wells01
Well-Known Member
Hi
Does anyone out there know how these work or what they actually do?
Regards.
Does anyone out there know how these work or what they actually do?
Regards.
Nasa Radiofix
- Thread starter wells01
- Start date
bobgosling
Well-Known Member
Very old (70s/80s) kit ! Before the days of GPS when offshore you could get a reasonable fix by triangulating fixes of radio beacons. Most Almanacs still list them I think. Not terribly accurate but gave a comforting sanity check on a DR position.
doug748
Well-Known Member
They cost about 50 or 60 quid, that gives you a useful guide as to their quality and function. The Seafarer was a much better option both are outdated now. Brian.
outsider
New Member
outsider
New Member
What luck! I joined this Forum with just those questions in mind!
In the mid 1980's I built a large raft, and obtained both a Radiofix and a Seafarer Seavoice. They have been cluttering up my flat since then - have you any idea where I could sell them? I know they are out of date.
MikeCC
Well-Known Member
Well that was 12 years ago, so unless a collectors market has developed in the meantime, I think you'll struggle to give them away. Freecycle? Gumtree? Forum 'for sale' section?
outsider
New Member
Thanks, MikeCC
Spirit (of Glenans)
Well-Known Member
When £50 or £60 was a handsome month's salary!
Spirit (of Glenans)
Well-Known Member
eBay
johnalison
Well-Known Member
I bought a Hitachi radio with a directional aerial on in the ‘70s for £19.99, so £50 would indeed have been a lot for a very basic unit. I don’t remember many other costs, but a Navstar Decca cost around £420 in 1988.
earlybird
Well-Known Member
I had one of those. It worked best if you could actually see the the transmitting station!
ithet
Well-Known Member
They were a device to give you the bearing of a transmitter to within +/- 180 degrees.
Bilgediver
Well-Known Member
Do any of those old Long Wave radio beacons still transmit. I do keep a basic tranny on the boat which gives me that facility on medium wave using broadcast stations. This is fine when in local waters where I know where they are.
Don,t get a decent null with the all singing and dancing trannies
penfold
Well-Known Member
The only RDF beacons still operating are ones for aviation, in europe at any rate.
doug748
Well-Known Member
About 200 in today's money.
Leisure Decca sets were expensive, I recall well over £1000, then someone launched a set for 650 and then the miraculous Dinghy Decca for £200 in the early 90's.....you could actually set a waypoint.
The poor old NASA always was a turkey, though the top model had useful prismatic compass on the top.
.
Bilgediver
Well-Known Member
Decca sets initially were so expensive that many shipowners rented them for the period the ships were in home waters. You required special charts showing the Decca coloured lines. I had a Philips Decca which was very good and yes I think it was limited to about 8 waypoints so I could just about plan a course Edinburgh to Inverness. However it needed a bit of help around Rattray Head to shift it to the next Decca area. It was surprisingly accurate. as we found when looking for the channel marker buoy near Inverness in poor weather.
johnalison
Well-Known Member
My memory is that the Philips Decca came in some time in the early ‘80s and cost around £600. I remember someone in the Sixhaven proudly showing me his. The Navstar was more affordable and I copied a friend in getting one with a new boat in 1987. I added a useful cockpit repeater which was discounted from around £200 to £50 at Cruisermart. I think it took a reasonable number of waypoints but one useful feature was its ability to calculate the course to steer if you entered the tide data. For the terminally lazy it was actually quite accurate. None of the leisure sets, as far as I know, required Decca charts to operate, though I have one such chart as it was the only version in the shop. Decca varied in accuracy quite a lot, according to distance from the aerials and the angles obtained, but I think it was valued for the reproducibility of the readings, which compared well with GPS with selective availability, once you had waited 20 mins for it to get its fix.
earlybird
Well-Known Member
Decca sets such as Philips and Navstar appeared on the retail market after the patent expired in the '80s. Prior to that the sets were rented out by the Decca company, A nice little earner, AFAIK purchase was not normally possible. Presumably around that time the development of electronic processing power also enabled direct lat. long. display output which avoided the need for special charts.
Wasn't the first satellite system "Transit" where the satellite came round every so often?
Wasn't the first satellite system "Transit" where the satellite came round every so often?
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johnalison
Well-Known Member
Satellite navigation was high end stuff for the rich going a long way. I think, not having been involved myself, that the system was very different from GPS and depended on working out bearings to moving satellites. At the time I think it was called Satnav, though that term is now generally used for GPS, but I can’t remember if this was a general term or the name of the sets themselves.
Bilgediver
Well-Known Member
My Philip Navigator displayed Lat Long and time and I am pretty sure it had an anchor watch function. The display was in Fisher Price sized characters so was easy to read from the fore cabin on my Chieftain.
The ships I sailed on that leased Decca while on the UK coast received sets on board that seemed to weigh a ton and had dials showing readings on three different coloured dials which were then plotted using the matching coloured lines on Decca charts. I believe Decca was only available in parts of Europe and the Far East.
