Onban Kikou - Vol. 1 Ch. 4 - Steer the Ship Through the Electric Current! - First Half

[MangaDex]

 

[zothique]

To be continued in chapter 5. This first part was originally published in October 2021, but the next issue instead had a special chapter featuring Miyama, and it wasn't until February 2022 that the second part was published. Fortunately you won't have to wait as long, I'll probably have it in two weeks like the others. In the meantime, you can listen to an old transmission from the real Radio Seagull.

 

[Angry_Panda]

A couple asides on the technology this chapter.

Radio Caroline used a number of different transmitters over its history, but most of them were 10 kilowatts or up. Because of the (low) efficiency of the amplifiers needed to achieve that power at the antenna (aerial), the actual power requirement is several times that. So in addition to keeping a massive tube amplifier that was intended to be installed in a stationary building working on a rolling ship in a saltwater environment, the crews also needed to provide a good sized power generator just for the station electronics, and to keep its output steady in order to keep the signal from wobbling around the dial - the newbie being tasked with stabilizing the frequency is a nice reference to that. The output power to an antenna is so high that the conductors carrying the signal from the transmitter amplifier have to be a special design - usually like a giant coaxial cable - and any kinks in that can cause the conductors to heat up to the point where they start to melt. Touching those conductors when they're live is a really, really bad idea. Finally, if you've ever tried to move a turntable while it's playing... well, just don't do that - nothing good comes from it. So from that aspect, being a pirate radio ship wasn't really a cakewalk to begin with, even before having the authorities decide to make your life more difficult. And yet there were multiple stations that made the effort throughout the '60's and early '70's - Wikipedia has a list in case you're interested.

As for the records themselves, 45's come in two flavors. In North America, most of Continental Europe, and Japan, they were of the 'large' center hole variety, which was what was intended by RCA when they introduced the format in 1949. However, in most of the Commonwealth, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, and most of the Southern Hemisphere, 45's used the same smaller spindle hole that 78's and the (new for 1948) LP used when they were introduced (though in some cases, manufacturers in those countries would design the discs to have a 'punch-out' section that would make it compatible with large spindle gear, and some jukebox operators would build a custom 'dinking' rig to drill out the larger hole as needed). I am a bit surprised that Mr. Kezuka appears to have overlooked this, given his usual attention to detail, though there may be some other explanation - at any rate, it's a fairly minor point I didn't notice until my second read through the chapter.

Thanks as always for your excellent translation and notes, and for bringing us this series!

 

[MakhamBoi]

This is the coolest shit I've read all day. Thanks for the translation and the context.

 

[keatsta]

Thanks for all the translation and the extensive contextual and language notes - even in the comments

If you're interested in another story about pirate radio (albeit much less daring), the British sitcom People Just Do Nothing is a lot of fun and captures the spirit of pirate radio in the modern age.

 

[potatoawards]

So theyre all connected but episodic

 

[Kushikime]

Thanks for the chapter and once again I really appreciate the notes - I know a lot of work goes into that

 

[zothique]

A couple asides on the technology this chapter.

Radio Caroline used a number of different transmitters over its history, but most of them were 10 kilowatts or up. Because of the (low) efficiency of the amplifiers needed to achieve that power at the antenna (aerial), the actual power requirement is several times that. So in addition to keeping a massive tube amplifier that was intended to be installed in a stationary building working on a rolling ship in a saltwater environment, the crews also needed to provide a good sized power generator just for the station electronics, and to keep its output steady in order to keep the signal from wobbling around the dial - the newbie being tasked with stabilizing the frequency is a nice reference to that. The output power to an antenna is so high that the conductors carrying the signal from the transmitter amplifier have to be a special design - usually like a giant coaxial cable - and any kinks in that can cause the conductors to heat up to the point where they start to melt. Touching those conductors when they're live is a really, really bad idea. Finally, if you've ever tried to move a turntable while it's playing... well, just don't do that - nothing good comes from it. So from that aspect, being a pirate radio ship wasn't really a cakewalk to begin with, even before having the authorities decide to make your life more difficult. And yet there were multiple stations that made the effort throughout the '60's and early '70's - Wikipedia has a list in case you're interested.

As for the records themselves, 45's come in two flavors. In North America, most of Continental Europe, and Japan, they were of the 'large' center hole variety, which was what was intended by RCA when they introduced the format in 1949. However, in most of the Commonwealth, Scandinavia and the Low Countries, and most of the Southern Hemisphere, 45's used the same smaller spindle hole that 78's and the (new for 1948) LP used when they were introduced (though in some cases, manufacturers in those countries would design the discs to have a 'punch-out' section that would make it compatible with large spindle gear, and some jukebox operators would build a custom 'dinking' rig to drill out the larger hole as needed). I am a bit surprised that Mr. Kezuka appears to have overlooked this, given his usual attention to detail, though there may be some other explanation - at any rate, it's a fairly minor point I didn't notice until my second read through the chapter.

Thanks as always for your excellent translation and notes, and for bringing us this series!

Oh, that's really cool! And it's really great just how much technical info is out there regarding the equipment and everything, in websites like the offshore radio museum and the pirate radio hall of fame. Though I personally haven't looked much into that aspect as it's beyond my capabilities. But they even got blueprints for some of the ships.

As for the size of the records, it might be that even though the shop is in Finland, they're imported? Wilco said he ordered them, which could be either. And it could just as well be an oversight I guess. It was nice learning about them though. And I don't remember them being explicitly mentioned, so I don't think they show up, but since I didn't know about them I hadn't been really paying attention to that before, who knows. But I know there's a small mention of cactus needles much later on.