Boating technology in the 1960s

[MikeCC]

Can thoroughly recommend the Ron Hall/Nicholas Tomalin book The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst. I've had it for ages and picked it up after seeing the film. A lot of the film background must have come from the book. Quite a lot of detail on comms and equipment.

Very sad tale of someone who I think felt compromised in every direction and with a mental temperament not suited to long distance solo.

 

[mainsail1]

I was curious so googled, found this online apparently by a Ron Stringer:-
http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showpost.php?p=1439282&postcount=2

Found a pic here:-

Also a reference online to the construction of the Electron:-
https://www.triposo.com/poi/T__50da72a47e3a


Info on the Racal set:-
http://www.eham.net/reviews/detail/4111

I can find nothing on the Shannon.

Thanks for finding that information. I felt sure that if he had HF it would be a heavy piece of kit and that it would need substantial power. I would say that is a heavy piece of kit for a sailing boat but no doubt Elecglitch will say "rubbish"....

 

[Blue Sunray]

Thanks for finding that information. I felt sure that if he had HF it would be a heavy piece of kit and that it would need substantial power. I would say that is a heavy piece of kit for a sailing boat but no doubt Elecglitch will say "rubbish"....

Oh dear, smarting a bit precious?

 

[laika]

Oh dear, smarting a bit precious?

comparing post #13 and post #18, the former is representative of spirit of positive discussion I enjoy here.

 

[GHA]

comparing post #13 and post #18, the former is representative of spirit of positive discussion I enjoy here.

:encouragement:

Plus making full and often use of the ignore button does a very good job of filtering out the consistently grumpy argumentative posters.


What you can get these days which probably is far ahead in capabilities and far below in weight, power draw and cost.

 

[snowleopard]

I would expect there to be quite a bit of direction finding capability available. Even if they didn't deliberately use it on Crowhurst they probably could've quite easily. HF direction finding was already quite advanced 25 years earlier when it was used to hunt down U-boats reporting home.

IIRC Crowhurst assumed that when transmitting from the S Atlantic he could say he was in the S Pacific and anyone in the Atlantic taking a DF bearing would assume it was coming over the pole.

 

[snowleopard]

:encouragement:

Plus making full and often use of the ignore button does a very good job of filtering out the consistently grumpy argumentative posters.


What you can get these days which probably is far ahead in capabilities and far below in weight, power draw and cost.

Even today's kit is not to be taken lightly. An SSB set draws a lot of amps when transmitting at the normal 150W.

 

[Uricanejack]

Certainly it's technically possible, but were commercial coastal radio stations equipped for it? I was watching some old films of Portishead a while ago and I don't think any mention was made of DFing contacts.

Pete

I believe they were.
DF capable of using both 500 k hz and 2182. Were certainly carried by all ocean going ships and would be standard equipment for a coast radio station. DF although often used for navigation by taking DF bearings from coast radio stations even aero beacons. Was acutely required equipment for emergency responses.
I don’t know what the ham bands are. The main radio could tune in but I’m not sure about DF.

Usual protocol would be to use DF for a MayDay or SOS not for routine call and working routine traffic.
The usual protocol required DF to be used any time a May Day or SOS call was heard.
The idea being in the even of a May Day or SOS being cut short or hard to make out. Or auto alarm. A DF bearing could be plotted for any shore station or ships hearing the call.

 

[Uricanejack]

I’m reasonably sure the Army had man-portable HF sets at that point, so a yacht installation (I believe he had a dedicated petrol generator for powering it) isn’t that far-fetched.

Pete

I have no clue what the army had. But I expect it would have been at least as good as and probably better than a lifeboat radio.

Back in distant past including the 60s up to the early 90s
All deep sea ships were required to carry a lifeboat radio. Can probably be googled.


They were bright yellow, about 2 ft long a foot wide and about a foot deep, theoretically floated, I had some doubt about the floating. Alothough tjey Gould be powered by a lead cell if available.
They were powered by hand crank. Theoretically capable of being used by one person. I ha me doubts but it did say so on the boxThey transmitted on 500 kHz Morse 2182 kHz RT and I think 300 or 3000 which was aviation.
They also included an auto function where it would send an auto signal which would trigger the SParkies auto alarm and a include a brief SOS with the ships call sign and some long dashes for DF on 500 kHz JIK The Sparky was a casualty,

Needless to say they required testing every so often. I have taken part in testing them a few times. Some sparkies would be happy if it light up. Some would actually use it to call portishead and get the traffic list.
I have used one test it and called portishead on 2182. It worked quite well.

