The Voice of WCC

The Voice of WCC - by Hüseyin Sarýcaoðlu

I send you some of my memories related to former marine communication and some of
photos as well.

When I was working on board ship (as of 1980s) there were no sophisticated communication
equipments such as Inmarsat SES on many ships. But MF and HF radio, especially morse was
adequate to carry out both our ship's business communication and for chatting with our
friends. Most of the old HF transmitters had no radiotelephone facilities also then.
There were only morse to communicate and it was definitely enough for every kind
communications.

For example, we were getting contact with other ships in all over the world by morse
signaling for personal communication as well as others. I was looking forward for
the time to get contact with my friends on HF (16 MHz) each of the vessels were in
the different part of the oceans and very far away from each other. So, both we
(as R/o) and other crew were having the brief information about each other when we
got contact at 1530z everyday.

But, my favorite band was MF. It was very pleasurable to continue watch on 500 kHz.
I was spending most of my time (even outside of mandatory watch-keeping hours) by
keeping watch on MF distress frequency. I was looking on map and try to guess that
what time and in which position could I hear the sound of the next MF radio station
which is in front of us.

Especially, I never forget, the voice of WCC's working frequency on MF. I believe
it was 436 kHz. During the each crossing the Atlantic Ocean, when we nearly passed
the mid of the Atlantic ocean (from east to west), I could listen to the traffic
list of the Chatham radio (after evening time) on its working frequency.

What a powerful radio station and what a beautiful communication technique it was.

Best regards.

Hüseyin