BBC 2 : Castles In The Sky

[CoffmanStarter]

Just a heads up for those Members interested ...

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/corporate/images/width/live/p0/24/rl/p024rl4w.jpg/624

Castles in the Sky is the previously untold story of the fight to invent Radar by Scotsman Robert Watson Watt (Eddie Izzard) and a team of unproven and unknown British scientists.

The factual drama conveys the genuine human drama - of determination and genius versus establishment prejudice - behind the invention which was to prove decisive in the Battle of Britain.

Watson Watt’s ambition was initially dismissed by the Oxbridge-dominated establishment including Winston Churchill as “Castles in the Sky” while he and his fellow scientists, who were his meteorologist colleagues, were disregarded as a bunch of “weather men” from provincial universities.

More here ...

BBC - Castles In The Sky - Media centre (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/proginfo/2014/35/castles-in-the-sky)

Thursday 4 September 2014
9.00pm-10.30pm
BBC TWO BBC TWO HD

Let's hope the BBC do the story justice :ok:

Best ...

Coff.

[MPN11]

Thanks for the heads up - I shall try to stay awake that late :(

[smujsmith]

Cheers Coff,

All noted, could be interesting.

Smudge:ok:

[Madbob]

Just seen a trailer of this on the Beeb and it looks like a programme not to be missed. I wonder what mentions will be made of Bawdsey Manor and Orfordness?

We would all be speaking German now without the invention of radar and the warnings made it possible to scramble squadrons "as required" rather than having to maintain standing patrols which inevitably, 90% of the time would be in the wrong place at the wrong time and short of fuel.

One to record and enjoy again methinks.

MB

[air pig]

Madbob:

Also the ability and foresight of ACM (at the time) Dowding, to devise the fighter control system we still see today. A man who was cr****d on from a great height by RAF political machination.

[Robert Cooper]

Interesting squadron state board in the background of Coffs picture. When I was involved with the restoration of actual 11 Group ops center in the early seventies the station line up read:

Tangmere, Northweald, Hornchurch, Kenley, Biggin Hill, Debden, Nprtholt.

Bob C

[Coochycool]

The Scottish news just reported on the unveiling of what is unbelievably the first ever memorial to the man, erected in his home town of Brechin.

Sorry don't have a link but its a nice statue with him looking skyward with what looks to be a Spitfire in his hand.

Top job Bob.

[CoffmanStarter]

Coochycool ...

Here you go :ok:

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/74872000/jpg/_74872033_photo.jpg

Image Credit : BBC

More here ...

BBC News - Statue of radar pioneer Watson-Watt unveiled in Brechin (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-29037401)

[Coochycool]

Ah thanks Coffs.


If anyone's ever in the vicinity I can also recommend the Montrose Aviation Heritage Centre just 6 miles down the road.


At what was remarkably the UKs first military airfield.


And the cemetery on the edge of town is a veritable who's who of aviation pioneers going back to 1912.

[MPN11]

Thanks again for the nudge ... I shall be in a transit hotel near LHR tomorrow night, with an early taxi to Terminal 5. iPlayer time when I get home at the end of the month, I suspect.

[Onceapilot]

I shall certainly watch!
I like the statue. Well done to all involved!

OAP

[MAINJAFAD]

All the radar chain did was give initial warning and direction of the attack. Plus an estimate of the raid size and some indication of the mission of the raid (namely if the track was moving at high speed and high, it was most likely a fighter sweep). Of course this allowed the fighters on the ground to be scrambled or brought to cockpit readiness before the raid reached the coast and allowed them to get to altitude. But the majority of the intercept was controlled using ROC plots as neither of the Chain Home systems in use worked over land. Also neither CH or CHL worked down to the deck, so very low level raids were only detected by the ROC as they crossed the coast, fortunately only two Luftwaffe units specialised in low level attack and though they were successful against coastal targets, against deeper penetration targets they got a right royal shoeing by the fighter defences. The command and control system was indeed the real game changer and though called the Dowding system, the basic principles were drawn up by E B Ashmore, a RFC General in 1917 to defend against Zeppelins and Gotha bomber raids. This system then became the basis of the ROC tracking system. What Dowding did was streamline it (after the first Chain Home based exercise ended in complete failure) plus introduced the Filter system to correlate the multiple plots from each track plotted by multiple radars which overloaded the controllers (I think it was Keith Park who was Dowding's SASO at the time that came up with that idea). I bet none of that will be covered in this program. Of course Wattson Watt didn't invent radar (A German came up with the concept in 1904 and the US Navy and the Germans had working very short range pulse radars before the first British trial even took place (and all that did was prove that an aircraft (A Heyford) would reflect enough radio energy to allow it to be tracked at range by the vertical movement of a dot on an oscilloscope. The BBC transmitter used was CW and no ranging was possible)). What he did do was head the team that invented Air Defence primary radar, IFF/SSR and Airborne radar, plus push for the development of high power microwave valves, which of course lead to the Cavity Magnetron which or course was a war winning invention.

