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Marconi Challenger

26K views 89 replies 17 participants last post by  maltesejohn 
#1 ·
I'll admit straight away that I am not an ex mariner, but I do look after the Marine Radio Collection at Internal Fire- Museum of Power in West Wales. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has any knowledge or experience or perhaps sailed with the Marconi Challenger. There won't be many as, to my knowledge, Marconi only sold about 12 units fro and 18 - 20 production run.
Its a 1.5KW SSB/CW/MCW transmitter, probably technically the best Marconi made, but a marketing disaster! (too much, too late!) The Challenger we have together with the console came from the "Pride of Calais". We have next to no do***entation - with so few units being sold manuals are very rare. The Instruction manual we have is missing some essential pages. The Conqueror, apart form the finals is very similar, some circuits are identical, so the Conqueror manuals have helped. We are within an ace of having it working, and as mentioned above, I would be very interested to hear from anyone with any knowledge, anecdotal or otherwise, of the Challenger. Many Thanks - Michael.
 

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#63 · (Edited)
No worries, Michael, I'm sure you're right - my memory's not the best. I assume the Challenger is just an improved Conqueror anyway.

I also sailed on Iron Pacific and don't remember the transmitter there either. Pacific and Kembla were both pretty good ships, running from NSW with coal to Korea and Japan respectively and back loading iron ore in NW Australia for Port Kembla and Newcastle. I think Iron Pacific was the biggest ship in the world at the time (200,000 dwt).

Was I right about the Elektrisk Bureau gear? I sailed with that on Iron Baron - purchased by BHP from East Germany and nick named "Hitler's Revenge". I recall the equipment was very reminiscent of the Kelvin Hughes stuff.

John T

PS Whereabouts in Wales is your museum?
 
#64 ·
As far as I can see the Challenger met the same specification as Conqueror. Physically, the Finals are different, the Challenger has four 4CX350 ceramic tetrodes, the conqueror uses glass valves. Many other circuits are very similar, some such as the Band Oscillator are identical. The frequency generation strategy is the same, but Challenger takes advantage of the later technology.
At the time, early 1980s, the end of the "traditional" radio room was in sight, Satellite systems: Inmarsat etc were on the horizon,; GMDSS was scheduled to be implemented between 1990 and 1999. The design of another 1.5KW separate transmitter was superfluous, when a changing communications environment really demanded a "Black Box" transceiver that could be operated by unskilled personnel.
As a result only 12 out of an initial production run of 20 - 24 were sold - half going to BHP!
I don't know about the Elektrisk Bureau connection but will explore it.
The Museum is Internal Fire - Museum of Power at Tan-y-Groes near Cardigan. Main museum web Site: https://www.internalfire.com/
radio website: http://www.gb2mop.org/
The museum is presently closed until Easter when it will open with a weekend crank-up of engines and radio activity.
Best Wishes - Michael.
 
#65 ·
trotterdorpopm,
I've done a bit of digging around for a link to Elektrisk Bureau equipment and can't see a link to Kelvin Hughes, but that doesn't mean there isn't one! I did find the attached picture dated 1973 and so this equipment, the EB1500, would be contemporary with our Kelvin Hughes set up. I can see the similarity in general layout, also the synthesizer freqeuncy setting and display are similar although I suspect that the EB1500 used Nixie tubes. I also notice that we have a manual for the EB1500 in the museum archive.
Can't do more than that at present, but you never know what will turn up when one starts looking!
Michael (GW7BBY/GB2MOP)
 

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#66 ·
KH Zealand station was built by Electromekano (spell) AS of Denmark. Sailed with the stations for KH on many vessels. Denholms, Jebsens, UBC. It was a good station generally. Reserve RX was rubbish. The Main RX had an FET front end preceded by a desense
relay which had a habit of going and taking out the FET. I inherited a couple of vessels where this went unnoticed. Bit of a pain to replace the FET as it was buried in the RX. Other major problem was the large band change relays and coils in the back of the TX. If the HT was left on and the relays activated they tended to arc and stick. Also their coils would burn out and so I had to rewind a couple as well. All in all it was a good station to sail with, especially after Atalanta, Electra and Mercury in the RFA. You knew when you dialed up the RX synthesizer if the station was there or not. Repaired a few as an RH tech as well.
 
#67 ·
#65 . Thanks Michael. Not to worry, I could be completely wrong. I sailed with the KH gear quite a few times and when I struck the EB stuff it seemed familiar.

