R1155

[Variometer]

The first time I saw an R1155 was when I was at school in about 1957 when a school friend proudly showed me his. I harboured a secret desire to have one from that moment onwards. I came across two or three more whilst training to be a Merchant Navy radio officer at Wray Castle (Lake Windermere) 1959 to 1961. It was not until I had left the sea in the early 1990s that I saw another on a car boot sale, but the fellow would not sell it. As he said, he wanted similar receivers, but this one was not for sale. Several years later, I saw another, but on asking how much it was, the stallholder told me it had been sold for £15 and was about to be collected. Finally, in about 2004, I came across another one on the same boot sale & secured it for £15. On getting it home, I built a power unit & connected it up. It barely worked, but the single station it received was enough to make the blood run cold. It seemed to me (vivid imagination) that it was the radio operator of a Lancaster bomber reporting altitudes, wind speeds & courses as they returned to their airbase “somewhere in England” in a bygone era. As far as I remember it was between 5 & 6 Mhz. When I discovered that it was continuous, I decided that it was something of “the present day” although it had a “sinister” ring to it. Repair was not much of a problem. After replacing a few electrolytics & fitting a 6V6 output stage into a socket vacated by one of the DF valves, it was soon working perfectly. I then turned my attention to its physical condition & began to clean up the panel & tuning dial window. I removed all the brass studs & steel screws that I could from the front panel & turned them up “bright” on the lathe. Several of the rusty screws that I couldn’t get out, I painted black. A new aerial, power & input panel was fitted over the Jones plugs at the bottom right hand side, together with a jack socket for the loudspeaker. All the paintwork was polished up & I finished up with a rather fine looking (& working) receiver. The “sinister” station was still bleating away at full strength after the repair!
At that time, I had not been on the HF bands since late 1992, but it was all different. The only morse I could find was isolated on the amateur bands. Gone were the great maritime stations of GKA, PCH, DAN, EAD, FFL, OST, SAG, WSL, VIS etc etc & I found it all rather depressing. Having brought it up to almost 100% again, I finally let it go to a younger radio enthusiast in the hope that it will bring many years of pleasure as a part of living history of the UK. Interesting exercise. Here are before & after pictures.

[Alan Stepney]

An excellent restoration, the "after" pictures looks as good as new.
IMHO, One of the nicer receivers of that era.

[Hermit6345]

Excellent job. I had one when I was at school but long gone. You have really made a good job of that and it really does look like new.I seem to remember that I bodged a mains trannny in a space somewhere behind the front panel so that it ran on mains. Cringe!!

Ian

[HMV 1120]

I suspect the station you recieved was either RAF VOLMET or Shannon VOLMET - 5.450 and 5.550 I think. These are automated stations giving current weather conditions at all RAF stations worldwide (Basra, Ascension etc) and major european airports. I recieve both of these here regularly with my R.107 - the army equivilent of the '1155.
5.650mhz is the HF Search and Rescue frequency (callsigns RESCUE XXX). All SAR flights are controlled from Kinloss, Scotland, and I often listen to my dad when he's out on a job (callsign RESCUE 169/170).

About the loss of maritime stations - the loss of 600 meters was criminal. Maritime HF is slowly winding down to, with 2.186 distress being downgraded from headphones watch (continous) to Loudspeaker watch in 2005. The coastgaurd no longer carry ship-shore coms except for distress on HF, with 2.226mhz reserved for forcasts and navigation warnings. Anyway, I ought to stop or I'll grow angry.

Must admit, an R1155 would be a more sensible choice - it is smaller, lighter and with more band coverage. But then again, bigger *is* better ^^ Better sign off before I get jealous though...

Regards, Robs

[Variometer]

Hi Robs,
Thanks for info on the mysterious station.
Marine communications. The 500kHz (600 Metre) distress was discontinued when they withdrew radio officers from ships in the late 1990s. Communications then became mainly satellite with a bit of VHF for short range. 2182 Khz was never continuous headphone watch in the Merchant Navy. There was a loudspeaker watch on the bridge. The radio officer listened (whilst on duty) to 500 Khz & when off duty an auto alarm took over.

