My first radio qualification, 60 years ago today!

[pwdrive]

Porthlevan can sometimes take a bit of a battering in the winter storms, when I worked in Falmouth I used to fix the TV's on the Methane Princess and the Methane Progress, they were laid up for yonks at Falmouth Docks/Carrick Roads/Fal River.

Lawrence.

[Sparks]

Here I am in the radio office on my last three days at sea in October, 2016.     A passenger took the photo and sent it to me.   I was repairing a telephone at the time, and looking forward to packing in the "rat race."     We had a very comprehesive load of gear in that room.     Sat comms, voice and telex, e-mail, fax. IF and HF teleprinters.   M/F and HF W/T, fire alarm system and public address system.     In addition to my 8 hours a day watchkeeping and communication duties, I was required to maintain and repair all the equipment, plus the radar and VHF sets, video recorders, automatic steering electronics, TV sets, bridge and engineroom computers, telephones, talkback systems, lifeboat radio equipment, fixed and portable.     Then in the evening, helping to entertain the 132 passengers.     Really, it was beyond a joke, and I was glad to leave in the end!    A far-cry from my collier days!
Bob

[Raditechman]

Looks a much nicer radio officers room than the colliers 6' by 6.'
Carpet on the floor and proper windows. Seems a long day if you had to entertain the passengers in the evenings as well.
Are you sure about the date October 2016?

John

[Sparks]

You are quire right - got the date wrong!      It was October 1992!    That wasn't my cabin, that was the radio office!   I lived one deck below in quite a nice cabin with fitted carpet, armchair, desk, fridge, wardrobe, double bed and its own bathroom.    My wife travelled with me often (free of charge )
Here is the ship leaving London a few weeks ago on what was to be a farewell publicity call,
https://youtu.be/-H--hjQscwI
but as the new airport on St. Helena is suffering from "wind sheer," it is not safe for large airliners, so the ship has got an extension of one years.
Bob

[Mike Watterson]

I think an example of careful what you wish for. The Islanders thought originally that the airport would be in addition to the ship. AFTER it was approved it was revealed the ship would be axed? I think it's a disaster for the island if it ONLY has an air service.

[Sparks]

They never thought it would be in addition to the ship.    Ever since 1979, there were a large number of people, not necessarily islanders, mumbling about the happy day when they would get an airport and dispense with the services of the ship.     My first association with the island began in April 1974 when we sailed from Bilbao in the re-built RMS Good Hope Castle that was one of the islands suppliers.   The other ship was the RMS Southampton Castle.      After they sold the Union-Castle fleet, I went back to tramp ships for two years, before finding my way back to the island service aboard RMS St. Helena (I)     We, onboard all took the airport threat with a "pinch of salt," knowing that it would take many years, if ever to complete it.     They will always need a sea service to bring in heavy goods, whether the airport ever works or not, but that will most likely be done with charter vessels.     They managed with chartered ships for 13 months in 1982/83, whilst we were away in the Falklands.    The flights (if the airport had worked OK) were scheduled to be St. Helena - Johannesburg which is really a strange idea, as most Saints that went to South Africa settled in Cape Town.
The whole idea of an air link was to get rid of the subsidised ship for a much cheaper airline service.     I am still in contact with many of my old shipmates, the ship itself, and the island.    Also, there is a St. Helena group on Facebook where we can all remain in contact .  It was an ideal situation for a dinasaur such as myself as it was all so far back in time, and my final communication from the  ship with the island in October 1992 was by using morse code because the satellite link was erratic to say the least, and the highest HF frequency that the island teleprinters could offer was 12 mHz, and it was really too far for a telex signal, but the ancient time-honoured morse code signals could, and did, get through with some difficulty provided we had the "ears of a bat!"   If you want to read the free weekly island newspaper online, here it is http://independent.saint.fm/latest-issues/
Where you will be kept up to date with all the airport/shipping news, plus everything else that is going on down there.   
Bob
[url=http://independent.saint.fm/latest-issues/][/url]

[Sparks]

As this is a radio forum, here is an extract from one of my St. Helena books on my very first use of an HF teleprinter the first morning at sea after I joined the ship in 1979:

On sailing, I conducted our initial communications in morse code as I had always done.   The first evening at sea we were in the traffic list at Portishead Radio and again I received the message in the traditional manner using morse.    Next morning, Captain Wyatt came along to the radio office with a telex message.    That particular voyage, his wife and two young sons were sailing with us.     He had brought the boys along to watch a telex message sent!    How I wished I had made my first attempt the previous night in privacy.    With an outward show of calm confidence, I tuned the transmitter in on the appropriate frequency for Land’s End Radio.  I then set the digital receiver to the correct frequency.    All was silent apart from the odd crackle and hiss from the receiver.    Uttering a silent prayer, I pressed the call button on the control unit.  The cricket-like pulsing sound commenced immediately and after about five seconds, a row of lights flashed on the control unit and the whirr of the teleprinter daisy wheel commenced.   I pressed the “who are you” button on the keyboard and within seconds Land’s End radio’s answerback typed itself out on the machine.    I replied with our answerback and typed in “Good morning, please connect with 45654 Curnow G.”     “Good morning,” it replied, “please wait!”
After a few seconds, the machine typed “go ahead!”    I again pressed the “Who are you?” button and “45654 Curnow G” came back.    All I had to do then was press the “send” button and the punched paper tape began to chatter through the machine and a copy of the message was simultaneously printed in the Curnow office and on the ship’s teleprinter.   So, after eighteen years at sea, I had made my last communication with Portishead Radio using morse code.    Morse was not dead, however.    It remained in common use right until the day I left the sea thirteen years later.   

Bob

[Sparks]

It has just been announced that the airport will only be used for non-commercial purposes, and the ship will carry on until at least 2018!
Bob

[Mike Watterson]

Having both is best as there are many things not allowed by air and air has a weight & size limit.
Good news

[Sparks]

In my opinion (that has never counted for much anyway ) the airport has been an almost complete was of over £250m!       Even in the late 1970s, a number of experts were assuring us that sea travel was on its way out as far as St. Helena was concerned, and that an airport would soon be built and we would all be out of jobs.     Even then, a few of us were aware of the turbulance of wind around the steep cliffs giving rise to the name  "reef topsail vallley," where large sailing ships passing close by the island on their way to anchor for supplies at Jamestown (St Helena) would take in their upper sails to avoid damage, even on calm days.    The first landing did no actually look too bad to me, but I really do know nothing (and care even less) about aircraft, but experienced pilots were emphatic that it was bad.      If they must have air travel, it would have been cheaper to build an old-style flying boat to run between St. Helena and Ascension, 700 miles away.    As you say, it is not cheap to carry 1,000 or more tons of cement (or anything else) by air.     Whilst we on St. Helena (I) were away in the Falklands, 1982/83, they first put a tiny 12-passenger ship on the run as a "stop gap," and then chartered in the big RMS Centaur with 250 passenger capability, until we got back.       Extending the St. Helena is only a short-term solution, as the ship is approaching 27-year-old, and 30 years is usually the limit.   It will be interesting to see what happens.    The image shows the old ship leaving Cape Town for St. Helena in the late 1970s, packed full of cargo, even on deck.   (Carry that lot by air - youn must be joking   ) We carried everything the island needed.      I have no axe to grind on the impending end to the shipping service, as I left voluntarily years ago, but I feel that the development of air travel is the worst thing that ever happenned to the human race!
Bob