Signalling the end for Decca
By Brian Flett
(from The Orcadian dated April 6, 2000)

Tuesday, April 4, marked the end of an era for post-war technology in Orkney, with the complete shutdown of the Racal-Decca navigator station in Dounby.

For over 40 years, the Decca station has transmitted a series of tones and pulses which helped fishing vessels, other shipping and aircraft to pinpoint their exact location. The entire network was switched off this week, because the Northern Lighthouse Board and its sister organisations, Trinity House and Irish Lights, who have been footing the bill for maintaining the radar-based signalling system since the early 1990s, believed it was no longer necessary because of the advent of Global Positioning System (GPS). It is now extensively, if not universally, fitted on board fishing vessels and is even available on handheld equipment, to establish accurate locations anywhere in the world from a series of signals bounced back off earth-orbitting satellites.

The Decca station in Dounby started transmitting from a group of wooden huts, in the same field now occupied by the three large masts, on September 1, 1955. The base was set up by Ken King, who had been running a station in the south of England. The first person to take charge of running operations in Dounby was Harry Cordock along with Gordon Pirie who lived in Stenness, and Davy Johnstone from Dounby.

Current station manager, Jim Anderson, recalls those early days.

“I joined Decca in May 1956. It wasn’t supposed to be officially open until later, but the fishermen were in such a hurry that we opened it when it was still manually controlled. We had to take readings and check other things to make sure everything was all right. After that, you were just waiting there in case anything went wrong. It was a case of diving at the switches and doing something about it if anything happened.”

He explained the importance of the Decca station in Dounby to the UK signalling network.

“This was the North Scottish Master station, with ‘slave’ stations in Lewis, Peterhead and Shetland. Their signals were phase compared with the master station, to produce a pattern on Decca navigation charts which vessels had to have.”

Jim added: “I think there were four engineers to begin with, but it grew to five plus a handyman when we moved into the new building in January 1958. The first and second engineers lived on the premises. Harry Cordock was first engineer, and Duncan Bell was second engineer. When Duncan returned to Edinburgh he was replaced by Ken MacInnes from Stromness. That was when the transmission system became reasonably automatic. You still had to be there, but you could turn your back on it for a few seconds. It was a 12-hour shift system we worked, and every 15 minutes we had to take readings off the receivers. The figures were recorded in logs in triplicate, even though there was a machine recording them as well.”

Jim Anderson remembers one particular occasion when the Decca transmitting station at Dounby was put out of action by the weather.

“It was in wet snow, which pulled two wires down off the top of the aerial. We got a telegram about it, thanking us for getting it back on the air again. Luckily, Ken King was in Stromness at the time. He was the aerial man and took charge of the repair. We got the loan of Jim Hourston from Dounby Farm’s tractor and cattle float to give us some shelter while we were working in the field, because it was horizontal sleet that day. The wires were repaired on the ground and hoisted up again. The system was off for a few hours. It was dark when the wires came down. We didn’t realise why we weren’t transmitting a signal until daylight came and I saw one of the wires lying on the ground. All coastal stations sent out warning signals to all shipping telling them about the problem.”

Tommy Mainland joined Decca in December 1966 in Dounby. He remembers what it was like working a shift system, when living on the station.

“When I joined, we used to do 12 hours on a day shift, from 9 in the morning till 9 at night. The next day, you went on at 9 at night and worked till 9 in the morning, and then you “allegedly” had two days off. I worked that shift pattern for a while, and then eventually we changed that to one week at 9 to 5, a week of 5 till midnight, and a week of midnight till 9 in the morning. It ended up that when we got “sleeping” night watches, we did 24 hours on, and 48 hours off.”

Jim Anderson remarked: “Eventually the station became more automated, we were able to sleep at nights. A number of local folk joined Decca in Dounby as well as Tommy. John Gray from Stromness had two stints here after he came out of the RAF, and Jack Twatt came around 1969 or 1970.”

George Grieve joined Decca at Peterhead in January 1967, one month later than Tommy Mainland.

George recalled the shift system he had to cope with.

“Peterhead was the ‘purple slave’ station. We just did 24 hours on, 48 hours off. But during the time off at Peterhead we were always very busy doing the marine servicing side of it - with the navigators on the fishing boats, which we also did up here, but not in such large numbers. If they broke down when they were trawling, they would pull up their nets, come ashore and get it fixed, rather than chance going without it. We installed the equipment on board the boats and serviced it. It was 24 hours a day. They were paying for it, and they expected to get it. If the system broke down at 3 o’clock in the morning, you were expected to be there.”

Tommy made a comparison between the volume of fishing boat work which had to be done in Orkney by Decca staff at Dounby, to that of the staff at Peterhead.

