Marconi UK Electronics

VINTAGE RADIO ROOM PHOTOS

1912: The Marconi wireless school in New York City with operators copying messages transmitted from ships at sea. (Photo via E-bay)

HM Royal Navy shore station BZM in St. John's Newfoundland taken around 1919-1920. At the controls of a Type 'L' receiver is George Tagg, G8IX, Royal Navy Amateur Radio Society member #001. He was also one of the co-founders of the RNARS. Click on image to enlarge. (Image provided by Clive Kidd)

H.M. Wireless Station BZM , St/ John's is located and still standing in what is now Mount Pearl. The operations building where this photo was almost certainly taken burnt down at some point (uncertain as to when) but the residential building is still standing! It operated as a wireless station until 1922,. Was sold to a local farm family as a farmhouse, became an office building for the NL Housing Corporation in 1973-1988, and then became a museum in 1997.

Model 'L' receiver schematic. It uses valve No R2, pattern 3987 or valve No R4, Pattern 4411.” (Provided by Clive Kidd)

1922: Miss Eleanor Steele of Schenectady, N.Y was an operator on Guglielmo Marconi's own radio aboard his yacht Elettra while cruising down the Hudson to Albany, New York. (Photo via E-bay)

Click on thumbnail to enlarge

This was a typical British merchantmans radio office in the 1960's. From the book "Semaphore to Satellite". (Labelled and submitted by Frank Statham)

1986: CCGS Camsell radio room. Callsign CGCW. At the very left is a Marconi Globespan transmitter. In the middle and right racks are Mackay receivers. The Camsell's SSB transmit capabilities were handled by a Redifon transmitter up in a shack attached to the front portion of the funnel. SSB receive was done by a rack of Marconi XH14 monitor receivers in the radio room. These monitor receivers are just outside the view of this photo. (Photo by Frank Statham)

A Marconi shipboard station. The equipment is identified as follows.
Left cabinet: Globespan Transmitter
Middle cabinet: Antenna Selection Unit, Atalanta Receiver, Atalanta Receiver; Coaxial Antenna selection
panel for receivers.
Right Rack Top to Bottom:
Emergency Transmitter - 25 watts in the MF marine band; .
Alert Receiver in the left half of the rack and the Auto Key on the right half.. The Auto Key would transmit a distress signal - 12, four second dashes with 1 second spacing then SOS SOS SOS de SHIPS CALL SIGN. It was called the Alarm Signal, This was repeated then followed a 10 second dash for D/F purposes. If left on and with the Emergency Transmitter flashed up, it will repeat this sequence every 14 minutes but without the 4 second dashes until the battery goes dead.
Lifeguard Auto Alarm - will ring a bell in the Radio Room, on the Bridge and at the Radio's Officers bunk on the receipt of the auto alarm signal from another ship; Fuse Panel. (Identification by Spud Roscoe. Photo provided by The Marconi Company)

Spud Roscoe mans the Marconi radio console of GHYX aboard SS GYPSUM PRINCE in 1970. This was a basic Marconi Marine setup. (Photo credit: Captain Claude Marcil)

Left Rack only: Marconi Globespan transmitter .
Centre rack top to bottom: Antenna selection unit, clock and Atalanta receiver.

Right rack, top to bottom : Marconi Emergency transmitter, Oceanguard Auto Alarm, Monitor Receiver on left and Auto Key on right, fuse panel and Battery Charging unit.

The radio room of MV Quebec, VCXL as seen in April 1971. Quebec was the former Alice Bowater. (Photo from the collection of Paul duMesnil by way of Spud Roscoe)

The VCXL call sign also has some history behind it. K.C. Irving started his fleet with a small tanker named ELKHOUND in the late 1930's and she was assigned that call sign. He sold her to England in the early days of WWII but without any radio. The call sign was used for visual signaling only. This was the beginning of the Irving fleet known as the Kent Line Limited and still going strong.

Credits and Reference:
1) Frank Statham <fstatham(at)telus.net>
2) Spud Roscoe <spudroscoe(at)eastlink.ca>
3) St. John's WT station Tim Elliott BA Assistant Manager, Admiralty House Communications Museum

Back to Home

July 8/22