Knocker-upper

A visit to the Brixham Heritage museum this week found a very interesting section on the Coastguard.

One piece was the " Knocker-upper" and was used to call the Coastguard team before pagers and telephones.

Somehow I think if these were refitted the number of false callouts may just increase as the need to pull on the rope whilst walking past may just be too much.

There it is!

As we prepare for the special landmark, as the newest member of the team I’m still getting to grips with every day things such as keeping the pager with me at all times.

All was going well until 11.30pm Friday night when I suddenly realised it wasn’t there. It had been clipped to my belt all day. It should still be clipped to my belt. But it definitely wasn’t clipped to my belt…

Ignoring the golden rule of remaining calm under pressure I set about turning the house upside down desperately trying to remember when I last had it. I was just about to ring the Control Room at Portland and ask them to test page me (knowing full well that whilst it would locate the pager, it would also wake the whole house up AND be a source of amusement at the station) when I spotted it lurking down the side of the sofa.

I now know why the rest of the guys have their pagers on a little lanyard…think I might just get one. Lesson learned.

there it is...

Austen being prepared

We know we have been having pager problems over the last week, but clearly Austen has taken matters just a little to far?

When Gareth and I returned from patrol we found Austen at the station and for some reason he had two pagers on? (We added a third for the photo!)

So Austen what was this all about? Battery failure we were told?? Hang on two pagers, and stood outside the Coastguard Station with the radio on......your not going to miss much are you!

The Pager part 2

Austen is in trouble............

Last night he texted me to say he was going to carry out a pager test to ensure every one's was working.

Ok I replied, does everyone know?

Yes he said I've text them........OK

Pager then goes off, great they are all working.

Sadly not every one got the text in time and thought the pager was going off for real.

Tom left his pint in the pub, running out the door to phone Portland only to discover the text from Austen, dam, walks back in pub to find his drink missing!

Gareth, eating his tea, leaps up , heads to the station, only to find this was a test! Walks back home to discover tea finished by wife! Gareth still waiting for the text from Austen.

Well I guess we know the pagers worked, just have to work on the communication skills now!

The Pager

The Coastguard Pager, the vital piece of equipment to tell the team member they are required, coming in different colours (Swanage's are all green) and with HM Coastguard written on the front in case we forget who we belong too.

The other night, for some reason the pagers failed, this could be a number of reasons.
1) Finger error at the MRCC (pushing keys can sometimes go wrong, some poor person else where got a rude alarm call at 23.50!)
2) Technology failure,
3) Little gremlins in the system

Anyway whatever the reason, we have tested the pagers and all seem to be working again so we will never know.

New Pagers

We used to use maroons to signal the team. Basically a pyrotechnic (firework) that makes a great big bang and can be heard for miles!

For the last few years we have been using these Vodafone pagers to alert us of an incident. These pagers work off an individual number to set them off, like calling a mobile phone.

Sadly over the years we have had problems with "Ghost" alerts which at 2.00am in the morning had caused many a dispute with the family!

So we are going back to Channel Zero pagers, these operate by Portland Coastguard sending "a tone" over our radio frequency (known as channel zero) and this will set the pagers off (we hope!)

With all pagers, there are plus and minus points, coverage being the most important.

Not only does it have HM Coastguard on the front of them (just in case we forget who we belong to), but it has a facility as someone speaks on the radio you can listen! So pager and radio...something else to drive the family mad.

I'm not sure I like the chain either!

Thanks to Austen who has overseen the introduction of these new pagers and to ensure it works, 1) we are keeping the old pagers for a while and 2) I send a text message to the teams mobiles!

Bring back the maroons I say!