[CoffmanStarter]

For those Members interested ...

RAF Swingate Dover Kent "Hell-Fire Corner" WWII Chain Home Station ... what's left of it :(

Quite a few interesting pictures here from a Local History Group ...

RAF Swingate, Dover. (http://www.kenthistoryforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=4392.0)

Many will probably remember seeing the reconstructed four masts appearing in film "The Battle of Britain"

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-xi2-MdjS_Lo/UPhyTfl-TNI/AAAAAAAAErg/vd-ArB7DM9o/s1600/31.Radarstation3.jpg

WWII Chain Home RDF configuration ... I'm not certain this pic is of Dover but shows three of four Tx masts (left) and the four Rx masts (right).

http://spitfiresite.com/uploaded_images/rdf-chain-home.jpg

Coff.

PS. As a young Dover lad ... I had a ringside seat during filming :ok:

[Onceapilot]

Shame to belittle the efforts of early RADAR MJF. Surely, the work of these pioneers was of great value and, led to the developments and investment that produced further fruit? I understand though, if the thrust of the programme misses the important element of the ROC? As for Sir Keith Park?
Seems to me to have been a giant of a man!

OAP

[CoffmanStarter]

Agreed OAP ... Let's see how the BBC treat the subject ... Remembering that it's badged as "Factual Drama"

[Alber Ratman]

MJ was only pointing the shortfalls of the original systems and the fact that the principles existed in theory before being proven. Most things are evolution rather than revolution, and you got a wider view of the subject as a whole.

[MAINJAFAD]

Onceapilot & Coff

I've spent the majority of a now finished 30 years in the RAF working on the systems that were born out of what this program is about, know the history of most of it backwards and will no doubt watch this program with comments of 'Very well researched' and 'Bollc@cks, that's not how it happened at all' in equal measure. I don't see Dowding's name in the cast list, though hopefully he will get some small mention seeing he's the man who authorised the funding required set up the trials at Orfordness in the first place.

[rolling20]

which of course lead to the Cavity Magnetron which or course was a war winning invention.
It was a peace winning invention as well in the form of the microwave oven. It was discovered during trials of H2S radar that food nearby would warm up. This was caused by the cavity magnetron. Unfortunately ,as was the case in most of these things, the yanks developed it.

[MAINJAFAD]

Rolling 20

About the only place you will find a Magnetron in most countries is in a Microwave Oven. I can't think of any kit that the British Military have that still uses them bar what is at Spadeadam (the Russian stuff). It shouldn't have been a surprise to anybody that high energy radio waves cooked things, seeing that what Robert Watson Watt was first asked to find out was is a radio death ray possible. Skip Wilkins did the calculations that proved that it was, but not with anything close to the power output of the equipment available at the time. H2S may have cooked people on the ground, But I've seen footage of RDF mechanics picking up the bodies of dead birds laying at the base of Chain Home transmitter aerials and GCI antennas after picking a very bad place to roast overnight.

[tucumseh]

Indeed we do still use them, in prodigious quantities.

In one case, as the major user among about 13 countries who use the same kit, it falls to us to ensure the supply chain is sustained. To that end, the tube is second sourced to a Scandinavian company. It also falls to us to maintain the Environmental Test Chambers which have very restrictive rules about certification and calibration. (MoD owns them, not industry). They MUST be certified annually by the original manufacturer, which is increasingly difficult and expensive (and I'm sure is quietly ignored). About 22 years ago it was alarming to find the ETCs were mounted on wooden plinths which had all rotted. Thankfully, Merlin had forgotten to cost such testing (come on, TEST a radar? You must be joking) and were in a panic, so I "gifted" the facility to them and they coughed up to repair it. Better that than admit they'd built all this expensive kit that could not be certified for about 4 years. That's what happens when you do away with Requirement Managers posts and the Fire Control and Surveillance Radar IPT, disbanded in 1990!

[MAINJAFAD]

tucumseh

Not on any RAF ground kit in service that I know of since 1998 (bar Spadeadam), maybe a different story for the Navy, but I've never got chance to look at the radar office in any of the ships that I ever have been on (T22,T23,T42) to talk engineering of the kit on board.

