Panorama

New radio stations for Belgian

The new radio stations installed by ciated transmitting/receiving anten- Rohde & Schwarz onboard the na is installed on the vessel platform Belgian ships Zinnia and Godetia are (FIG 2). used to ensure a permanent link between national authorities and Teletype signals from a receiver are naval forces as well as other vessels, routed through a matrix in one of the search and rescue organizations, air- three MERLIN system processors, high- craft and helicopters. These two end terminals for RTTY networks to command vessels of the Belgian NATO standard, and then output on a naval forces, which also perform printer or teleprinter. In the other direc- logistic tasks, are named after the tion, the messages coded by MERLIN two escort planes of the British Flower are sent via the transmitters. It is also Class. The two giant vessels that possible to pass on messages received were used to transport the Belgian from another vessel via MERLIN. troops of the British and offered to at the end The system has plenty more to offer. of WW2 are also in operation as Thanks to an automatic alarm receiving minehunters and and system operating on the international proved to be very successful during frequency 2.182 kHz, Godetia has FIG 2 Antenna system of maritime radio station the Iraq-Iran conflict, the Gulf War an automatic distress signal. PSTN Photos: Force Navale and during a mission in Somalia. hookup is also possible so that mem- “Thanks to the excellent technical bers of the crew can ring home. Ves- equipment and a very competent sel-to-vessel communication by means crew we succeeded in finding and of this system is carried out by three- radio operator Guy Corvelijn con- destroying about 270 mines without member teams taking turns every six firms: “With this installation, we have any accidents or casualties,” says the hours. The communication system a very fast and reliable system. This in- Belgian Navy. proved its reliability during an exer- vestment in a communication system cise in the Mediterranean in which that is extremely secure and thus indis- It is obvious that an extremely high- Italian, Spanish, English, French and pensable for navigation is completely performance radio station is a pre- German units participated. Second justified.” requisite for such missions. Rohde & Jean-Paul Hosdain Schwarz was thus asked to replace a (Capitaine de , large part of the outdated equipment Force Navale Zeebruges) installed at the end of the 60s. The new radio station (FIG 1) comprises six receivers and four transceivers as well as a number of radio sets spe- cially designed for mobile land and maritime radio services. It also con- tains a microprocessor for controlling data exchange between the modules. The most powerful transceiver onboard the vessels (1 kW) allows long-distance links over continents and also auto- matic setup of shortwave links and maintains them in case of interference. The other three transceivers are mainly used for vessel-to-vessel or vessel-to- land links. All the transceivers operate in the frequency range from 1.5 to

30 MHz. The six receivers cover the FIG 1 Communication system onboard Belgian Reader service card 151/23 for further informa- range 10 kHz to 30 MHz. The asso- vessel Godetia tion on maritime radio systems

News from Rohde & Schwarz Number 151 (1996/II) 53