A WINTER EVENING. Cloud building up.

The south-west wind coming in over the Bristol Channel, moderate to fresh, rising . . .

'All lifeboats—Barry Coastguard— this is Barry Dock number one lifeboat —/ am alongside liferaft with four persons on board—over.' 'This is At Ian tic College ILB— roger—out.' 'This is Barry Dock number two lifeboat—roger—out.' 'This is Minehead ILB—roger— out.' 'This is Weston-super-Mare ILB— roger—out.' 'This is Barry Coastguard—roger— out.' No, it is not the culmination of a combined search and rescue operation.

The wind is beating not against lifeboat and ILB but up against a caravan parked in Swansea Docks. The radio operators are crew members, but not at sea; they are trying out in the Mobile Training Unit (MTU) an exercise designed to test the progress made in an advanced communication and radiotelephone course. Another RNLI enterprise, to which a number of people have contributed their thought, skill and knowledge, is under way.

Lifeboat crews already have long experience of radio communications.

The first experimental radio transmitting and receiving equipment was fitted in the Rosslare Harbour lifeboat in 1927; it was of the wireless telegraphy type using morse code. In 1929 the first radiotelephony equipment was fitted in the lifeboats at Dover, Stornoway and St Peter Port, followed by New Brighton and Barra Island. However, it was not until after the 1939-45 war that radio came to be considered standard equipment for lifeboats.

Now, all RNLI offshore lifeboats carry MF equipment, and all offshore and inshore lifeboats are fitted with VHF radio.

New dimension The installation of radio introduced a new dimension into sea rescue. Many a distressed ship has received help because her Mayday call could be passed on to a lifeboat already at sea. Search and rescue can be co-ordinated and time is saved because the lifeboat will receive, and can pass back, minute by minute information.

Rescues have been made surer because above the noise of wind and waves, a radio link has been estabi shed between lifeboat and casualty.

But it is not always easy. The voices of people of many different countries, many different organisations meet on the air. A crew member may well find himself talking not only with the Coastguard and other lifeboats, but also with commercial coast radio stations, Trinity House, RN or RAF helicopters, Nimrod aircraft, HM ships, or merchant vessels and even civil aircraft of all nationalities.

English is the recognised international language of the air, but foreign accents can still make words difficult to distinguish, and radio interference can scramble the clearest voice.

So, the more the variables can be reduced the better, and that is where radio procedure comes in. It provides a common pattern of words, familiar and understood by people of every service and SAR organisation and by people of every nationality. If, wherever possible, expected words are used in an expected order, they are much easier for the human ear to pick up against a background of atmospheric interference.

Messages can be kept short, lengthy explanations and repetitions avoided and transmission time pared down to the minimum, leaving the air free for the next important message.

International understanding There are other factors involved, too.

For instance, the latest phonetic alphabet, after years of trial, has been accepted world wide. It is used and understood by everyone, and with it a Russian can communicate confidently with a Frenchman, a Japanese with a Spaniard, an Englishman with a Greek.

Then, from January 1, 1976, Channel 16, in the past a safety and calling frequency, has become an international distress frequency and on it international commercial rules apply.

Obviously, the simpler and surer radio communications can be made the better, and in no situation is this more true than in the extreme conditions of a lifeboat service. Reduced fatigue, increased confidence, time saved, all add up to improved efficiency and a greater safety margin for lifeboat and casualty.

With the aim of helping crews in his area to get the very best out of their radios, late in 1973 Lieut.-Commander George Cooper, divisional inspector of lifeboats, Western Division, went to see the commanding officer of the RNR South West Communications Area, Lieut-Commander Peter Fulton, to ask whether the Communications Training Centre at Swansea could train local crew members in advanced radiotelephone communications.

That was the beginning of a most interesting and far reaching exercise in which George Cooper, Peter Fulton, local lifeboat crews, RNR instructors, Lieut. Ernie Gough (staff officer communications) and other RNLI staff officers and divisional inspectors all played a part.

