Aerials and satellite dishes on QE2

[Lynda Bradford]

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Aerials  (Notch and Wire)

Follow link to Roger Latham article on Aerials/Antennas

Extract from Roger Latham's Radio Room article on the Antennas/Aerials:
"Transmitting Antennas: The wire and “Notch” antennas were located close to and using the funnel as attachment or support. It was understood that the QE2 designer wanted no wire antennas to spoil the lines. To avoid wire antennas,  so called transmitter “notch” antennas were mounted around the funnel. They will be seen in early photos of the QE2 and look like large boxes sticking out at the base of the funnel. There was also a receive “notch” antenna mounted above the wheelhouse making it look as someone stated “A tram indicator board” ! This remained for many years!........

Wire Antennas: by the time of the trials the ship had broken with the designers ideas and had installed many transmitter wire antennas leading to the funnel. It turned out that the wire transmitter Antennas are not that obvious and hardly seen in early pictures of the ship! The wires were not well separated from each other and this caused problems as shown in the transmitter section." Roger Latham

Notch aerials:

"The “Notch” antennas were made by BAC (British Aircraft Corporation) and very little information was available as to how they worked. They needed very careful tuning to make them work. The “Notch” antennas were tried earlier on Brocklebank ships and result seems to confirm they worked. However they were very fiddly and time consuming to tune – something the QE2 radio staff did not have with the pressure of work." Roger Latham


Photo: Bob C

The 1969 Press Guide "The New Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2" highlighted the use of Notch aerials in what they describes as a hat trick of firsts in ship to shore communication.  "Notch aerials can be clipped to any part of the ship to make it a transmitting or receiving aerial, eliminating the old wire aerials which screen each other and effected strength of reception."  "On QE2 the streamlined funnel will carry four Notch aerials....there are other notches for receiving and VHF communication" 

It sounded very innovative, but the reality was somewhat different.....as these were quickly replaced with traditional wire aerials.

"They had moving parts inside for tuning and these needed  to be regularly maintained by removing the outer covers and cleaning and lubricating the parts. This may be ok for an aircraft but impractical when they are half way up the funnel on a ship on the North Atlantic! The one that remains is that famous white box immediately above the bridge windows amidships on the monkey island. This was never used but was clearly fitted well." Willum


Photo: "Clydebuilt 1971"

7 February 1970: the Electronics magazine's headline for the article by Kenneth Field highlights the technical advances on Queen Elizabeth 2, however the statement .... "but her notch antennas are still in the shakedown phase" suggests that all was not well with this particular technical innovation



Interesting article about the notch aerials. They were doomed to fail. The ones on the signal mast forward were for the VHF radios and continued to work throughout the ships life because they were fixed tuning with no moving parts. There were 2 of them, one for the VHF on the bridge and the second for the VHF radio in the Radio Room. Finally there was a receiving notch aerial immediately above the bridge front, the famous white box that survives to this day. It was connected to the radio room but never used.
Willum

QE2 refit from 13 October to 7 November 1972 mentions: more information on the refit

"In order to provide an additional high frequency transmitter to maintain profitability of radio traffic work was undertaken on QE2’s radio system. The radio aerials also had to be re-arranged due to the new Penthouse block being added."

[Lynda Bradford]

The Mast and it's functions

The mast, designed by James Gardner, was lifted on board QE2 as a single structure on 4 October 1968 see photos on the mast goes on topic

A ship's mast has several purposes, such also giving fundamental height to the navigation light, radio or radar aerials and scanners.  The April 1967, Q4 Press Release Chapter on the Functional Funnel mentions "The two white masses the funnel and the mast - are the key elements which give the ship her scale and dignity. The mast also provided an exhaust for the kitchen. 

Michael Gallagher listed in the QE2's Mast topic that when the ship was first built you would find on the mast

A satellite navigation aerial
Eight different aerials
Two 11 foot radar scanners
Two navigation lights
A "Christmas Tree" of code lamps in two groups
Two whistles (one operated by compressed air and one by electricity
Two light detectors (controlling the lighting in the main restaurant)
Two loud hailers
Signal and Courtesy Halyards
A Bosuns chair
Inside access for maintenance

The height of mast was reduced by five feet when the satellite receiver for the satellite navigation system was removed in 1994 (date to be confirmed).

[Lynda Bradford]

The QE2 Story Gallery has many wonderful photos of QE2, like these pictures taken by Bob C's father around 1969 and when I noticed the aerial in the picture I asked Roger Latham and Willum for more information.  Willum's firsthand information and Roger taking time to label the aerials gives us important information on the use of the mast for communications. 


Photo: Bob C taken from the Sports Deck (circa 1969) Labels by Roger Latham


Photo of Forward Mast: Bob C's father took the photo from Signal Deck (circa 1969) labels by Roger Latham and Willum

Information from Roger Latham:

LF (Low Frequency up 300 kHz) MF (Medium Frequency300kz to 3Mhz) and HF (High Frequency 3 to 30MHz) Receiving Aerials: There were four LF/MF/ HF Receiving aerials - two to the Port side and two to the Starboard side.  They fed to the radio room where they were distributed to a number of receivers.