[CoffmanStarter]

On balance I thought the programme was quite good and certainly worth watching. Yes I would have liked more on the technical background ... but that's just me I guess. Probably a bit rushed at the end in terms of integrating RDF into the Fighter Control infrastructure ... but it was badged as a drama and needed to be watchable/engaging for a majority.

I'm sure there were excerpts from the Battle of Britain film used in the making of this production :8

Here is the OU follow-up link ...

OU on the BBC: Castles in the Sky - OpenLearn - Open University (http://www.open.edu/openlearn/castlesinthesky)

Interesting info provided by the OU ... See ... Radar: What happened next?

Coff.

[BEagle]

Managed to mis-set my DVR timer - is the programme due to be repeated other than on that buffering iPla y er rubbish?

[Dengue_Dude]

Must admit I enjoyed it too.

[Tankertrashnav]

I still remember the H2S magnetron frequency was 9375 Mhz and the klystron frequency was 9330 Mhz giving a "working" beat frequency of 45 Mhz.

Buggered if I can remember my mobile telephone number :(

I found the programme a bit confusing at times. Why did Lindemann have Watson- Watt excluded from the ops room in the scene towards the end?

[Coochycool]

OK I'll bite first.


If I'd been married to a woman like that, our kids would have ended up talking German.




All sixteen of them..........

[air pig]

From what I have read Lindeman and Tizzard hated each others guts with a passion, come from the BBC book 'The Secret War' by Brian Johnson and R V Jones's book 'Most Secret War'


Would have been good at the end to fade from aa 1940 ops room to the present day at Scampton, maybe use the Battle of Britain documentary fronted by Colin and Ewan McGregor.

[Wander00]

IMHO a very well balanced programme which I enjoyed

[NutLoose]

My own feelings was he was excluded so they could bask in the limelight and take some credit for the work, that and some resentment that he was right.

Excellent show and Beags, one would imagine it will be on catch up, I checked, but it's probably to early for it to be listed.

That's two good new shows in one week, the other new one being about the beginnings of Chester Zoo.

[Steve the Pirate]

@ MAINJAFAD

But I've seen footage of RDF mechanics picking up the bodies of dead birds laying at the base of Chain Home transmitter aerials and GCI antennas after picking a very bad place to roast overnight.

A slip of the pen? :)

STP

[MAINJAFAD]

Steve

Damm Autochecker. Of course i mean roost, but of course they did a bit of roasting as well.

To be honest, too much drama, not enough factual (in fact quite a bit of it didn't happen like that at all). 10 out of 10 for showing Lindermann as a major hindrance, but that was at the start of the project. He was on the Tizard committee when it formed (he was put on it to keep Churchill quiet), but did nothing but rubbish RDF in an attempt get funding for his own pet projects (Aerial Minefields and Infrared detection). The other members of the committee bar Tizard, Lindermann and Rowe (who was the Secretary) resigned which allowed Tizard to disband and reform it without Lindermann. By the time this happened Watson Watt's team had already built a working system at Orfordness with a range of 80 miles and were well on the way to solving the problems that gave them the real headaches (bearing and height finding). As for bouncing signals of the ionosphere to increase range, totally boll@cks. Reflections off the ionosphere were a major problem with CH (it caused clutter) that required some careful design in radar operating parameters to overcome. By the end of 1935 the Air Ministry were totally committed on building the first 5 CH Stations starting at Bawdsey. As for the end part in the Ops room with an Operational Trial on the eve of the start the Battle of Britain? The first five stations were fully operational by the time of Munich, the command and control bugs were being ironed out (the filter room had just been installed at Bentley Priory and declared operational) and one of the first tracks ever plotted by the RAF C&R network was Chamberlain's aircraft outbound to Germany for his 'peace in our time; meeting with Adolf. Plenty of real operational radar controlled combat intercepts had been done before July 1940. Watson Watt wasn't cut out of anything, he became the director of Bawdsey and in 1938 was promoted to control development of the wider range of radio systems at the Air Ministry.

Ok, its a television drama designed for people that don't know the subject and technical issues don't make good drama and in that light, it does highlight what was done. Though the Telephone in the bucket of water bit wasn't done by Watson Watt, it was favorite of R V Jones. I think Peter Ustinov's 1946 film based on what TRE did from 1938 - 1945 is better, even with its 1940's stereotypes because most of what was shown on film actually happened.

[CoffmanStarter]

BEagle ...

Now up on BBC iPlayer :ok:

Coff.

PS. No buffering issues with Sky Anytime ...

[skua]

Beags
Don't get too excited - your favourite excerpt from the BoB film is not included!

[radar101]

I tend to agree with MAINJAFAD I spent most of the programme with my copy of Taffy Bowen's "Radar Days" open on my lap saying "but it didn't happen like that and, "b@llocks, they were given the valves - they did not steal them!!"


