[Milsurplus] Robert Watson-Watt and British Radar, The Wizard War
Mark K3MSB
mark.k3msb at gmail.com
Mon Mar 25 21:25:52 EDT 2019
Just finished "Castles in the Air" on Amazon Prime. Good movie.
Mark K3MSB
On Mon, Mar 25, 2019 at 7:49 PM Ron.K3PID <ron.k3pid at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I was on a cruise ship for most of March and read "Between Silk and
> Cyanide : A Codemaker's War, 1941 - 1945" by Leo Marks... Now about
> finished with "The Wizard War : British Scientific Intelligence, 1939-1945"
> by R. V. Jones. *Both excellent reads*. An interesting (and relevant)
> note referred to the capture of the first Würzburg Radar. The allies
> commented on the excellent engineering and craftsmanship that went into the
> equipment but were equally dismayed at the lack of technical training of
> the operators. At a post war conference it was stated that the equipment
> had to be well built and easy to operate because Hitler had banned amateur
> radio and the military had a hard time finding recruits with even a basic
> knowledge of radio.
>
> Ron K3PID
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Dinsmore
> Sent: Monday, March 25, 2019 12:46 PM
> To: milsurplus at mailman.qth.net
> Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] Robert Watson-Watt and British Radar,The Wizard
> War
>
> Thanks for the nice review Dave. I watched it last night also.
>
> I recently borrowed a library book; "The wizard war : British scientific
> intelligence", 1939-1945 R. V. (Reginald Victor) Jones, wherein the author
> refers to "the battle of the beams." Fascinating read about radar
> development, detection and countermeasures, along with the inter-agency
> struggles and more.
>
> Mark
>
> On 3/25/19, 7:01 AM, "David Olean" <k1whs at metrocast.net> wrote:
>
> 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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