Some people might be interested to see my father-in-law's take on the
birth of radar -- I sent him Graham's photo of the stone commemoration.
He was a technician with the new technology in the Royal Air Force
during the Second World War; I hope that no one objects to the
(friendly I am sure) reference to "Yanks".
Before I get on to his comments, he is interested in a C360 or 370 as a
small P & S digital machine. Has anyone any comments about these
little cameras?
Chris
> Radar was born on the Suffolk coast from which the pre-war CH Chain of
> stations was developed and in time to play a major part in the battle
> of Britain. One station was at Stoke Holy Cross just outside Norwich.
> Somewhere I have some rather poor photos taken with a girl friend's
> box Kodak. @ 360 ft and up a 'wooden' ladder. The top would/could sway
> 12ft.
>
> Sir Robert Watson-Watt of the National Physical Laboratory started in
> the early '30s to develop a 'death ray' - which was soon the be found
> impractical
>
> Initially a trial was held at the BBC TX at Daventry, and a response
> from a Heyford bomber was obtained on a 'scope. The experiment move
> to Orford Ness. Radar was originally RDF ie Radio Direction Finding.
> In 1936 the team moved to Baudsey Manor. By Aug '36 five CH stations
> were operational.
>
> NOTE for some reason the above was set to you unfinished and with a
> displaced line. ODD
>
> The Germans became aware something was afoot and a Graf Zeppelin hoved
> near Baudsey for the whole day trying to detect RDF signals. It was
> felt they were not successful.
>
> The whole operation was move to Worth Matravers near Swanage - in
> God's own county where there is a detailed museum. The work had a name
> change to TRE. The site was later deemed to be liable for damage by
> enemy action and was moved to Malvern.
>
> Things moved on swiftly to centimetre techniques - involving the
> Magnetron as the source of energy, and this IS something we did teach
> the Yanks Initially they were not very stable and was eventually
> solved by strapping adjacent oscillating chambers, and I think I have
> it correctly that Churchill let the Yanks in on the solution..
>
> From then on the list of developments became endless - IFF - H2S (of
> which I have a section of waveguide) AI - GEE - OBEO etc etc plus
> Navy and Army equipment.
>
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
www.threeshoes.co.uk
homepage.mac.com/zuiko
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