Radio officers.

[j.sabourn]

Dennis as there was a recent short post on here about Radio officers and Yourself and think a very few others on site were once so, I was trying to work out when you disappeared mate , as an entity at sea as of old. My first Restricted Certificate of Competency in Radiotelephony was issued I. September 1982. But I think ships still carried proper operators passed this date. As could only operate a transmitter with a carrier power not exceeding 1.5 kw
The next advance on this for me at least was Feb. 1991 when the General certificate of Competence in Radiotelephony was issued , there is no carrier power stated on this cert. just references to various other laws.
Then came the GMDSS cert. I can’t see an issue date on this just that it expired in March 2004.
So when the exact year of the vanishing R/Os actually occurred cannot pin down . At a guess would say though on the advent of GMDSS, which I think was sometime in the early 1990s.
Anyone know any different.
JS

[Denis O'Shea]

John could not give you an exact date as I was transferred to the oil sector 1980 and R/Os were still being carried then so must of been after that. I think GMDSS comms was not being used for distress purposes because of loss of signal at times, sorry if that is not enough to verify the info you need. Are there any more R/Os on site with better memory than me or are they just keeping Radio Silence? Rgds Den

[Mike Wilmot]

The first British coast station for radiotelegraphy opened in 1901 and the end of service for W/T finished at midnight 1997, a comparatively short time for the shipboard Radio Officer. Radio Officers assumed other duties such as marine electronics.
Mike R775978

[Denis O'Shea]

Mike did you work at GKA.

Rgds Den

[j.sabourn]

Denis re. Radio Silence could mean something else also in the oil industry. A rig going into radio silence called upon the safety vessel to answer all messages to him as would not answer so you had to take for him for when he came out of Radio Silence. I always assumed he was handling explosives , but there must have been other reasons as well. Cheers JS

[Mike Wilmot]

Mike did you work at GKA.

Rgds Den

Hello Den, no, but live and still do quite close, the operating side was at Highbridge/Burnham on Sea and the transmitters at Portishead. I went to sea with Marconi in the early 60's, sadly GKA is now a housing estate. The last hours of LansdsendRadio/GLD are in the attached link.

https://archive.org/details/qrt500


Regards Mike

[Denis O'Shea]

HI mike the reason I asked was the Somerset address because I have friends there who all left the sea to work at GKA. Thanks for archive site info it was very interesting. Rds Den

[Denis O'Shea]

John we only went into Radio Silence when explosives were being used and as you say the standby boat advised anyone calling us why we did not reply, we did keep a listening watch and called them back when the platform returned to normal, Rgds Den

[j.sabourn]

Thanks Denis, one incident out here I had a run in with one of the biggest Australian oil Company’s. They had an exploratory rig working off Kangaroo Island , I had a converted well head ship normally used as a flare off for underwater workings, we were it’s stand by safety vessel . They wanted me to take all his explosives off him , I said no problem I’ll be in and out of port within 24 hours after dropping ashore. No he says I want you to store them 24/7. I told him no way Hosai , I had visions of another PA with explosives on deck and was no way going to do it , and they were stupid even to consider asking. So had a visitation from the big wigs when next got into port, and told them their life story as well , this was the biggest company in Australia and still is. It was the Maritime unions that kept me in work, otherwise if the same had happened in the North Sea I would have been yesterday’s newspaper. People make me laugh when they start quoting safety when dealing with ships and all that floats on water. Cheers JS.. This may now be considered off topic but to me and those interested is in line with the title subject started by me on Radio ops, which includes communications. As is a subject not to much known by seafarers who have never worked in the offshore world it is necessary to explain the different circumstances associated with seafaring practices ,otherwise the post is meaningless to others. Cheers JWS