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The best 80's Marconi station I have ever seen...

8K views 51 replies 14 participants last post by  Ron Stringer 
#1 ·
VLCC Brazilian Peace.

From the FB marine radio group...

Two Apollos were not uncommon...but two Conquerors as well?

(EEK)
 

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#34 ·
John, thanks.

Not mentioned in my previous post.
Being an ex R/O myself, I did detect a degree of mild hostility, if that’s the word, between R/O and Super’, when we had to go shopping for Oscilloscope, those multi tool things with croc clips and magnifying glass and other bibs and bobs, a list put together by the R/O to meet survey. We had to get the Super’ to sign off the invoice.

I digress, but I remember the R/O bought a sports car to take back home.

Peter
 
#38 ·
#37 . "Breaking the law with an MF only station? I don't think so unless there were Australia specific requirements to carry HF."

Peter didn't say the ship only had an MF station, he said they fitted a Conqueror, which had the full range of frequencies. There was a "specific requirement" for Australian ships to carry an RO at that time.

I can't recall the rules about carriage of HF in the UK or the UK. Maybe only MF was compulsory, if not much use. Must check in the Handbook that I downloaded from a bloke on SN.

Can't see there being too many Engineer Supers around in Australia, seeing as there are hardly any ships thanks to the National Farmers Federation and others. Those Supers never saw that coming either.

I agree with Troppo #36 .

John T
 
#43 ·
Which really goes back to my comments in #30 .

The use of the Satcom would be used as a preference to HF working, even with an R/O. much as the Super said.

I was sailing with Denholms GTV’s 75 to 77. Whilst in New York, Comsat General came on board to get a feel as to whether Denholms would agree to a Satcom being put on board for evaluation purposes.
It didn’t happen when I was there but I did think
Ugh ugh, here comes trouble. For the future of R/Os, that is.

Peter
 
#44 ·
#43 .

It certainly did and Marisat was already fitted when I joined my first, Asialiner in late 77 early 78. Very little to do with DSM and even less to do with Marconi (although much interested no doubt) unbudgeted capital expenditure like that was and generally is down to owners.
 
#48 ·
Very little to do with DSM and even less to do with Marconi (although much interested no doubt).....
Sad to say David that MIMCo were not in the least interested. Market research was never its strong point.

Under MIMCo's then MD, David Furneaux, we received a delegation from Scientific Atlanta (then the sole manufacturer) who offered us the sole European distribution rights for Marisat terminals in late 1976, shortly after the Comsat-General service went live. The offer was rejected as something that would never catch on because of the terminal's high initial cost and the very high call charges. It was viewed as a niche product for large passenger vessels only.

MIMCo didn't show any interest until Iain Dick took over in 1981 and after looking at several alternatives, decided to go ahead and develop our own product. That came on the market almost a decade after the initial approach.
 
#49 ·
The lack of interest does, indeed, surprise me, Ron. They came rather late to the S band radar too, didn't they? I think I had the only one on Eurofreighter (I remember the ATU employed a motor with brushes and the waveguide/coax was pressurised). As I type this post a question springs to mind. Surely lower frequency, even at microwavelengths were easier to process than higher. Did no early radar favour S band?

I remember the Oceanray and visiting Mal Philips at Chelmsford when we were in the early (for DSM anyway) stages of Email. I still think the fault database that could be interrogated by telex (I have forgotten the acronym) was a good implementation of sharing operational technical events. Even now computer '(&un)planned maintenance' concentrates on the job to do (and on ticking the box that it was done) rather than what was found.
 
#50 · (Edited)
David,

The carriage rules for British ships only required 3cm radar and for most of its existence, MIMCo looked no further than the UK requirements for design criteria for any of its products.

Because of the major UK shipowners' predilection for minimum compliance with the rules, few were prepared to consider a second radar until IMO (and the UK) started to require it on certain classes of ship. Then MIMCo decided to get in on the act. Too little, too late again.
 
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