[Milsurplus] Robert Watson-Watt and British Radar

[David Olean]

i watched the movie on Amazon Prime late last night. It seems that those 
TU units were everywhere! I saw the same ones in many scenes but in 
various mock-ups. It reminds me of the WW2 B-17 movie where the 
directors had three B-17s available so they paraded them across the 
screen to make those three look like a squadron. One trick was applying 
different nose art to the planes so the viewer thought it was a 
different airplane each time it came into view!

I saw a few HROs including a nice scene of the back side of an HRO with 
lighted filaments. You could clearly see the printed labels on the cans: 
First IF, 2nd IF etc. all while the actors are raising the RADAR output 
power to 350  KW.  There were a few VTVMs and power units on display. 
All in all, I enjoyed the film, but wish that there would be a motion 
picture that told more of the story of RADAR development.  I would have 
thrown in a few VT-127s or even 100THs as well.

Rather than pay attention to RWWs love life for added suspense, there 
was plenty of suspense as Europe fell and the U-boats effects increased 
up thru about 1943. Britain was hanging on by a slender thread.  The 
Tizzard mission to the USA was a huge event and all of the intrigue 
between the allied powers as they mapped out a path to victory makes for 
plenty of suspense. I believe it was Taffy Bowen who accompanied the 
magnetrons and other inventions when they went across the sea to the USA.

Anyway, a very enjoyable film for me as it was. The Chain Home system 
was quite effective and completed in the nick of time.  A movie about 
its' development was a great subject in any event. Most viewers never 
heard of it I am sure.

Dave K1WHS


On 3/25/2019 1:19 AM, Mark Dinsmore wrote:
> The movie is available on Amazon Prime Movies, free with Prime membership... Planning on watching it this evening.
>
> -Mark
>
> On 3/24/19, 6:11 PM, "milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net on behalf of Kenneth G. Gordon" <milsurplus-bounces at mailman.qth.net on behalf of kgordon2006 at frontier.com> wrote:
>
>      Well, I just took another look on-line for the movie I and my Wife watched yesterday entitled,
>      "Castles in the Sky". Apparently, there is a Japanese film entitled "Castle (singular) in the
>      Sky" which "confuses" any search engine for the British film.
>      
>      Anyway, as I mentioned here yesterday, who ever built the sets for the British film had quite
>      a collection of WWII (and later) U.S.military equipment.
>      
>      Closeups of the electronic gear that Watson-Watt and his team were using included more
>      than one BC-191/375 tuning unit built into the equipment racks, AND at least one BC-348
>      mounted in the middle of a large bit of rack-panelling.
>      
>      Then there was the HRO receiver, quite obviously but recently completely restored to like
>      new, sitting on a table while the actors were engaging in some sort of conference.
>      
>      I wish I could re-watch the entire movie with the capability of stopping action in various
>      places just to see what other bits of electronic gear I would find.
>      
>      Has anyone else here seen this movie? What did you notice about the gear?
>      
>      Overall, I suppose the movie would be interesting to some of the
>      less-than-electronically-aware folks who see it. It was interesting, but not as "in-depth" as I
>      would have liked to see.
>      
>      Even so, I think it is well-worth seeing by some of us.
>      
>      Ken W7EKB
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