World Communications

Written by Godfrey Dykes

© RN Communications Branch Museum/Library

Click on image above to enlarge

   We were connected world wide and all things started and finished with Whitehall Wireless (callsign GYA) which is sited in central London at the top of the Mall. . From here, all long haul communications were met by using RATT (Radio Automatic Tele Type) circuits known as Fixed Services (FX) of which most were continuous and a few part time on a scheduled basis.

  Whitehall Wireless did not talk directly to ships. Portishead Radio, near Bristol, a GPO (General Post Office) civilian station received messages from ships at sea and sent them by land line to Whitehall Wireless. Portishead Radio had a small staff of RN Telegraphists who were employed on general duties receiving signals from luxury liners as well as from warships.

  Whitehall Wireless also ran the messages to ships at sea system, the Fleet CW (Morse Code) Broadcasts and later the RATT Broadcasts, as well as the Submarine Broadcast keying the remote transmitters of RUGBY or/and CRIGGION both of which were GPO civilian transmitter stations. Remote Naval transmitters and receiver stations many miles from London sent and received Whitehall Wireless traffic (in/out from/to) around the world. Signals from ships deployed around the world were received on CW (Morse Code) ship-shore frequencies in places like Malta, Mauritius, Ceylon, Singapore, Hong Kong plus a whole host of other allied Radio Stations, and passed back to Whitehall Wireless over the 100 WPM (75 baud) RATT fixed service links.

  Many of these stations ran and controlled their own area Broadcasts CW/RATT for ships deployed in or transitting through their areas. Below, mainly from the good memory of John Eilbeck, I list some of the most important radio callsigns of our time, and their simple three letter devices haunt me with the thoughts of yester-year and the countless number of times I called to talk to these stations. It befell to my generation to say goodbye to MORSE CODE and to welcome in RATT, and from there, the fancy modulation techniques required for high speed Satellite Circuits both speech and data.

  Personally, I remember the days when Morse code was king and we operator princes, taking enormous pride in our personal ability to send and receiving signals. There was something romantic about the whole ethos, and never more so than when 'talking' to somebody on the other side of the world; in a different time zone; a different climate, one-to-one, and whether allowed or not, adding a 'cu om' (see you old man) at the end of my signal, often reluctant to say goodbye, manifest in having the last dit-dit on the key, symbolic of a don't-let-go hand shake. Anyway here they are:-

RADIO CALLSIGN	STATION AND FACILITY	RADIO CALLSIGN	STATION AND FACILITY
4SI	Ceylon (later years)	MGK	Londonderry
ARL	Karachi	MTI	Plymouth
ARM	Chittagong	MTL	Chatham
CFH	Halifax	MTN	Portsmouth
CKN	Esqimalt Vancouver	MTO	Rosyth
GBR	Rugby Submarine CW Broadcast VLF	VHK	Canberra
GKH, GKL, GKG, GKS, GKI, GKV	Portishead Radio (GPO Station) Ship-Shore	VHM	Darwin
GXO	Mauritius	VPT	Malta Commercial. Malta Navy (GYX) could accept any commercial traffic from any ship for any address, known as QSP, except for Maltese addresses where VPT had to be used
GXW	Portland	VTS	Sydney
GYA	Whitehall RATT Fleet Broadcast	VTF	Bombay
GYB	Whitehall RATT Fleet Broadcast	VTO	Vishakhapatnam
GYC	Whitehall CW Fleet Broadcast	ZLB	Awarua
GYL/GYS	Singapore	ZLE	Auckland
GYQ	HMS Dolphin, submarine base Gosport Hampshire UK. Submarine Ops and Safety frequency 4340 kHz (or kc/s in earlier times) was manned continuously.	ZLO	Irrirangi
GYX	Malta	ZLP	Wellington
GZO	Hong Kong	ZSJ	Capetown
GZP	Ceylon West Trincomalee

  1953 Long Distance Ship-Shore Radio Communications map showing the EIGHT main stations as being Halifax, Portishead, Cape Town, Singapore, Ceylon, Sydney, Wellington and Vancouver, and the other SIX minor or supplementary receiving stations.