[SOC] Book of Sea Stories, "Sparks, what's going on?"

[Richard Brunner]

I recomment this book highly.  I was one of the reviewers correcting
German/French/Italian/etc English into English English.  Most are pretty
funny, and all are interesting.

For more information and ordering directions, go to http://www.seefunker.de
and click on "Sparks what's going on?"  Then click on the German or English
flag at the right. (your choice of language)
________________________________________________________________________

On February 1'st, 1999, radio-telegraph service on board ships was ended.
 The radio officers were no longer needed and left the ships, and the
 majority of coast-stations stopped their services. The grand era of the
 transmission of messages by Morse code had lasted almost 100 years .

 Former German ship's radio officer Sylvester F�cking (DH4PB) distributed
700
 copies of his CD-album "Radio Telegraphy Worldwide News."  In many letters
 the OM's confessed that they listened to the recordings with "tears in
their
 eyes," and  raved about the tremendous periods of this profession.

 To prevent oblivion of a total profession, he - together with ex-colleagues
 Rolf Marschner (DL9CM) and (Dutchman) Hans Polak (NL 9694 and ex-PCH)
 collected funny, sad and unbelievable stories of colleagues from all over
 the world to publish them - after 1� years -   in a book, titled:

 "Sparks what's going on?"

 In 300 pages, A5 format, 64 colleagues from 20 nations tell more than one
 hundred, partly illustrated, stories in the English language.
 For examples, there is the partly illustrated story of "Disaster Hinnerk,"
 "Legendary Tugboat Captain Kalkman," "Radio officer with a Service
Bicycle,"
 "Football on Ice," "Stool Samples in Jam Pots," "Parrot Smuggle," "Drive by
 Taxi to the "Consulate," "The good old Goldfranc," "A Canary Saved  from
 Distress," "About the "Schlackertaste" (Vibroplex)," and many dramatic and
 funny stories of life at sea and at the coastal stations.

 There is something for everybody - perhaps self-experienced - and for EUR
 13.00 (+ postage and packing) really affordable.

 The publishing of this book is on a non-profit basis, and the authors
 willingly declined the author's fee. However, we will make a gift:  This
 gift may be done to preserve the memory of sea-wireless radio, i.e. to a
 museum or another means of preservation concerning radio communication at
 sea, or radio officer's lives.

 The book will be issued on the 50'th anniversary of the
 "Seefunkkameradschaft Bremen", on August 30th, 2003.

 Information: www.seefunker.de