At the October 1988 meeting of the Society of Newfoundland Radio Amateurs (SONRA) I met a fellow ham who told me a local shipping Company ,CA Crosbie, were looking for a Radio Office for four months temporary employment on one of their vessels, the MV Lady Franklin. (VOCP) which was on charter to the Australian Government. It had departed Montreal in early September and was operating out of Hobart, Tasmania providing support to the Australian Antarctic Division.
By early January the original crew would have completed four months and in accordance with their union contract would be brought back to Canada and a second crew would fly to Australia, complete the contract and return the vessel to Montreal which would take another four months. They had no problems finding the necessary personnel except for a Radio Officer.
It took a lot of talking, but I was able to obtain a leave of absence from my job, pass a very strict medical, (more thorough than anything I ever had in the forces) and last but not least convince my wife that this was the opportunity of a life time. Everything fell into place and along with the new crew I departed St John's Nfld early on the morning of January 8th 1989, and arrived in Hobart Tasmania 44 hours later, smelling to "high heavens" and suffering from a severe case of jet lag.
The 2,100 GRT (Gross Registered tonnes) ice-strenghtened Lady Franklin was built in Germany in 1971 for service in the Baltic and had a stop speed of 14 knots. Acquired by Crosbies in 1981, she had been in use between Montreal and the Canadian Arctic during the summers. During winters the vessel had previously spent three seasons in the Antarctic and made one of more voyages to Nigeria, Ethopia, Algeria and South America. The normal crew compliment was 15 but for operation in the Antarctic she was certified to carry a total of 80 passengers and crew. Although not luxurious, the accomoodations was clean and comfortable and the food excellent.
The ship's radio gear for which I was responsible consisted of a modern MF/HF CW and SSB SAILOR Radio Station. The Direction Finder, emergency Transmitter , Auto-Keyer, Automatic Alarm Received and ancillary equipment were of older Marconi vintage but perfectly serviceable. The Australians had also installed a MARISAT (satellite)voice/fax/telex terminal, HF SITOR,(error correcting radio teletype) two ICOM 100 watt HF SSB Transceivers, an LF Beacon and a VHF system for receiving weather photos on 136 Mhz from Russian and American satellites in polar orbits.
The other members of the replacement crew were all
Newfoundlanders and had previously sailed on the vessel and required no
familiarization. For me, with 34 years in the RCAF/Cdn Forces and six weeks
sea time under my belt it would be an understatement to say it took a few
hectic days to learn my way around the vessel, acquire my sea legs, and
come up to speed in the in the operation of the equipment in an unfamiliar
environment. The chap I replaced, and with whom I had
a one day handover , had left good notes, and other members of the crew
and the Australian operators at the Antarctic bases were all most helpful
and patient as I learned the ropes.
We sailed from Hobart on Jan 12th 1989 on our first voyage with a full compliment of "Expeditioners" as the Australians working in the Antarctic were called. Our destination was Base Davis, 3,000 miles to the southwest on the Antarctic Continent and inside the Antarctic Circle..The Southern Ocean is famous for its rough weather and high seas which sweep around the world at 60 degrees South Latitude with no land mass to stop them. Proceeding further south towards the continent, the weather becomes more unpredictable as you encounter lots of growlers, icebergs and pack-ice in that order.
There were no real harbors in that part of the Antarctic to which we were headed , and the anchorages are treacherous, and, bad as it is, the safest place is to be is at sea. There are few vessels in these waters and you are very much on your own. We observed radio silence periods but I doubt that a distress or urgency call on 500 kHz or 2182 kHz would have brought much help.
From Davis we proceeded north to Heard Island (one of the rarest of Ham locations in the world) in the Southern Ocean and spent three days there, replacing an automatic weather station and taking samples from the wildlife. Then it was back to Davis again for a rendezvous with our resupply vessel, the MV Icebird where we exchanged fuel and passengers and then returned to Hobart after a voyage of six weeks. Having been in our own high Arctic several times the sight of the icebergs, although awesome were not nearly as much so as it was to our Australian Expeditioners.