Interesting that the advert says the equipment is "one fifth the weight" - I did think that it was a bit "tinny" looking but at least it wouldn't affect the ship's draft.

John T
 
#68 ·
JT, EB was Norwegian, a lot of it badged stuff.
Best station I ever had. It was on a tanker built for the Norskis.
A huge Norcontrol computer on the bridge, which gave you ACAS, which could be hooked to either the 3 or 10cm Selenia Raytheon radars. It was programmed by punched paper tape. It was also hooked to 2 'early' satnavs, as well as Omega and Loran. Navs would put in waypoints etc and it would steer the ship. When it reached a waypoint, an alarm would sound, the Nav would accept it and it would alter course on its own.
I think the vessel was built around '74.

Duncs
 
#77 ·
Badging. We all did it, whenever we had a delivery gap or a hole in the product range for whatever reason.

A variation. Back in the late 1960s/early 1970s members of RAMAC (the trade's lobbying organisation) made an agreement that each member company would develop a specific product (e.g. reserve transmitter) which would then be bought and badged by all the other members for sale under their own name. The idea was to avoid the high development costs involved in producing a complete range of products.

The only such product identified for adoption under that scheme of which I am aware was a 400w pep (I think) SSB MF/HF radiotelephone tranceiver (skipper-operated) which was designed and produced by the French RAMAC member CRM (Compagnie Radio Maritime). I was involved in getting UK type approval for it, but I'm afraid I can't remember the year or the type number of the product. It was approved in France first, then the UK and was to go on to Germany and other countries. I don't think we ever bought any and the whole idea was not a success - everyone continued to develop and produce their own major equipments.
 
#79 ·
My attachment #76was the Siemens E310.receiver.
The finest rx I sailed with before my final QTP and rated one of best for its generation.
The only other E310 contemporary I can think of in the same class was the Racal RA17 which must have made RN and wonder why Mimco and others didn't choose it as a fill-in.
 
#83 ·
R65, I sailed with a SAIT station. Danish owned, Bahama flag. What I remember is that the SAIT accounts were a pain in the backside. Yet, I cannot remember the gear. I know I had a telex for all my traffic, but, for the life of me, I cannot remember the gear. It must have been OK, otherwise, I would remember it.
 
#85 ·
Worked for SAIT briefly after getting made redundant from Decca once I came ashore. Most of the SAIT gear was Skanti, generally decent equipment, never liked working for SAIT though, they seemed quite "Mickey Mouse" after the arrangements in place for stores replenishment etc. at Decca.
Bill
 
#87 ·
Challenger Amateur Bands Modification

Just before the lockdown hit here in the UK, I brought home the synthesizer draw from the Challenger to do some mods for the higher Amateur bands. The only Amateur bands covered by the original maritime selection are 1.8 and 3.5MHz. I’ve made a minimally invasive mod using an Arduino driving a DDS synthesizer. It polls the bandswitch position and replaces the original Band Oscillator output with the correct base frequency (45.7 – 66.7MHz) to mix down to the selected Amateur Band.
The Arduino also outputs a BCD code via a Daughter board to create the correct MHz readout. Picture shows the synthesizer draw powered up on 14.5MHz and the Band Oscillator output at 55.7MHz. You can see that 14MHz come in at the old 12MHz position on the bandswitch. 2nd pisture shows the new PCB on the left cheek of the draw, amplifier and 2 line LCD display for diagnostics.
It remains to be seen how well it tunes up on these frequencies – should be OK.
The next job on Challenger ( and eventually for Kelvin Hughes) is to add LSB. I’ve prepared a PCB based on an article in January 2019 Practical Wireless that transposes the mic audio to create the correct audio frequencies for LSB, but relative to the USB carrier. It does the reverse process for the received audio. The beauty of it is that it is completely external to the original equipment and so requires no internal modifications.
Incidentally, if you get Practical Wireless over there the April and May 2020 issues contain the full story of the Challenger restoration. If you can't get it PM me and I'll email you photocopies.
 

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#88 · (Edited)
G'day, Mr. Oceanspan, from the mystical land over the seven seas...

Got to say, first off, how amazed I am at the projects you're undertaking over there on the Welsh coast. Oh, and he casually adds, right down there at the bottom: 'Practical Wireless' did a feature on the Challenger restoration! Now that is a real wow factor for me. Yes, I will definitely attempt to get a copy of the issue, and thank you so much for offering to send me a p/copy.

