Collected light dues

John Watson of Broughty Ferry expands on yesterday’s piece about lighthouses. “The commissioners of the Northern Lighthouse Board have never been responsible for the lighting and buoying of the Tay Estuary,” he says, “although it does do an annual inspection of them.

“That task was made formal by a Royal Charter granted to the Fraternity of Masters and Seamen in Dundee in 1774. For some time afterward it collected light dues from ships visiting Dundee in order to perform its mandatory duties. Its operating company was Trinity House Dundee.

“The power to light and buoy the Tay is still with the Port of Dundee Limited as far as I am aware.

“The Buddon High Light has a claim to fame that has never been broadcast. During the 1980s radar surveillance of ports was being introduced to add another aid to increase the safety within a port’s limits. Dundee Port Authority explored the possibility and concluded in 1988 that the installation of micro wave links was not affordable, the cost estimated at £350,000 at the time.

“By chance, Captain George Dobbie, harbourmaster at Dundee, heard of an experiment being conducted in Liverpool by an electronics company. Radar signals were sent down a telephone line using a yacht radar transmitter on the Isle of Anglesey linked to a receiver in the Mersey docks and harbour office in Liverpool.

“George and I met Bill Mullarkey, the leader of the experiment, which led to the board of Dundee Port Authority agreeing to fund the installation of a prototype surveillance system where the radar signal would be transmitted from the Buddon High Light and sent down a landline from Barry Buddon to the port control office in Dundee.

“The system took about 18 months to perfect and I demonstrated it at a conference in Vancouver in 1992 where the port of Dundee was seen by delegates in real time on a radar receiver screen, carried in a small suitcase, that was linked by telephone to Dundee Port.

“The installation and development of the system was achieved for under £50,000.”

“We’ve recently been getting visits from the local goldfinches,” says Ken Morris of St Andrews, “and I caught this one on the feeder the other day.”