Our second voyage took us to 2,500 miles to the southwest to Casey Station, which had been originally been built by the Americans and used as Wilkes Base. A quick turnaround was necessary as freeze-up had started and we came close to being "nipped" as we started our voyage home. Needless to say, everyone, especially some of the returning Expeditioners who had already spent 15 months there, were not anxious to spend another winter in Casey.
Most of my radio work had been on HF with SITOR (radio teletype with error correction) and consisted of twice daily skeds with the Antarctic Bases to handle routine incoming and outgoing traffic as well as weather reports from Cape Town when necessary. Direct Telex contacts with the owners in Montreal was possible through the Sydney and Perth Radio Stations and was also used for administrative traffic to headquarters at Hobart.
CW was used for some communications, including the Australian Weather Broadcasts. As well I placed radiotelephone calls on HF SSB and the Satellite radio to Australia and other parts of the world for passengers and crew. The satellite system was also used to send weather observations, and in cases of HF radio blackout ,for other high priority traffic but was used as little as possible due to the high usage charges.
I also looked after the weather-fax and also assisted Capt O'Brien in enhancing the satellite color photo's in attempts to show the differences between sea ice and clouds. With the ship rolling and pounding in rough weather, most of the operating was done with my chair securely fastened to the radio operating position. The Satellite terminal was operated from a standing position and it was sometimes necessary to have someone hold and brace me while I typed the traffic into the terminal.
I worked long, but not necessarily continuous hours as we shuttled back and forth through four time zones on the charter. I was amazed at the signal strength of the European and North American Coast Stations, particularly those on the East Coast. While tied to the dock at Hobart on the night of my arrival I exchanged signal reports on CW with VCS in Halifax on 16 mHz and on the 20 meter ham band with Ralph, VE3PBR in Ontario. Throughout the voyages in the Antarctic the time signals from CHU, Dominion Observatory Ottawa could be heard, sometimes on 3, 7 and 14 mHz simultaneously.
There is a large administrative component to the Radio Officer's duties. Regulations required that we carry ITU documents but the (British) Admiralty List of Signals are a far better source of information and were used almost exclusively. No coast or earth startion will accept and pass messages or provide a service without a QRC (identification of the atency which will reimburse them for the Coast Station and Landline Cjharges. The radio charges were administered by Ottawa while the maritime satellite accounts were handled by the Australian Government. There were both business and personal traffic by crew and expeditioners, so up to eight different sets of accounts had to be maintained . Each coast and earth station had different rates which might be quited in Gold Francs, SDR's or the local currency, all of which had to be converted to Canadian and /or Australian dollars.
To give an example - if an Australian Expeditioner
made a personal call home via the Perth or Sydney radio station on HF Radio,
the Station would bill the Canadian Government for the call, and they in
turn would bill CA Crosbie, who would then turn around and bill the Australian
Antarctic division which would collect the money from the Expeditioner.
I planned to do some hamming and discovered a VK licence would be required to operate in Australian territory and was issued the callsign VK0AI. Knowing the vessel's SAILOR radio would not cover the ham bands I brought a Kenwood TS430 100 watt, all band transceiver along and secured it to the desk in my cabin. I did very little hamming in the first week or so whild learning my job, but gradually was able to spend more time on the air.
At first I had to do with makeshift antennas and even made a number of contacts with a random length of insulated wire dangling out of my porthole which was about 40 feet above the water. With all the radio equipment the ship was carrying there was little room for antennas but eventually I managed to erect a modest antenna farm of vertical dipoles for 10 and 20 meters with a common feedline and eventually a 40 meter inverted V. All band operation was possible with the used of an MFJ 941D antenna tuner.
During the ten weeks of the Antarctic charter I operated as VK0AI/VK7,, VK0AI/MM (maritime mobile) VK0AI while on the continent and MacQuarie Island. There was no opportunity to operate on Heard Island, one of the rarest of amateur DX spots , but I did get ashore for a few hours during a raging snowstorm.