“It was the same principle, but the number of boats concerned was minute compared to what it was at Peterhead. For a while, after I joined, I used to go down to Peterhead in the summer for holiday relief. The reason they wanted me was they wanted someone who could do the marine servicing work, as well as mind the station.”

George Grieve added: “The buildings at Peterhead, Dounby and Lerwick were exactly the same size. The Lerwick station also did the marine servicing, and I used to go up there to relieve, for the same reason as Tommy went down to Peterhead, to do the station shifts and marine repairs. I came up here to Dounby on April Fool’s Day 1972, a Saturday.”

The three Decca engineers managed to bring up their families while working shifts, but it wasn’t easy.

George Grieve reacted nostalgically. “It was especially difficult in the summer time, when you were trying to sleep and the bairns were screaming around in the garden. The winter time was not really a problem at all. But when we went on to “sleeping” night shifts, you had two clear days with the bairns, and you seldom had any sleep to catch up on.”

Tommy Mainland also felt that a shift pattern worked to his advantage. “I think I saw far more of my kids because I was home during the day, which folk who worked a normal day, weren’t. On the other hand, weekends didn’t exist. Folk would say, ‘What are you doing this Saturday?’ I’d reply, ‘Working’.”

Jim Anderson agreed: “It was great when you got whole days off through the shift system.”

The whole system became totally automated in January, 1994, and the individual stations were left unattended except for maintenance work carried out by a locally-based engineer. In Dounby’s case, that person was Jim Anderson.

“I’ve been on call 24 hours a day. I’ve had to go to the control centre which is based at the lighthouse headquarters in Edinburgh, to do shifts there from time to time. I always come out here once a week, although the requirement was only once a quarter to do the maintenance, but I liked to keep it in good order.”

The non-essential staff were kept on until the end of September, 1994 stripping out the entire supply of technical equipment from the main building, and vacating the living quarters, to be replaced by a self-contained air-conditioned aluminium clad cabin alongside, housing miniaturised equipment.

Neither Tommy Mainland nor George Grieve felt it hard to leave the Decca station for the last time when they were made redundant at the end of September, 1994.

Tommy commented: “It wasn’t difficult, because we’d had so little to do for the rest of that year. It seemed strange the building being there, but doing nothing.”

George remarked: “I was quite lucky. I never got time to think about it. I stopped here on the Friday, and I started with the council on the Monday, and I’ve been with Orkney Ferries for nearly five years since.”

But the two have had mixed reactions since they stopped working for Decca. Did they still think about the place, when they passed by?

George said: “I certainly do, because I don’t go by that often. I tend to make a detour specially. But I did feel when I was made redundant, that I wanted to get away from the area after 20-odd years here. I didn’t belong to Dounby anyway, and after Decca went, I thought it was a good time for me to go as well.”

Tommy said: “Certainly for a month or two, I thought to myself, ‘I used to work here.’ But now I hardly look at the place even, although I can see the masts from the house.”

But they still retain memories of the constant need for vigilance at the Decca station in case of an emergency.

Tommy Mainland said: “To this day, the charger for my cordless drill beeps when it’s up to charge, and it’s exactly the same note as the alarm tone used to be. I still automatically think, ‘What’s gone wrong?’”

George Grieve added: “I sometimes do the same now when my mobile phone goes off. I think there’s something wrong somewhere and have to fix it.”

In its heyday, Decca could promise a career for life, providing regular training in electrical work and other aspects of the company’s many interests. Jim Anderson remembered those halcyon days.

“We had a Decca school which was at Brixham in Devon, and they sent us on courses from time to time. The Admiralty weapons and communications company Racal took over Decca in 1981 or so. It was said that they wanted to acquire Decca’s radar company, rather than the avionics side of the business. It was all going fine until a Danish company started making receivers for fishing boats which operated with Decca’s navigation charts, but they didn’t pay any rental for using the system.

“A court battle followed, Decca lost the exclusivity, and that started the beginning of the end. Income started to dwindle. Eventually, the Ministry of Transport stepped in, and got the lighthouse authorities to take us over. That would have been the early 1990s.”

Jim went on to talk about the final switch-off for the station.

“The equipment here is of no use to anybody else. That’s the end of it. A skip is coming and we’ll throw everything out. We have to get rid of the condensers in the coil house, and there’s oil in them which has to be checked before moving anything there. Alton Tait is taking over the cabin and the engine, so we’ll leave the control gear connected up, and just disconnect our gear from it.”

Would he shed a tear when closing the whole system down for the last time? Jim Anderson replied: “It will take a nerve to switch it off after keeping it on for 44 years. It’s against your nature, I suppose.”