Radio operator
Radio operator means a person who is responsible for the operation of a radio system. The independent profession of radio operator has become largely superfluous with the digitization and automation of radio communications in the last few decades. Nevertheless, there are still radio operators on ships and in the military sector today. Most of the time, radio operations are just one of several tasks of a radio operator.
Radio operator in maritime service
In shipping, marine radio stations (“ Marconi station” or “spark telegraphy / FT station”) began to be set up around 1900 and every ship provided with them had to have a person who knew the Morse code and the new technology served. In addition to the detector receiver for reception, the Marconi / FT station also housed the pop spark transmitter (from 1908 also extinguishing spark transmitter ). For the optical transmission of signals, the radio operator usually mastered the Morse alphabet as well as the flag alphabet . A first flag signal book was published by the British Board of Trade in 1857 and formed the basis for the International Signal Book adopted in 1901 , which provided a common basis for communication at sea.
In February 1900, Norddeutsche Lloyd was the first German shipping company to equip the express steamer Kaiser Wilhelm der Große with a station from Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company and set up corresponding counterparts on Borkum and the lightship Borkumriff ; initially only to transmit the estimated time of arrival of the ship in Bremerhaven . The stations were manned by full-time radio operators. The profession of radio officer was born.
Initially, the manufacturers of the radio systems placed equipment and personnel on the ships and rented them out to their shipping companies. The equipment of passenger ships was also in the foreground out of commercial interest, since the mostly wealthy passengers had to reckon with a large number of expensive telegrams at the time. The equipping of merchant ships, however, was slow. Only after the sinking of the Titanic in mid-April 1912 was the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea convened at the end of 1913, which required a radio officer to have a radio system on board at all times. Systems from the Marconi International Marine Communication Company were installed on British, Italian and other ships .
The German operating company for wireless telegraphy (DEBEG) , founded jointly by Siemens & Halske (S & H), AEG , Telefunken and the Belgian licensees of the Marconi-Gesellschaft, performed these tasks on German ships and provided radio operators with theirs Investments. As early as 1903, at the insistence of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Gesellschaft für wireless Telegraphie mbH, System Telefunken, was founded and merged the activities of the two rival companies Siemens and AEG in the field of new wireless communications technology. The Telefunken-Gesellschaft developed and marketed radio and receiving systems for civil shipping, the military and intercontinental communications, and was in competition with the German C. Lorenz in Berlin and the British Marconi-Gesellschaft.
The radio officers took part in the public exchange of messages and were obliged to observe the secrecy of telecommunications , since their activities provided them with knowledge of the contents of the news. They were not allowed to pass on the information they had obtained to any third party under threat of imprisonment. A radio officer on a merchant ship had eight hours of service in a two hours guard / two hours off duty , were abgeleistet system to eight hours. The car alarm was on during the free watch and during an absence from the radio room. The file concerned a receiver that was permanently tuned to the international distress frequency of 500 kHz (600-meter wave ) and was able to evaluate the car alarm signal, which consists of a sequence of 12 transmitter keystrokes each lasting four seconds. After the fourth signal it had to trigger an alarm in the radio officer's living room and on the bridge.
The training of radio officers after 1950 in Germany was carried out at seafaring schools . After passing an examination at the telecommunications authorities, they were issued a patent with which they could seek employment with shipping companies. As in other professions, the radio officer was given all sorts of nicknames, such as: Sparks, Marconista, Funkenpuster, radio operator, Telgraphista. The reference to the sparks goes back to the early days of radio technology , when the pop and extinguishing spark transmitters were actually large spark generators.
In many cases, the radio officer also took on the administrative work and carried out the clearing in foreign ports.
The profession of radio officer has always been closely linked to wireless telegraphy in marine radio. On February 1, 1999, the era of analog marine radio ended with the final introduction of the global maritime distress and safety radio system Global Maritime Distress Safety System (GMDSS). The profession of radio officer is no longer required.
Radio operator in aviation service
The mobile aeronautical radio service , i.e. radio traffic from aircraft to ground stations or from aircraft to aircraft, was previously handled by radio operators. In addition to the two pilots, a cockpit crew also included a technician who was usually referred to as a radio operator.
