it.)

Then I joined CP Ships and the wages got real. (egg)


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## Ron Stringer (Mar 15, 2005)

R651400 said:


> Then whoever was representing us (presumably the ROU) sold us short....


Think you might have a reasonable complaint about the deal that the R/Os got. Mind you, I cannot believe that ROU members would have supported any militant activity to try and improve their lot in such negotiations. 

At various UK committee meetings, ITU meetings and the IMO, we used to take bets on how long into the meeting it would be before the ROU rep fell asleep. The longest-serving ROU rep at such events made very few contributions to procedures, other than to the final output do***ents, where he was always willing to intervene to point out that 'kHz' should be written with a lower case letter 'k' and a lower case letter 'z', and not completely capitalised. Always a stickler for accuracy in such important points.

To be fair to him, at ITU and IMO meetings he was often beaten by the USA representative of the American Radio Association/Radio
Officers' Union, who could nod off almost as soon as the introductions were over.

Things improved when George Mochrie took over at the ROU, but the writing was on the wall by then and GMDSS was politically unstoppable.


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## Gareth Jones (Jul 13, 2007)

Talking of RO2 pittance . In the early 60's I too suffered. During my time with the GPO I did one year detached duty aboard the Cableship Monarch.
I was virtually the lowest paid man on the ship. Even the waiter in the officers saloon (who was an 18 year old postman ashore) was paid more than me.
What an indignity - sat there with gold braid on my shoulder being waited on by a guy getting more money than me. Shows how my skills were valued.


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## Troppo (Feb 18, 2010)

The Aussie R/O union wasn't bad in terms of salary. I was on the same as the 2/O on my last ship. However, that was a tanker. The non tanker rate was around 3/O pay, from memory.

We also got a very good redundancy package or retraining as a 3/O when GMDSS came in.

Having said that, the union was riven by politics...really bad politics. Left vs right, national civic council (right wing anti-communist group), etc. 

If they had concentrated more on the member's needs, we could have got even better conditions.


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## Wismajorvik (Dec 29, 2011)

I spent most of my time on tankers which attracted "tanker allowance" and usually "east of suez allowance". Cannot remember what percentages they were. (I have a pay book somewhere as we made out our own claims). I went aboard a couple of "world" tankers but was not impressed by the state of the kit or the British r/o's eagerness to come aboard our ship for a sandwich. I talked to Zim Israel shipping about 1965, offering £16 a week but I could get that ashore.


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