Bush fire trucks , early 1950s

I spotted a White scout car and Blitz trucks and early Land Rovers . It's a shame that those accents have disappeared. The Morse from the ship is a jumble of letters and numbers, not plain language. 

I listened to the morse again, the ship was calling VIM at Cape Schanck. I used to listen to VIM years ago. message reads:  VIM de GFZKN ( ships call sign ) then a series of numbers.



Correction:  VIM was originally located at the Domain in Melbourne,  it was moved to Cape Schanck in 1966. 

marinerescuevv.weebly.com/vim-melbourne-radio-otc.html
 

Cat D7 3T, Allis HD something dozer and a old IH crawler

We have come a long way in some respects
Today if someone was smoking while fighting a fire they would be strung up, smoking was so normal once, if you were a none smoker you were the odd one out

Paul

And no overalls or hard hats. In one scene they are casually watching 20ft high flames about 100 feet away. 

Fighting Rust wrote:

I listened to the morse again, the ship was calling VIM at Cape Shank. I used to listen to VIM years ago. message reads:  VIM de GFZKN ( ships call sign ) then a series of numbers.

 

The "series of numbers" will be the coded current weather observations at the ship's location.
The full report comprises groups of five (IIRC) numerals. One group will relate to wind speed & direction; another will be cloud types and layer heights; yet another temeratures; rain; barometric pressure, visibility etc. Whether sent to BOM by voice (radio or telephone), teletype, or morse, the coded reports all follow the same standard for simplicity of transmission and ease in recording, hopefully minimising errors.

When I was in PNG in the early 70's many remote plantations gave weather reports. Almost every village with an airstrip (over 300 of them) and having regular or expected traffic had to report each morning on weather and strip condition. As mentioned above to speed things up they used the standard number format booklet issued by the weather bureau. The patrol officer, nearby plantation manager or his wife or the local godbotherer if it was a mission village were the reporters.

There was a new lady at Palmalmal Plantation on Jaquinot Bay in New Britain who told them to stick their weather reports when the whole radio net burst into laughter and smart arse comments when on her first few days reporting from a couple of degrees south of the equator sitting under a coconut tree  she told visiting pilots to expect heavy ice and driving snow.

Up until the 70's pilots would get weather reports in English. In a classic case of the tail wagging the dog BOM changed their system to suit some public service "improvement" which created huge confusion, caused all existing pilots to stumble through weather reports for the next year while they tried to learn a new language and student pilots probably another 10 hours of study. If you want to fly to Brisbane or Wellcamp (Toowoomba) tonight this is what you get.

: All airfields in the world have an ICAO code.  Australian fields all start with Y then followed by the official abbreviation eg YBBN for Brisbane, YMML for Melbourne - note these codes are different to the IATA codes used for airline passengers BNE and MEL.

In 1975 all this code would have been translated for the pilots into English. Here is the translation of tonight's Brisbane weather:

Brisbane Terminal Area Forecast, Issued at Brisbane on the 14th 0804 Zulu (Greenwich mean time) current from 1409 to 1512
Wind 020 degrees at 14 knots, visibility unlimited, few clouds at 3,500 feet

Next lines go on to give predicted changes in wind direction, speed and visibility for the next few hours. CAVOK means cloud and visibility OK, most pilots when asked to report usually use "fine and beaut"

Last lines give probability of rain, temperature and various possible cloud predictions.

There is a 30% chance of TEMPO (an extra 30 minutes of holding fuel to be carried) about 1510 (looks like a weak front coming through)

Last line is an area forecast for those people going about their business in the Brisbane region but not landing there - a more general flying weather. It gives general cloud, visibility and barometric pressure.


BRISBANE YBBNTAF YBBN 140804Z 1409/1512
02014KT 9999 FEW035
FM141400 36008KT 9999 FEW020
FM141800 20006KT 9999 FEW020
FM142100 02014KT CAVOK
BECMG 1510/1512 14012KT 9999 -SHRA BKN020
PROB30 TEMPO 1510/1512 VRB20G35KT 1000 TSRA BKN007 SCT020CB
RMK
T 26 25 23 22 Q 1007 1009 1008 1009
TAF3METAR YBBN 141000Z AUTO 01016KT 9999 // NCD 26/22 Q1008 RMK
RF00.0/000.0

WELLCAMP (BRISBANE WEST) YBWWTAF AMD YBWW 140823Z 1408/1506
33012KT CAVOK
FM141000 08010KT 9999 FEW020
FM141200 09003KT 9999 FEW015
FM142300 01006KT CAVOK
RMK
T 29 24 21 20 Q 1008 1010 1011 1010METAR YBWW 141000Z AUTO 31002KT 9999 // NCD 25/19 Q1010 RMK
RF00.0/000.0