I want to congratulate you. Your obvious skill, dedication and passion is wonderful to witness and very inspiring. Lovely, when we see so often how so many people appear to have either given up on life or are just marking time in some dreary way. I take my hat off to you for what you're doing and may you have a lot of fun and take real satisfaction away when you leave the workshop at night. I hope you don't lie awake, thrashing away at problems in your head, as I probably would.

You have an enviable amount of expertise, Young Michael, an enviable amount. I wish I had had half of it, but even at my peak of working in the field, both at sea and afterwards, I couldn't have hoped to hold a candle up. Well done. Some of your technical account has me weeping, gnashing my teeth that I have lost any slight skills I might once have had in that field. I can follow most of it, but I freely admit that I was never one for the design side, only a mediocre but dedicated fault finder in the day. I enjoyed the challenge (pun intended) of working through equipment and getting the thing working again, or even better than it may have been in some cases, but it was sometimes a bit of time-consumer, that, when you had to do watches as well.

I love the accompanying photos in your letters (I call them letters now, to give them their proper title). You have another skill, that of putting down technical procedures into prose and illustrations, without errors, spelling, grammatical or otherwise, as well as the accompanying skills in the additions of notes and diagrams. All very much appreciated.

Congratulations on your work, Michael, and hopefully when all these jobs are done, the equipment working away on your benches, you will find other ways of expressing your skillsets. I'm sure you will.

The spirit of the good Marchese Marconi lives on! I'm certain that the unsmiling, austere photograph of the man, which once hung in pride of place at the home of that marine radio company, in Chelmsford, right there in the dining hall (I won't derail it by calling it a 'canteen'), would now have changed to a smiling one.

I know what I'd do if I were you: write a book! You could call it something like: "From Poldhu to West Wales", and the next could be one about Kelvin Hughes, whoever that might have been...

Thank you again for enlivening the first part of my morning. Porridge never tasted so good! The so-called 'lockdown' has been really enjoyable for the two of us out here in the country. Such peace and quiet and the unlimited opportunity to just get on with all the things we do, without the distracton of having to go out, unless it's to the supermarket. Such joy. And the fact that we're enjoying the most wonderfully colourful and brightly blue-skied autumn days, with cold nights and a bright log fire at end of day is a real gift. I try not to let the prognostications, announcements and suchlike about this virus and its rampaging distress me too much. I find it gets really tiring, finding out on BBC News what all the world is doing in minute detail, as well as the half hour I stupidly sit through, watching the NZ News. Why I do it, I don't really know, as there's nothing I can do about any of it. Just let it be, and enjoy what you're doing, that's the way. Oh, and keep away from all those pesky party people...

Thanks once again for replying to my impudent prompting. But it worked!

(The sound of two hands clapping, Zen masters, trying to explain the 'one hand clapping' thing to saffron-robed acolytes, take note!)

Best regards, Paul
 
#89 ·
Hi Paul,

Thanks or the eulogy! Always pleased to bring happiness to my antipodean Fans! Incidentally, I lived in Sydney for 13 years and was first licensed there as VK2KMU. (I know you're in NZ and it's not the same - better according to my wife who has visited a couple of times)
If you are looking at Practical Wireless archives, April 2017 and April 2018 carry the Oceanspan story - happy reading!
All best - Michael.
 
#90 ·
I'll admit straight away that I am not an ex mariner, but I do look after the Marine Radio Collection at Internal Fire- Museum of Power in West Wales. I would be very interested to hear from anyone who has any knowledge or experience or perhaps sailed with the Marconi Challenger. There won't be many as, to my knowledge, Marconi only sold about 12 units fro and 18 - 20 production run.
Its a 1.5KW SSB/CW/MCW transmitter, probably technically the best Marconi made, but a marketing disaster! (too much, too late!) The Challenger we have together with the console came from the "Pride of Calais". We have next to no do***entation - with so few units being sold manuals are very rare. The Instruction manual we have is missing some essential pages. The Conqueror, apart form the finals is very similar, some circuits are identical, so the Conqueror manuals have helped. We are within an ace of having it working, and as mentioned above, I would be very interested to hear from anyone with any knowledge, anecdotal or otherwise, of the Challenger. Many Thanks - Michael.
The challenger is an upgrade on the commandant. It has ledex automatic switching for spot frequency tuning.
John Cauchi R/O (ex sealing British ferries).
 
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