In the 1950s, the telegraphic traffic in aviation radio was abolished and often the copilot took over the radio traffic instead of the radio operator. The Hamburg news magazine Der Spiegel reported in a detailed article in August 1958 about the crash of the KLM Super Constellation "Hugo de Groot" and the delayed search for the machine due to a lack of radio traffic. Disturbances in radio communications over the North Atlantic were commonplace in aviation at that time. Air traffic control in Shannon initially limited itself to informing shipping via the coastal radio station " Valentia Radio " in Ireland that the aircraft had not reported any more, but did not give any position reports. Der Spiegel wrote that the radio communication between aircraft and ground station was "paradoxically due to a technical innovation" . In accordance with the safety recommendations of the international civil aviation organization ICAO , some airlines had completely switched from telegraphy to radio communication in transatlantic traffic. The KLM plane that crashed over the North Atlantic therefore had no full-time radio operator on board. Before the crash, the KLM management stated: “The radiotelephone has proven itself. It makes the transmission of messages between the radio operator and the pilot, which can easily lead to misunderstandings, superfluous because the pilot receives or sends all messages himself. ” At that time radio experts did not rule out the possibility that some survivors might have been saved if a standard telegraph radio device had been on board the Dutch machine for emergencies. The experts conclude from some evidence that a professional radio operator might still have found time to send an emergency call: A child who had been put on a life jacket was found by the rescue ships. In the event of a sudden crash or explosion, there would have been no more time.
In the radiotelephone systems of that time, the antennas in layers of vapor made of ice crystals or water droplets were sometimes so electrically charged that messages from the ground stations on board could hardly be picked up in an intelligible manner.
Initially, the Royal Dutch Air Transport Company (KLM) and Pan American World Airways (PAA) abolished professional radio operators on board the North Atlantic.
Radio operator in the military radio service
The telecommunication troops (Reichswehr, Wehrmacht and NVA: intelligence troops ; Swiss army: transmission troops ) is an independent type of service, special force or service sub-area in most armed forces .
Wehrmacht
In the Wehrmacht, radio operators and head radio operators were the lowest rank in the telecommunications organizations. Funkmeister, on the other hand, was the function designation for a telecommunications sergeant in a radio company. Another rank was chief radio master.
armed forces
In the Bundeswehr, radio operators are trained to work in the various branches of the armed forces. The central training facility for the Army and Armed Forces Base (SKB) is the Bundeswehr Command Support School and the Bundeswehr Technical College for Information Technology (FüUstgSBW / FSBwIT).
Intelligence services
Personnel who are mostly involved in the evaluation of SIGINT data may work a. at the Federal Intelligence Service (Department 2, officially " Federal Office for Telecommunications Statistics ").
Radio operator today
The Federal Employment Agency in Germany still presents the radio operator's profession today. She usually cites training in electronics and the license required for the respective operating mode as requirements. Ship radio operators must present a nautical certificate, a valid general radio communication certificate for the marine radio service or the general operating certificate for radio operators (GMDSS). In addition, you need a certificate of fitness for sea service and a sound knowledge of the English language.
In addition to radio operation, the tasks also include maintaining radio equipment. Radio operators mainly work for companies in the inland and maritime shipping and aviation industries . Taxi companies and the operations centers of rescue services, fire departments, the police and the German armed forces also offer radio operators work opportunities. In the practice of shipping, the radio operator's main task is to control the handling of traffic (e.g. in harbors, in front of locks), in contact with the shipping company and weather stations, as well as receiving emergency, urgency or safety messages. In ship traffic, radio operators contribute to the navigation through radio direction finding , but this is rarely necessary. Ship radio operators conduct marine radio traffic on land and to other ships and thus provide the ship's command with information on how to operate the ship and its safety. Radio operators pass messages on to the crew, receive calls for help from people in distress and take part in providing mutual assistance in shipping.
Well-known radio operators
Jack Phillips (first radio officer) and Harold Bride (second radio officer) were the two radio operators on the RMS Titanic . They were employees of the Marconi Society and operated the radio station on the ship for them. They made the distress call before the ship sank. Bride was rescued while Philip was drowning in the North Atlantic . Gladys Kathleen Parkin was one of the first and youngest women to receive a First Class Commercial Radio License from the United States Government in 1916 - she was 15 years old at the time. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was co-pilot, radio operator, navigator and wife of Charles Lindbergh . Noor Inayat Khan was a radio operator and agent for the UK Special Operations Executive .
See also
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- ↑ KLM DISASTERS: Without radio operator . In: Der Spiegel . No. 35 , 1958 ( online ).
- ↑ http://www.jumpforward.de/beruf/7379/Berufsbild-Funker-in.html