Hello

[j.sabourn]

#20...That’s what was commonly known as a Radar assisted collision Stan. Some ships in the early years were not allowed to use it. Was kept as a show piece. When it was. Used every minute it as on had to be logged . Today they keep them running in port. JWS.

[John Arton]

JWS
Radar log books are still required to be kept listing running hours, are they used for navigation or collision avoidance. They also show any blind sectors along with a record of there performance monitoring.
In oil ports they are required to be turned off and if any maintenance on them is necessary, then permission to turn them on needs to be saught from the port authority.
Rgds
J.A.

[j.sabourn]

I can’t remember seeing a radar log offshore. As for running hours it was on and mainly stayed on. My memories of radar logs were in the 60s and mainly after that they had built in timers to log their running hours. Originally used to be the second mates job to clean the slip rings on the motors etc. the same as the maintainance on the gyro stripping it down. Today and for my last 20years at sea never saw done, if required doing you called someone in. That was the agreement on cutting back on crews. The Armour Brown was a sealed unit anyway and had to go ashore for maintainance. Radar watch keeping is taught in Australia today to all the crew and ABs if you have them will keep a radar watch. If they are what you call GPs they are taught to at the 6 months at nautical school they had to do unless it has all changed once again here. As at that time the seaman’s union paid for it. Out here GPs are called IRs , intergrated ratings, which was brought out here in the 90s. Took time to go through all the sea going personel but imagine is all done and dusted by now. Cheers JWS

[Ivan Cloherty]

Armed with my new Radar Observers ticket (1950's) the machines were very basic and most users in that era were self taught, surprising that after going on a Radar Course that you realised those above you were interpreting the PPI and targets course incorrectly having never been on a course, but were so inflexible they wouldn't to listen to a junior bridge keeper, no wonder there were radar assisted collisions and unreported near misses. Even worse when getting the True Motion radar and armed with True Motion certificate the Master forbid it to be used in its expensive mode, but kept on Relative Bearing PPI mode, the Master a young man (40's) at that. Best intentions of the shipowner thwarted by inflexibility

[j.sabourn]

I did the observers course in 1957 Ivan and was all relative, head up the tube. Nearest approach and course and speed was all one had to work out. Not that one got much chance of using as, as you say had to get permission to use. Today however is or was different as today they wouldn’t dare go to sea without it. Another crutch for one to lean on. They may still call it an aid to navigation but try going to sea with it out of commission. Cheers JWS

[James S Harvey]

Welcome aboard James. Do we know each other through another site, WW2 related?
Regards
Hugh

Hi Hugh I believe we have, you have greatly assisted me with my MN research into ww2

Regards

James

[Keith at Tregenna]

Interesting thread already, thanks James.

Keith.

[Des Taff Jenkins]

Des, maybe the mixture of radar and fog create false confidences, we had radar on the Hudson Firth and i'm sure the Loch Ryan was using hers as well, but we sure managed to create some serious damage to each other.
regards, stan

Hi Stan.
You ever have that experience when in a crowd and two of you start to try to get around each other, he goes the way you go etc, I think our skipper was thinking on those lines, glad he kept on a strait course.
Cheers Des

[happy daze john in oz]

As catering crew I have no understanding of how the Radar system on a ship work, though I know the basics of Radar.

On may ships now I notice there appears to be three Radar senders turning at the same time.
One large and two smaller.

Why the three and how do you know which is which?

[Ivan Cloherty]

#29 As my Radar Certs now belong on the Antiques Roadshow I will let our newer navigators answer, but in my day radars, unlike gyros, could not have repeaters, so each PPI (Position Plan Indicator) had to have its own trans/receiver to send and bounce back into its parabolic aerial, so I am assuming that the situation has not changed (assumption can sometimes be dangerous of course!) therefore they may be a central PPI and one each on the enclosed bridge wings port and starboard, on these very broad vessels as it would be a hell of a trek from the wing to a central PPI to confirm, or otherwise, a target shown on the PPI