I originally expected to keep in contact with home through the Australian ham's who would relay our messages, but soon discovered it was oftener easier to work Canada direct . I made no attempt to act as a DX station but did log several thousand contacts in over 100 countries, but mostly I liked to work Canadian stations who passed traffic to and provided phone patches for the crew and myself. The vessel had never before had a radio officer who was a ham and being half way around the world from home, my cabin became a popular hang out.
Our final voyage was to MacQuarie Island, 1,000 miles south of New Zealand . During the past ten weeks we had experienced lots of rough weather and highs eas, but nothing compared to this trip. The seas sometimes ran over 60 feet and were the worst many of the crew had ever seen. The crew had to be very alert, keeping enough speed to maintain steerage but not so fast as to bury the bow too deeply at the bottom of the tremendous seas.
After seven days of battering on a very zig-zag course we finally arrived at MacQuarie, normally a three day trip. We anchored in Buckles Bay and after completed out mission in two days had a reasonably uneventful voyage back to Hobart, where the charter was completed and the extra gear, electronic and otherwise, was removed.
Our charter was now completed and on Maych 28th, 1989 we departed Hobart and headed east for home. The Great Circle route across the Pacific from Hobart to Panama passes a few miles from Pitcairns Island, another rare Amateur DX location. The previous year on its return voyage the vessel stopped there for half a day and the crew went ashore and bartered with the Islanders.
Capt O"Brien planned to do the same this time and I was eagerly looking forward to setting foot on Pitcairn, meeting the Ham Operator there and possibly making a contact or two as a VR6. Unfortunately, a tropical cyclone developed on our course and we were forced to divert many hundreds of miles to the north. This put a crimp to our Pitcairn plans and also placed us much closer to the Equator, making our voyage across the Pacific that much hotter. We passed mahy islands in the Cook, Society and Polynesia group but there was no harbor on our course where we could stop without the formalities of customs, immigration and pilotage.
The six week voyage home was uneventful with lots of time for ham radio. I had a daily skeds with the VO1 (Nfld) hams at around 7.30 AM Nfld time for phone patches and messages home for the crew. . This started at about 9.00 PM ships time as we left Hobart and got progressively later as we sailed east across the Pacific and advanced our clocks an hour every three days. The skeds were maintained throughout the entire voyage, staying up later and later in the nights and then changing and getting up earlier and earlier in the mornings until we reached the Carribean and were close to Nfld time. I also had a sked with MacQuarie Island at 12 noon their time which in this case started at 11.00 AM and got progressively later until our last sked just west of Quebec City on our last night at sea.
There was not a great deal of official radio operating except for a flurry of activity as we approached Panama and arranged for our passage through the Canal. Shortly after starting we had constructed a crude swimming pool of wood and canvar between two hatches. The water was less than three feet deep but we all enjoyed wallowing in it as the vessel rolled, the water swished back and forth and the sun beat down from almost vertically overhead. The Radio Officer may have had it "soft" on the trip home but that was not to say that the crew just lay around and did nothing. They stood their watches and like all sailors chipped rust and painted the ship. The pool , the barbecues on the back under the tropical starts as the crew played Newfoundland music made the six week trip home a relaxing experience.
In summary we sailed 27,000 nautical miles in four months, operated in 17 of the world's 24 time zones and met Neptune crossing the Antarctic Circle and the Equator. The Antarctic Continent , along with Heard and MacQuarie Island were unforgettable and Hobart and surrounding countryside much like Canada, the people were friendly and our times ashore were pleasant. Also unforgettable was one Sunday afternoon when we hired a van and the crew visited Port Arthur, the infamous penal colony near Hobart.
After 90 years of Antarctic activity with chartered
vessels, the Australians have finally build an ice strenghtened supply/research
vessel, so it is unlikely the Lady Franklin will return to Australia and
the Antarctic. The unexpected can always occur, and it would be nice to
go back and again see more of the Continent and operate ham radio VK0AI
Maritime Mobile I am not sure how my wife would react, but if the opportunity
presented itself I would not need much encouragement to pack my bags, trusty
TS430 and head south..