My first radio qualification, 60 years ago today!

[ppppenguin]

Pictures from Sandford Mill museum. All reconstructions of ship's radio rooms from various periods. Including the Titanic. A crowd of us were there as part of the BVWS 40th Anniversary celebrations. It's also the home of the famous Writtle Hut.

1900s, 1930s, 1940s, ???, ??? Titanic. I think. Though may well be out of sequence.

The ??? are 1910s and 1920s I think.

[pwdrive]

Amongst others I think I see a Maggie.

Lawrence.

[Sparks]

Very nice, thanks for posting.   I recognise a lot of the equipment in Nr3, and have sailed with everything in Nr4, and could soon figure out how to use the rest of it.
This is the radio equipment aboard the bulk carrier Silverdon in 1977.    All at the bottom of the sea now.   Sank in the South China Sea, 20 years after I left, with a cargo of 22,000 tons of iron ore aboard.     Catastrophic hull failure in a Typhoon.
Bob
PS What is a Maggie?

[ppppenguin]

"Maggie" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_detector

[Sparks]

Here is the radio office of RMS St. Helena (I) in which I spent 11 years.     16 years old when I joined and 27 years old when I left.   (The ship, that is , not me! )       Very small, 3,150 gross tons, 300 feet long.    Voyage Avonmouth - Las Palmas, Ascension Island, St. Helena Island, Cape Town and back with 76 passengers, and general cargo.    A very up-to-date rig with VHF, MF and HF R/T.     MF and HF W/T and IF/HF teleprinter.     Satellite communications voice and teleprinter.    I put through the very first satellite phone call from the newly-opened Earth Station at Goonhilly, in 1983 from the anchorage in Port Stanley Harbour.     I also sent the last distress message using morse code from a British passenger liner on the high seas on Halloween Night, 1984 during a serious fire.    We, and the ship survived, but after drifting for a week with the oil tanker Overseas Argonaut standing by, we were towed to Dakar, West Africa by the German salvage tug Fairplay IX.     Remained in Dakar for one hot, sweaty month, undergoing repairs, and then resumed our normal run for a further 5 years before being sold when RMS St. Helena (II) came into service.
Bob

[Sparks]

"Maggie" ah yes, I know what you mean now!
Bob

[ppppenguin]

Bob, methinks the "maggie" is just a little before your time

I put through the very first satellite phone call from the newly-opened Earth Station at Goonhilly, in 1983 from the anchorage in Port Stanley Harbour.  

Goonhilly was opened in 1962, to work with the Telstar satellite and served many other satellites until 2006. Perhaps you're thinking of the first satellite maritime phone service? Terrestrial satellite telephony dates right back to Early Bird, the first geosynchronous comms satellite in the 1960s.

[Sparks]

Yes, It was the first maritime call made through what they told us was the new Earth Station at Goonhilly. Before that, British ships that were fitted with satcoms used Eik in Norway as the Earth station. We were first fitted with satcoms for the South Atlantic Task Force, but when that was all over, and the naval satcoms removed, we were fitted with a Racal Decca satcom system. We were chosen to innaugurate the maritime service because apart from the ship being under Ministry of Defence charter at the time, our managers (Curnow Shipping) were in Helston, Cornwall! Most of the Falklands news reports in the aftremath, 1983, were put through via our Satcoms because I was happy to do so, as long as the reporters paid cash for the connection. It was mainly Brent Saddler, & Mike McKay. The earth station charge was £3.50 a minute, and the ship charge on top of that! Horribly expensive!
Magnetic Detector,
Yes, before my time, but I am still familar with them. The weight tapping the coherer to shake the filings apart, and the clockwork to wind them up.
Bob

[pwdrive]

I worked in Helston at that time, Curnow Shipping was down at Porthleven so far as I remember.

Lawrence.

[Sparks]

Yes, the address was Porthleven, Helston, Cornwall. Initially they were in two small cottages, but moved out to a bigger place on the dockside. I was with them from 1979 to 1992. The old ship sailed mainly from Avonmouth, but occasionally Milford Haven, and finally Cardiff. The new one initially sailed from Cardiff, but no longer comes to the UK regularly, although she was in London a few weeks ago for the "farewell" publicity, but has been extended for another year!
Bob