New RN Comms website launched

To mark the 100th birthday of the Royal Navy’s Wireless Telegraphy branch a brand new web site has just been launched which covers the period of 1895 to 1980 for W/T and from 1937 to 1980 for Radar, a sister branch. To avoid confusion, the telegraphist’s at the very beginning, 1895 to 1906 were in reality “odd-job-men” [many visual signal ratings being sent below when Morse needs to be transmitted] and it wasn’t until 1906/07 that the Admiralty gave into the repeated calls from Admirals at sea to have full time professionally trained telegraphists. It has taken many months to write the site which is approximately 700MB in size, and whilst it can be casually browsed it is intended to be a reference library. It tells of the history of Wireless Telegraphy and [Radar of course but over a much shorter period] in the Royal Navy, which, especially in the earlier days, included the RAN, the RCN, the RNZN as well as the RIN [Royal Indian Navy] RPN [Royal Pakisan Navy] and the SAN [South African Navy] both in the use of ships and the equipment therein. The site covers every piece of kit the RN has even owned or used, and reveals facts and figures from books and documents never before made available in the public domain.