Twenty Years Before the Antenna Mast

The Marine Radio Course at Dagenham was a DOT (Department of Transport) approved 2-year full time course of study, leading to a 2nd or 1st class certificate of competency in marine radio. These certificates enabled one to operate a marine radio station, and were therefore essential for a future Marine Radio Officer. The 1st class was required if one wanted to be the Chief Operator on a passenger ship. My aspirations did not then extend that far. I was being supported entirely by my parents, who did not have much money to spare, so I decided that the shorter term of study for a 2nd class would be sufficient. Further study would always be possible, perhaps even company sponsored at a later date.

The school was housed on the top floor of the Dagenham College of Further Education. It consisted of several rooms for theoretical instruction, as well as a large room with Morse keys, headphones and paper-tape Morse readers and transmitters. It also contained a couple of RCA AR88 receivers for listening to live Morse transmissions. We also had a completely fitted out ships radio room, with receivers, transmitters, antenna switches, etc. Another room contained a couple of marine radar systems. The radio and radar antennas were on the roof of the building, at a height similar to that of a normal ship installation.

For the first few months, we studied the theoretical aspects of radio and right from the very beginning, we were started on an intensive course of Morse code training. This comprised the first four hours of every morning, where we, unhappy students, first had to learn the code, then had seemingly never-ending practice with receiving and rhythmic sending. The result was however, that at the end of only 4 months, everyone, without fail, was up to a speed of nearly 20 Words Per Minute sending and receiving in Morse. Our main instructor was an ex Scheveningen Radio Operator, and could send beautiful Morse code at 25 WPM for hours without tiring. He was the perfect example for us. As we became more advanced, we graduated on to instruction and faultfinding using the equipment in our radio cabin. We became quite good not only at finding faults, but also reading the minds of our instructors. Each Instructor had their very own particular set of favorite problems. A dud valve might be inserted, or a piece of paper wrapped around a valve pin so it didn't make contact. Some would unsolder a component or remove a wire. "Use your eyes and nose" was drummed into us, until it became second nature to thoroughly examine visually before laying on with hands. It was great experience, and helped me no end later at sea.

I also had a sort of "second hand" connection with marine radio through working at Chelmsford Metals, a scrap yard in Chelmsford, during my college holidays. Very often I came across old, scrapped marine radio or radar equipment from Marconi. A lot of their scrapped equipment ended up on the waste pile, as well as various electronic components, valves and a considerable quantity of ex post office equipment. It was a veritable gold mine for me. Without really trying, I obtained a real "inside view" of magnetrons, RF power valves, CRT's, coils, variometers, variable capacitors, etc. I could dissect broken valves and other components to see how they were made. I sometimes used to buy a scrapped transmitter or receiver, and use it for my Amateur Radio interest. In this way I became familiar with some of the old equipment, their circuits and in using them to listen to some of the ships and marine radio stations at home. The Seagull and Seamew (ex trawler 2 MHz R/T equipment), some old lifeboat radios and old radar sets were taken apart and the parts used for my own projects. One of my favorite bands was the so-called "Trawler band" around 2 MHz were the fishing boats used to talk to each other. This also included the amateur "Top band" as well as the R/T distress and calling frequency and various marine coastal station frequencies. I became quite familiar with the voices at Northforeland Radio (GNF), Humber (GKZ), Niton (GNI), as well as those a little further away, Landsend (GLD), Cullercoats (GCC), Wick Radio etc. Even foreign stations became familiar, Scheveningen (PCH) Norddeich (DAN) and Ostende OST amongst others.

The R/T distress frequency (2182) was sometimes monitored in bad weather, and I experienced some exciting, breathless moments when men and ships were in danger - and sadness too, when ships sank, the voices stilled, and people lost their lives. After I had improved my Morse skills, I also used to listen to the 410 - 512KHz MF band, especially the 500KHz distress and calling frequency, as well as the various HF frequencies of Portishead Radio and other foreign marine coast stations.

Not being content with just listening, I improvised my own low power medium wave music broadcast station, using an old radio receiver and local oscillator. Later I migrated to the 40 meter broadcast band with a bit more power from a number 19 set, which was a wartime army tank transceiver with about 15 watts output, and an indoor 6ft whip. I couldn't transmit long however as my two small, 6-volt motorbike batteries, emptied themselves within 10 or 15 minutes. The 19 set rotary transformer took POWER and lots of it! It then took several hours to charge them again. Thinking back my only audience were school friends living nearby, but it was great fun. I used to love lighting fluorescent lamps 2 or 3 feet away from the whip. No worries about radiation in those days! That what I was doing was also illegal never really occurred to me at that time.

I soon started to have contacts on the amateur bands. This was my downfall, as the family TV set used to go totally white when I transmitted on a bigger antenna. One of the local amateurs contacted my family who promptly put a stop to my "pirate" activities. Still wanting to "go on the air" however, I studied for, and passed, my City and Guilds Radio Amateurs Examination, as well as the Post Office amateur Morse test in 1966. This enabled me to receive my amateur call sign G3VCH shortly after. It was then that I really started to learn about the practical aspects of radio frequency design and engineering. Learning by doing! I found out that theory and practice were two very different things, and that one did not necessarily agree with the other! I built HF and VHF radio transmitters, receivers and converters. A number of them did not work as planned (if at all!) and on occasions, the results of my 'home brew' attempts were highly spectacular to say the least! They say that valves were very forgiving, however some of the ones I used never forgave me for what I did to them! It all served to help me towards my goal however, and made some things much easier to understand than if I had not had my amateur license to experiment with.