I was not impressed by satellite communications when it came to the crunch. On halloween night, 1984, I was fast asleep at 2230 aboard a small Britsih passenger liner off the trade routes heading towards Tenerife from Ascension Island. I was awaked to alarm bells & lots of smoke & by 2245 I was told to send a distress message because of a serious engine-room fire. The initial power failure de-stabilzed the gyro compass which turned the satellite dish off the satellite, so that was no good. I then tuned in the main transmitter as the emergency generator was running by then. Just as I was about to start, I was plunged into darkness again. The emergency diesel generator had choked on the smoke. I then tuned up the 24 volt emergency transmitter & sent out the distress message. A large oil tanker answered immediately. They were 25 miles away & my alarm signal had set off their auto alarm. They were with us just before midnight by which time the boats were swung out & lowered to the embarkation deck with all the passengers & most of the officers & crew in them. The fire was subdued by flooding the engineroom with CO2 gas, but it was not out for another 48 hours with the tanker standing by. The satellite went back on about 0100 when everything was coming under control again!
There were no fatalities or injuries, but we drifted for a week until a German salvage tug got to us. Towed to Dakar West Africa (this took a week) & spent one month repairing before sailing south for Cape Town again. What a voyage, but it left me with a great distrust of satellite communications for distress purposes.
Bob

[JHGibson]

Nice job on the R1155! I have the same model which I restored but with an external audio amp, speaker and PS. I first saw them as a schoolboy in the late 40's, piled up in the surplus store windows, but as I only had six pence a week pocket money, there was no hope of buying one then. I had to wait until 50 years later.
I agree with Bob about the solid communication possible on the 500 kcs band. When I had an urgent telegram to send and found the main Tx dead, I sent the message using the emergency 250 watts spark transmitter and had no difficulty reaching the coast station 100 miles away.That was in 1953.
John.

[Variometer]

Hi John,
Nice to see another ex radio officer aboard. Here a couple of pictures that may interest members. The first is of myself in the radio office of the collier WANDSWORTH in 1962. The WANDSWORTH was my 4th ship & I was the youngest R/O in the British Merchant Navy at the time!
The equipment was the old Siemens gear, G2 receiver & SB502 MF main transmitter.
The 2nd photograph shows me during my last week at sea aboard the British passenger liner RMS ST. HELENA in October 1992. It is not a "posed" photograph, but was taken by an American passenger whilst I was unaware. At the time, I was repairing an internal telephone handset!
Bob

[majoconz]

There's plenty of us ex-sparkies around! I only survived for 5 years then went to the UK CAA. Anything from Geordie colliers and old Liberty round-bottom b****ds that would roll on wet grass to Atlantic passengers and cruising out of Miami in the winter. Had a lot of fun too.

Best regards - Martin

[Brian R Pateman]

I remember a lovely model of the MV Wansdworth in the foyer of South East Gas offices in Croydon when I worked for British Gas.

There's some more information here

http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/showthread.php?t=3162

for those interested.

With my moderator's hat on however, please keep this on topic which was the magnificent R1155.

Regards,

[Variometer]

Thanks for the info. The R1155 was a lot more "magnifient" that the WANDWORTH though. Won't prolong this, but can't resist putting a picture of the "old barge!" on
Bob

[Variometer]

Just to get back on topic. The big double capacitor on the top of the chassis had bursted, so I made a replacement out of wood & aluminium & here it is next to the original.
Bob

[HamishBoxer]

nice one

[RobinBirch]

The originals were made of tinplate soldered together so it should be ok to empty the original and then solder it all back together. Failing that does anyone know of a source of thin sheet tim plate?

Robin

[Station X]

5 litre lubricating oil cans and catering size cooking oil drums. Food cans tend to have corrugated sides.

[Variometer]

I had a piece of square wood the same size, so I was taking the simple obtion. The pciture shows how I cut it & then added wooden sides. The bottom & top were 3mm acrylic sheet. I left the original as it was & the new owner of the receiver got it, together with all the other things I replaced.
Bob