I expect they went the way of the dodo some time ago with GMDSS and are now museum items.

I did know one old Sparky who back in the day had screwed down the key when the fire reached the radio room.
After the main transmitter died he continued to work on the lifeboat radio.

 

[GHA]

Even today's kit is not to be taken lightly. An SSB set draws a lot of amps when transmitting at the normal 150W.

That's actually a ham radio , as you no,doubt know. It doesn't actually take that much power to receive a grib email over winlink , most of the time is spent listening. Sending small text emails the same, need some amps but doesn't actually take that much out of the batteries. Digital doesn't need anywhere near full power transmit .

 

[RichardS]

comparing post #13 and post #18, the former is representative of spirit of positive discussion I enjoy here.

I agree totally.

Elecglitch is in the dying throes of his membership of YBW. A grumpy dinosaur whose time has passed.

Richard

 

[prv]

That's actually a ham radio , as you no,doubt know.

It's still an HF set though, so perfectly valid for a comparison of size and weight. The particular frequencies it can use make no difference to that.

Pete

 

[snowleopard]

Ham and marine sets are essentially the same box of tricks, limited to different frequency bands, indeed I believe the conversion only requires a pair of wire cutters. My SSB draws around 20A on Tx.

 

[ianabc]

30 amp (12 volt) fuse for ham radio Icom 706

probably same for 7000 up to date hf ham radio

 

[Bajansailor]

Re portable radios from the 70's, I vaguely remembered seeing adverts for a 'Callbuoy' - they showed a chap decked out in full oilies sitting in a tiny Avon dinghy clutching this enormous rectangular aluminium box with an aerial sticking out one end.
So I tried googling.... and I found this - scroll down to the third item.

http://www.helmut-singer.de/stock/x191.html

And here is one that fetched the princely sum of GBP 10 on Ebay last year, although no mention as to if it was still usable.
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/LRW-CALL-BU...DIO-TELEPHONE-TRANSCEIVER-RETRO-/311979874755

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Re portable radios from the 70's, I vaguely remembered seeing adverts for a 'Callbuoy' - they showed a chap decked out in full oilies sitting in a tiny Avon dinghy clutching this enormous rectangular aluminium box with an aerial sticking out one end.
So I tried googling.... and I found this - scroll down to the third item.

http://www.helmut-singer.de/stock/x191.html

And here is one that fetched the princely sum of GBP 10 on Ebay last year, although no mention as to if it was still usable.
https://www.ebay.ie/itm/LRW-CALL-BU...DIO-TELEPHONE-TRANSCEIVER-RETRO-/311979874755

The eBay one is advertised as being fully functional (it's in the "item specifics", where they mark it as "used", which in eBay speak means that it is functional but not new.) If it didn't work, you'd be entitled to your money back - though how you test a distress radio, I don't know!

 

[Bajansailor]

That's a good point, thank you Paul.
Is a listening watch still kept by the Coastguard on 2182 in the UK?

The German Callbuoy link mentions the manufacturer as Electronic Laboratories - didn't they also used to make the Seafarer echo sounders?

 

[prv]

Is a listening watch still kept by the Coastguard on 2182 in the UK?

They announced they would stop listening, in favour of DSC alerting, at the same time as they said the same thing regarding VHF. Of course in practice they didn’t stop listening to ch16, but I think they might have done for MF/HF.

Pete

 

[Uricanejack]

I believe they stopped listening to 2182 and 500 some time back in the early 90s
As for 16 while they still listen I believe the ability to make a ship to shore phone call was eliminated around the same time

Technology just moved on.

 

[snowleopard]

... Electronic Laboratories - didn't they also used to make the Seafarer echo sounders?

Not sure about that but IIRC they made a doppler log that I fitted to my boat in 1976. It was supposed to be suck to the inside of the hull and worked pretty well except when the speed dropped below 1 kt when it went nuts and started showing the speed as 30+ knots. I never did figure out the physics of that.