Operating conditions In Peter Fulton, George Cooper had found a man whose enthusiasm matched his own and who welcomed the idea of producing a training programme designed specially for lifeboat crews, taking into account the procedure most useful to them and the particular circumstances in which they have to work.

This was an area in which Peter Fulton had himself to gain experience, because his sea time had been spent in Naval ships and submarines in which working conditions are very different from those in a lifeboat, let alone an ILB. So, as the project progressed, George Cooper arranged for him to make a passage in Susan Ashley, Barry Dock No. 2 lifeboat, just before Christmas 1974, and then to go out in Port Talbot D class ILB on a day when, with 10-15' waves, it was too rough to launch from the beach and the ILB had to be towed to a sheltered creek before she could get afloat. He writes of this valuable sea experience: 'OK, then, away we go. Contact the Coastguard by radio and let them know what we are doing. In the flat waters of the creek this is easy—one arm holding on for grim death, the other arm to operate the handset of the radio and sitting down on the padded 'deck' of the boat. But, passing across the mouth of the creek into the sea one's existence seems to be somewhere about 4' above the bouncing, bucking deck, with the occasional bangs flat out on the deck. You don't lose radio contact with the shore, you simply lose contact with your own radio ...' And his conclusion: 'I returned a much wiser man and better able to understand the problems of the lifeboat communicator.' That, however, is jumping ahead. The project started with a meeting between George Cooper, Peter Fulton, two RNR instructors, a representative from the Coastguard, Coxswain Derek Scott, BEM, and Tommy Tucker, signalman of The Mumbles crew. Mr Tucker is the headmaster of a local school, so that he could also contribute experience of teaching. Together they drew up a pro-visional syllabus. The job description was: Performance: To transmit, receive and report messages transmitted by RT on RNLI, HMCG, military and international maritime and aeronautical frequencies, channels or nets.

Conditions: From a conventional lifeboat or ILB, at sea, duringallservices,exercises, trials and passages between ports.

Standard: Without error, providing the necessary corrections and repetitions have been made and asked for to achieve 100% accuracy.

Training of volunteer members of local lifeboat crews continued through 1973 and 1974. A course of about 12 hours was planned (two hours on one evening a week for six weeks), and as the weeks went by, so interest quickened.

A draft booklet 'RNLI Communications Instructions and Radiotelephone Procedures' was prepared with the cooperation of the students, so that they could study in between sessions. There was feed back, of course, and George Cooper spent many hours listening to what crew members had to say, blending their comments with his vast experience of lifeboat work and the sea and Peter Fulton's equal experience of radio communications. Between them all a pattern was beaten out.

After revisions of booklet, training documentation and the conduct of the course there came discussions with the Coastguard, who gave their approval.

RNLI staff officers took an experimental course at Swansea and their comments and criticisms were added to the common pool, and a similar coursewas undertaken by divisional inspectors.

The project was taking definite shape.

So enthusiastic did the crew members who had helped in the early stages become that some returned to the Swansea RNR Communications Centre for further training in morse, while in the autumn of 1975 a second group from The Mumbles, including the honorary secretary, E. G. Beynon, started on the RT course. To date crew members from Burry Port, Horton and Port Eynon, The Mumbles, Port Talbot and Porthcawl have undergone training at Swansea.

Pilot project Meanwhile, in view of the large increase in electronic equipment carried by lifeboats, a recommendation was put forward by the Search and Rescue Committee that, as a pilot project, a caravan should be commissioned which could be adapted for the training of RT procedure and possibly also direction finding (DF) and navigation. Thus upto- date information and the opportunities being opened up could be brought to crew members, however remote their station.

It was at this stage that the fund raising side of the Institution made its contribution. There were, awaiting delivery by Caravan Repair and Service, a Surrey firm, two fund raising caravans built at low cost to our special requirements, and this firm agreed to take on the building of the caravan mobile training unit. Ernie Gough outlined the layout requirements with Sydney Gillingham, assistant district organising secretary, South East, who was there on the spot to liaise with the firm's designer, L. J. Selway. Plans were soon agreed and the building completed.

