[ARC5] Battle of Britain Radar

Mon Jul 13 20:50:56 EDT 2009

Hi Folks,

 Also check out:

www.americanairmuseum.com

and the current password is :

 mustang

This whole endevour is well worth supporting and if you ever find 
yourself in England, a moving experience is to see the "wall" of names 
of aircrewmen lost in the ETO.

Jay

PS When I was in High School at West Essex Regional High in West 
Caldwell,NJ,I would pass by the east end of Caldwell Wright Airfield 
every day,to and from school. What was parked and weathering away in 
plain view of my wondering eyes?
  A B-25 bomber painted white with all the "blisters" replaced in clear 
bubbles and under the cockpit canopy was painted in block letters: "The 
Battle of Britain".This was a filming platform for the making of the 
movie.
 Gone now and maybe soda cans.

-----Original Message-----
From: Clarke, Tom AIR4.0P NATOPS <frederic.clarke at navy.mil>
To: Todd, KA1KAQ <ka1kaq at gmail.com>; cosmoline at aa4rm.ba-watch.org
Cc: arc5 at mailman.qth.net; milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
Sent: Mon, Jul 13, 2009 12:42 pm
Subject: Re: [ARC5] Battle of Britain Radar

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
I
mperial 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 (?) coa
st.

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=2
0or 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

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