[ARC5] Battle of Britain Radar

[Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS]

Hi Todd, et al,

I was fortunate enough to be TAD to RAF Mildenhall, in East Anglia, UK  during the shooting of the movie.  On our way "up to London" (don't know why it was "up to London", since we were NE of the city!)we would stop off in Cambridge to change trains.  The aerial scenes were filmed around RAF Duxford, now the Imperial War Museum/American Air Museum in Britain, and were fun to watch.

http://duxford.iwm.org.uk/
http://aam.iwm.org.uk/server.php?show=nav.00h

ARC-5/Boatanchor content:  The Duxford Radio Society (GB2IWM) has a nice display there, including lots of period radio gear to drool over.  The operators are a friendly lot and welcome you to their station.  The station is located in several of the historic buildings right on the flight line between the IWM and the American Air Museum site.

http://www.duxfordradiosociety.org/

Trivia:  The original/prototype CH radar operated on 6 MHz and was determined during the "Daventry Experiment" to be impractical, so they moved up to 20 to 30 Mhz (some articles say as high as 50.  But that was UHF at the time!!

73 de Tom/W4OKW


Tom Clarke
Wyle Labs,  Aeronautics
NATOPS Program Support Specialist
USN/USMC National Airworthiness Office
Naval Air Systems Command, AIR-4.0P
(301) 995-3793/DSN 995-3793
Fax: (301) 757-6599
Cell (301) 904-2053
frederic.clarke at navy.mil


-----Original Message-----
From: Todd, KA1KAQ [mailto:ka1kaq at gmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 11:51 PM
To: cosmoline at aa4rm.ba-watch.org
Cc: arc5 at mailman.qth.net; jfor at quik.com; milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [ARC5] RAT for ELINT

On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 10:19 PM, Marty
Reynolds<cosmoline at aa4rm.ba-watch.org> wrote:

> Baritish chain home ran on 15 meters.  120' wooden towers all along
> East Anglia (?) coast.

12m actually. The transmitters worked between 20-50mc but were used
mainly around 23-30. Amusing now to look at the S-27/36 covering only
to 144 or so and seeing it labeled as 'Ultra High Frequency' heh.
Chain Home Low was actually up in the 200mc realm. They even had Chain
Home Extra Low, can't remember if it was 400 or 600mc?

.Lotsa BIG towers, receiving towers were generally wood IIRC. When I
was looking into this stuff back in the 90s, there were only a few
(2-4?) of the metal towers left standing and I think one was coming
down soon due to rust. I hope they manage to preserve at least one,
such a legacy for the Brits.

> Some WW2 film showed "central" & the human-generated B-scope display
> on a huge table.  Echos pushed around with pool cue rakes.

Not sure if this is it, but The Battle of Britain from 1969 had some
shots like that, big board surrounded by a balcony with girls in
headphones sliding numbered blocks around to illustrate where enemy
aircraft were in what strength, and groups scrambled to intercept. My
favorite aerial flick, as they went out of their way to be accurate,
down to buying surplus Spanish Messerschmitt 109s and renting Spain's
HE-111s (albeit re-powered with Merlins) for the air combat scenes.
Plenty of Spits and Hurricanes as well. Nice re-creations of the
coastal radar stations too.

> Sure wud like to see techno detail someday.

One site I enjoyed visiting was called CHiDE or had that in the title.
Great folks who would answer questions and even email a specific shot
if needed. There's another called Subterranea(n?) Britannica with tons
of info including floor plans and copious amounts of photos. Also
several good books, all of which escape me at this point due to the
late hour. I remember one had a shot of Chain Home transmitting towers
on the cover, and I think one may have been called 'Wizard War' or
similar. If I remember, I'll look for them tomorrow and send you the
info. Right now, it's off to cut some z-z-z-z-zs.

~ Todd,  KA1KAQ/4