There was still, however, the electrical installation to be done and there were long discussions as to how the MTU could best be fitted out. Now, it so happens that Peter Fulton is Technical Instructor at ICI Fibres, and he obtained the agreement of that company and of the RNLI for two instrument and electrical apprentices of the ICI Apprentice Training School, under his instruction, to undertake the wiring-up and commissioning of the electrical/ electronics installation. It would give his apprentices excellent practical experience to substantiate their theoretical training, and for them there would be the added interest of doing work of use to the community. All the components for the installation would, of course, be supplied by the RNLI.

So, in mid June 1975 the caravan was delivered to the Training Workshops at ICI Fibres, Pontypool, and work began.

The two apprentices, Phil Oakley and Roy Robinson, put their hearts into the project and became so enthusiastic that they had to be dragged away for their lunch breaks and reminded when it was time to go home at the end of the day. Others joined in, too, in their free time: carpenters who gave advice on the best way to achieve the necessary strengthening to the caravan structure for the bearing of instruments; painters and sign writers who added the necessary external wording. All the notices and charts inside the caravan, as well as diagrams for the handbook, were contributed by Peter Fulton's sister, Bet Westhead. Everyone gave their best, and when the caravan was towed away to Swansea there were a surprising number of people with a proprietory look in their eyes standing by the roadside outside workshops and offices, quietly wishing the MTU a successful career. The RNLI is most grateful forthe generous help so readily given by ICI to this lifeboat project.

Inside the MTU there are the instructor's desk and six 'bays' for students which together make up the basic voice trainer. Each bay, which, when necessary, can be divided off with movable partitions, has its own desk complete with drawer for pads and pencils, and a four-channel transmitter/ receiver with microphone and earphones (for which there is a volume control).

To help with instruction, at the front end of the MTU is a white dry marker board (eliminating the problems of a chalkboard). At the rear is a projector screen which, when lowered, doubles up as a chart table, with built-in chart stowage. A portable stand carries flip charts spelling out all the points likely to arise during the course.

A cassette recorder can record instruction as it is taking place and play it back to the class, feed in situations or be used in conjunction with a lamp to teach morse code.

There is also a DF set with a rotating loop aerial, and a compass adjusted for the caravan with its own deviation card.

The receiver of the DF set can be tuned to the distress frequency, 2182 kHz, or any other working frequency and the output fed into the RT trainer to simulate working sea conditions during classroom practice.

Tucked away in its own cupboard is an Aldis lamp, and fixtures include a Derriton 'Seaphone' as fitted in ILBs, for crew familiarisation, a Callbuoy (disabled) on permanent loan and also a VHP Belcom AMR-104H eight channel automatic scanning receiver on permanent loan.

Lights are fitted over each desk.

Power would normally be derived from the mains, but if this supply is not available the caravan's own battery supply can be brought into use. Fire extinguishers, presented by ICI, are in place.

Thus has been prepared a compact, economical teaching workshop which can take the opportunities available at a base communications centre to lifeboat stations all over the country. The plan will be to take the MTU to central points on the coast from which, on different nights of the week, it can visit different lifeboat stations, staying in one area until the RT course has been completed at each of the stations taking part.

At other times it will be possible to give further instruction on radio direction finding and also on navigation.

When the time comes to move the MTU it is battened down with screens over skylights and ports. Every piece of equipment has its own safe stowage, and everything that might move is secured; the chairs, for instance, with shock cord bights. Outside whip and loop aerials are lowered and secured to the sides or top of the caravan. All is snug and safe before, towed by a Land Rover, she moves away.

That is the prologue to the story of the mobile training unit, and in the best traditions of the lifeboat service it is a tale of the free offering of knowledge, skill, critical thought and time by many people from many ways of life working together towards a common goal. Now, as the MTU starts out on her travels to the coast her full story will begin.

With her will be going Leslie Vipond, inspector (MTU), who has himself served as a lifeboat coxswain on the north-east coast, or Peter Fulton, who has been granted a year's paid leave from ICI for the purpose. Crews from five South Wales lifeboat stations helped to break new ground and their enthusiasm grew as the value of the project emerged.

Now other crews will have the opportunity of taking up the challenge.—J.D..