I can well believe it !
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Another was in Mid Alantic Peter, one night I was a bit worried seeing a ship bearing down on me, in my wee boat, so I called him up on VHF to check he had seen me. We resolved that, then another (bored 
) sparky âchipped inâ, asking me to repeat my position, so I did, he was gobsmacked, so was I, he was hundreds of miles away. 
The sparkiesâ job was quite often âquietâ but I was never bored !
Some of the freak atmospheric conditions are amazing and itâs weird the affect they can have on a radio wave on any frequency.
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Always secretly envied the Sparkie, especially the freedom He had in Port.
I almost went to Wray Castle, when I left school, but ended up at Windscale doing an apprenticeship there, that got me to sea in the âgreasy gangâ.
I canât, VHF is line of sight.
Dave, theoretically, yes in practice, no
David, please believe someone who has worked in this field. Atmospheric and/or climatic conditions can affect radio signals, even VHF/UHF .
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As does the power of the transmission. I watched the film based on the Neville Shute book⌠
I just canât remember itâs title. 
I will stick with Peters knowledge, and my own experiences, rather than the movies Dave
Well we had time off in port IF there were no problems with the radio gear. Remember Bill, the sparkie was responsable for all the equipment in the shack plus things like Radar and other gear on the bridge including sat nav (yes, we had sat nav in the '70s !) ans facsimile and other electrical gear plus aerials and antennae.
I appreciate that you had the radio gear to maintain Peter, but I had forgotten you did the radar etc too, I had one of the early navâs, a Decca, on the second voyage to the Med on one of my boats, but I think it only operated as far as St Vincent. A mate had an early sat nav, but didnât rate it much.
Typical of me, I mastered the sextant just before they became âredundantâ, (same thing with a slide rule), just before the âSharpsâ calculators . I had a Furuno Radar on my last boat, great bit of kit! Garmin were my favouite GPS sets, had a couple over the years. Made single handing really simple.
With the radar, sometimes wished I had the 'leccy to leave it on watch alarm, but on a small boat it was too much.
Many believe sat navs to be a more recent thing but we had it on a Ben Line/Ellermans container ship (75000T) in 1975. It was the size a chest freezer and a nightmare when it went wrong. Radar problems were common but Marconi had an excellent worldwide back-up team in most big ports and could deal with ost problems with the gear if I couldnât.
I was with Ben Line before the amalgamation Peter, I can imagine sat nav would be a ânightmareâ to 'tinkerâwith!
Amazing how these things have been miniturized, I bought my Radar Set in La Corruna and fitted it there, great bit of kit, you wonder later how you ever did without it.
Which training establishment did you attend?
I suppose you know about Wray Castle.
I see Kate is not a happy bunny !!
I went to Lowetoft COFE where they had a Marine Electronics section. I only lived about ten miles away which was handy. I was attached to East Ham depot at Marconi and did shore-side work at Tilbury and East Ham. Never heard of Wray Castle.
Kate ?
Surprised you donât know Wray Castle Peter, not sure if it still is, but it was a College for training MN Radio Officers, certainly was still functioning in 60ish, I was thinking of going there then.
10 miles is V handy, was the London work after seagoing?
No, I worked shore-side before going to sea, only for about six months.
GPS?
If so then he probably didnât rate it because the early GPS ones were carp. In particular early, non-military, GPS systems were limited to a positional accuracy of +/- 100m so pretty hopeless for most âsat navâ type functions.
I was only dimly aware that there were satellite based systems before GPS - ground based systems being more common. Peter, you donât recall the name of the system do you?
Yes Paul, it was called Norcontrol - it broke down in Hng Kong in 1975 ish and a technician had to be flown out from Norway to fix it !
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LORAN Paul?, early sat navs were poor as I remember, took ages to come up with a fix. +/- 100 mtrs would have done me on the boat Paul
Amazing the âcock upsâ with GPS though, saw a very big motor yacht, completely wrecked on a reef in Galicia, the chap had left Coruna, put a way point in for Finisterre (Spain) but hadnât checked the chart, to make sure there were no hazards in between CRUNCH !
Didnât know that one Peter, before my time
Btw Paul, +/- 10miles, with a sextant was ânot too badâ 