Not shown as mounted aft were two whip HF Receiving Aerials in the vicinity of the swimming pool.

There was also an HF notch receiving aerial mounted directing at the front and top of the wheelhouse looking like a "tram indicator board"!

VHF (Very High Frequency 156 to 160 MHz )Aerials:The notch VHF fed the Maritime transceivers on the bridge.

Satellite Aerial: The Transit Satellite Navigation aerial was a double helix aerial as Transit used two frequencies unlike GPS which only uses one.

Radar Aerials: There were two 3 cm (centimetre)(10.000 MHz) AEI Radar aerials.

TV Aerial: Also seen a TV aerial used to receive normal broadcast TV when in the vicinity of land.

Willum provided the following information on the TV aerials:

"They would have gone down to the SRE on 3-deck to VHF Tuners for broadcast to the passenger cabins on the speaker entertainment channels.

The range on VHF broadcast is just up to 100 miles before the signals disappear. Also the North Atlantic would have made short work of the rotator and the aerials were domestic and probably didn't last long in the mighty winds. They were certainly gone by my time. Interesting to see them in detail, they are cross Yagis for VHF - the old Black & White Band 1 and Band 2 Broadcast FM"

Direction Finder Aerial:The MF Direction Finder was a double loop aerial used to find the direction of a transmitter in the MF(Medium Frequency 300KHz to 520Khz Band. It was used to find the direction of NDBs (Non Directional Beacons) and also for use to find the direction of any ship in distress.

[Lynda Bradford]

Satellite and radar dishes

"QE2 was one of the first ships to be fitted with Inmarsat Satellite equipment. The Scientific Atlanta Terminal fitted in 1976 had voice and telex facility with connections to Goonhilly or Southbury Connecticut. Calls were USD10 per minute and had to be set up via operators at the ground stations. We could also send faxes although it was a struggle. Cunard’s Radio & Electronic services developed the Marinet System that latterly provided an in-house email service. More channels were added as more mushroom domes popped up on the top of the ship." Willum

Marisat (Marine Satellite Communication System) described in the New York Times article of 19 June 1977 as "the big white mushroom on the top deck The “mushroom” is a radome enclosing the above‐deck antenna of the Marisat (Marine Satellite Communications System)" The cost of the installation was $52,000 plus $5,000 installation costs



Photo: Pete Hamill shows an aerial view of QE2

Comsat General Communications System - information to be added when available.

1976 Refit - New Decca radar was installed.  One of the 3cms Radars was replaced by a 10Cms  Radar (The big scanner)

Refit 16 November to 1 December 1980

1982 Pre Falklands Conversion Communication changes:

- An independent radio station was specially constructed behind the Bridge.
and another in one of the penthouses 

- Small UHF aerials were fitted on both bridge wings.
For comms with the helicopters

- Satellite Communications Onboard Tracker domes, shaped like hot-air balloons, were installed aft of the Penthouse Suites on the uppermost deck.


Photo: Shipnut

1994 Project Lifestyle refit:

Three radar domes were added on the top of the ship

The five-foot satellite aerial atop of the mast was removed


Photo: Pete Hamill,  close up of aerial view of ship showing radar housings

[Lynda Bradford]

When working with Roger Latham and Willum on compiling the Radio Room and Communications topics, I have to admit that the Aerials and Satellite dishes on QE2 topic was one of my favourites.

Starting with the Notch Aerials, when reading information on the "1969 Cunard Press Guide 1969 the new Cunard Queen Elizabeth 2" the use of Notch aerials was included in what they called "a hat trick of firsts on the new ship" but the reality was somewhat different as Roger and Willum explained. 

The post on the importance of the Mast for communications added to details in"The Mast and it's functions" forum topic (see link above) and when I found two of Bob C's father's early photos of the mast, Roger Latham labelled the aerials to give more details on the importance of the mast for communications and Willum added information from his first hand knowledge.

An article in the New York Times in 1977 on Marine Satellite communication System (Marisat) gave the description "the big white mushrooms on the top deck" Photos from the Gallery by Pete Hamill and Shipnut were important to visualise some of the details and shows the importance of adding your photos to the QE2 Story so as to keep the memory of the ship alive.

I enjoyed working on these topics and learned a lot from Roger Latham and Willum's first hand knowledge and hope you also enjoy reading this topic plus the other Radio Room topics see Index

[Clydebuilt1971]

Excellent topic Lynda,

I know very little of note about ship's comms so this was extremely interesting and informative as was reading about how QE2's systems evolved over the years too.

Gav

[pete cain]

Lovely topic here, I wish I'd seen it when making my model, (might retro fit sometime with photos here--bookmarked).
  Pete Hamill, that aerial shot is it in the Azores by any chance?/.

[Pete Hamill]

Pete. no it is Valletta Grand harbour.

This is a great topic

[Lynda Bradford]

COMSAT Mobile Communications

Skilly56 has posted this magazine article in the 2001 Comms upgrade topic

[pete cain]

Thank you Pete,     I wondered,
  what a great topic this is