date :	Thu Aug 31 21:49:49 2006
email :	william.mckibben@btinternet.com
name :	William A Mckibben
comments :	I use to work with Decca/Racal. have loads of photos of old Hyperfix installs
date :	Sat Jul 29 11:12:25 2006
email :	hydroconsul@wxs.nl
name :	Rob Berlijn
comments :	Dear readers, I worked for Decca in West Africa, North Sea, India, Caribbean etc. In those days we had Hifix, Seafix, HiFix/6, Pulse/8 Artemis, Trisponder and later on, MicroFix. Our company is setting up a little museum and we have most of the above systems for display purposes. What is missing, is a HiFix receiver, the pure mechanical-wheels one, and a 350TS trackplotter. There must be some units somewhere. Who can help us out? Thanks in advance. Rob Berlijn
date :	Thu Jul 27 19:39:19 2006
email :	davidjawalker@gmail.com
name :	David Walker
comments :	I was just wandering what to do on the internet when I thought of putting in Hi Fix and was delighted with the result. Having worked for Decca Survey for 14 years and completing my apprenticeship with them it was nice to see some of the front panels that I worked on. Working in the service department in Apsley House and then working in the new Leatherhead department I had a good run both on Hi Fix and Sea Fix and spent a couple of years on the external field work. I think I even have the old manuals for Hi Fix hidden somewhere in the loft. If you want any old memories of the early days (1961 onwards)I will see what the old grey matter can remember.
date :	Tue Jun 27 11:10:41 2006
email :	lcerulli@inwind.it
name :	Lorenzo Cerulli
comments :	A big "Ciao" to you Alan .....
date :	Sun Jun 25 17:01:51 2006
email :	eadl@yahoo.com
name :	eadl@yahoo.com
comments :	Guter Stil mit Info und Geschmack. Muss schon sagen das nicht viele Seiten im Netz so sind.
date :	Wed May 31 22:51:18 2006
date :	Sun May 28 05:51:19 2006
email :	rchnqn@yahoo.com.ar
name :	Roberto Heuberger
comments :	Good code!!!! tanks to guide me!!! Realy Tanks!
date :	Wed May 17 09:10:51 2006
email :	jerus@yahoo.com
name :	attorney
comments :	Very good site.
date :	Sun May 7 22:39:38 2006
email :	alphe660@planet.nl
name :	Wim van Alphen
comments :	I joined DECCA Navigator in 1962, firstly in Holland and then joined the club in Wymondley ( Mr. Hamilton ! )Then I transferred to Survey Department ( Ian Thompson ) and disappeared to Nigeria for a short spell, which lasted until 1984 ! Let me know, if this e-mail has reached you, I have a lot more to tell. With greetings, Wim van Alphen.
date :	Sat Apr 15 00:25:39 2006
email :	evb@reson.nl
name :	Eduard (Edward) van Bergen
comments :	Deart Alan, Nice site you have there. I am an old Deccaman and operated the various Hi-Fix, Hi-Fix-6 and Hyperfix chains in Holland, England, Denmark and Helgoland in the 70,s and 80,s. I started in 1969 for Decca England and then I went over to Decca Survey Services Holland. We had our own sea-going ships at the time - Decca Explorer, (We brought that one later to a scrapyard in Holland, interesting thing about that ship was that it was a former " U-boot versorgungsshiff " that roamed the Atlantic ocean in search for German submarines to supply them with fuel and food in the second worldwar named " Meer Katze ", the other ship was the Decca Mariner who came into the harbour in Scheveningen (Holland) around Christmas time to give us a nice meal around that time, she is still sailing under a different name in Nigeria now. What I remember from all those long years on the respective Master and slave stations gives me a good feeling. Things were somewhat primitive in those days, but that was also the charme of it, and yes, when something kicked the bucket and you had to repair it, it was either at nighttime or in a blazing storm, apart from the regular maintenance ofcourse. Very steady patterns with no lane-slips when the landpath was stable due to soaked soil because of rain and very unstable with static or hail or snow, the equipment went crazy then. We transmitted here on 1934 and 2154 kHz and when you were for some reason out of the air you had to restart and synchronize the LF and HF MDU,s on the 100ms triggerpulse manualy with a synchro-cord, something that you did by listening to the sound of the relays. 100ms Master triggerpulse and 300ms Masterpulse, 300ms Slave 1 and 300ms slave 2. This all was for the Hi-Fix III. There were days that you took fixes with the English and Dutch navy, one every minute, you wrote down the readings on the Pattern counters and APC on the Master station and they did the same onboard their vessels, that way you could compare the measurements together and in a way calibrate the hyperbolic system. For those purposes we used the Pye-Single Side Band tx/rx, the same we used for communications between our stations. I still remember the command ; " Stand by . . . . Fix " The trick was always to tune the tx unit besides the tx aerial for maximum output so it could withstand the night-static and sky-wave. We had to make a weather/technical report every hour " between dawn and dusk " as it was called and phone in the results each morning to the head-office by mobile-phone. We were mainly housed in (first small and later large) caravans and once a Master station was off the air due to the fact that the caravan was blown over on its roof, injuring the operator inside and disconnecting the pwr cables in one go. When it was heavely storming you were always sitting/sleeping near the side of the caravan that was jumping up in the wind to make it a bit more heavy with your own weight, in the winter the water freezed and sometimes your gas as well. Yes, it was primitive, but I would not have missed it for the world ! Writing all this down, I do,nt think that the young people of today have any thoughts about how that pioneer-time was. You just switch on your gps or dgps these days and that,s it ! Well, to cut a long story short, after Decca I worked for Racal and after that R.E.E and Thomson (France)and Thales and now I work for a Denish company called " Reson " Many things change in our lifes. Wishing you all the best with this well documented site ! Brgds, Eduard van Bergen / Holland.
date :	Mon Apr 10 17:21:25 2006
email :	stuifbergenn@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
name :	nick stuifbergen
comments :	Hi: In 1966 I worked with HiFix in Robeson Channel near Alert,the most northerly place in Canada. There the sea ice was six feet thick. HiFix did not work. Only recently I found out why. Kindly let me have your mailing address, so I can send you some information SVP Nick Stuifbergen
date :	Tue Mar 28 21:08:00 2006
name :	Alan
comments :	This is a test message.

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