Still to the uninitiated it at least showed the birth of Chain Home / CHL.


Radar101

[Onceapilot]

To me, it was well acted but, like most tech/historic productions, a little dissapointing. Face the facts, impossible to do adequately?

OAP

[ORAC]

I have 5 radar history books I would recommend. The first is the most technical tome - and rarest. The last two are more historical reminiscences of operators. The last is a part of the history of RAF GCI little known, a mobile radar advancing through Normandy and France to the Rhine - sometimes finding themselves on a hilltop between the lines!

Technical History of the Beginnings of Radar; S.S. Swords, Peter Peregrinus Ltd on behalf of the Institute of Electrical Engineers. ISBN 0-86341-043-X

A Radar History of World War II - Technical and Military Imperatives; Louis Brown, Institute of Physics Publishing Bristol and Philadelphia. ISBN 0-7503-0659-9

The Invention that Changed the World; Robert Buderi, Simon Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81021-2

Radar - A Wartime Miracle; Colin Lataham and Anne Stobbs, Alan Sutton Publishing Ltd. ISBN 0-7509-1114-X

Off to War with "054", John Kemp, Merlin Books Ltd. ISBN 0-86303-459-4

[pontifex]

I thought it was good television drama with the added bonus that it featured a significant element in our history. Had it been truly factual and accurate the majority of viewers (at whom it was aimed) would have changed channels after ten minutes or so and nothing would have been gained. Even Mrs P, who cringes at anything aeronautical, (who can blame her?) thought it was watchable.

[cleanair]

Impressed once again by Eddy Izzard in a serious roll, and not a false eyelash or stiletto heal in sight!

Sadly I wish the writer, director and editor had put a little more effort into the historical accuracy of the whole story. People will be saying "it's just entertainment and not supposed to be an accurate account of history" however films and tv programmes do end up distorting the truth however unintentional.

As an example I was staying with friends in Las Vegas just after the film U571 came out on DVD. These friends are educated to phd standard and very successful business people.
We decided to watch U571 one evening which we thoroughly enjoyed as a piece of entertainment. Over a before bed tipple we were discussing the film when I mentioned that the film was in fact pretty inaccurate in the respect that it was the British who captured the enigma from U110 in 1941 and the polish had actually captured an earlier version several years beforehand.
My friend's reactions were complete disbelief and swore that nobody would be aloud to re write history in such a way. Fortunately my friends being in the IT business, they were already connected up to the Internet and used to doing research on the Web. The next morning at breakfast my friend apologised to me profusely for not believing what I had said about the film. In his embarrassment he took us out for a very nice lunch at the Bellagio.

[teeteringhead]

Ah the cousins' view (or Hollywood's) of WW2!

I seem to recall seeing a B of B scene in a US film - can't remember which one - where the "wonderful new radar" had PPI screens complete with rotating sweep, rather than the actual Chain Home displays comme ça:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Chain_Home_screen_shot_-NEDAD.2013.047.058A.jpg/220px-Chain_Home_screen_shot_-NEDAD.2013.047.058A.jpg

[ColinB]

I watched it for 5 minutes and switched channels I do not do docudramas but I do appreciate I am not a typical viewer. I would think that most viewers only vaguely knew about RDF and this was the background for a play.
I do hope the viewers who watched it all the way through enjoyed it and it makes them investigate the background of the drama further.

[tucumseh]

I thought it excellent. Well done the beeb.

Two things in particular. First, the human aspect; the long hours, forsaking family life for precious little reward or recognition. And not seeking it.

But I really liked the way they depicted the brainstorming sessions. The team voicing problems. Eddie's character not getting flustered, just noting, see the linkages and prioritising. That is the way it should be. Last time I managed a radar programme if anyone did that they were castigated by our mainly non-technical bosses as trouble makers. Thou shalt not notify risks. Carpeted and told to move on. It really IS a problem? Cancel, the programme. Guess who now runs DE&S! (The programme was successful because we just ignored management and disobeyed orders. Nimrod RMPA and Chinook Mk3 obeyed).


Oh, and glad to learn it wasn't just the RAF who stole kit from the RN! :ok:

[Courtney Mil]

Yes, I enjoyed it too.

From the OU: It's interesting to reflect that the Chain Home systems, if any were still operational, would have no difficulty at all in detecting the world's "stealthiest" aircraft...

Well, there goes F-35!

[MAINJAFAD]

The Invention that Changed the World; Robert Buderi, Simon Schuster. ISBN 0-684-81021-2

ORAC

The only one on the list that I have (I do have others like 'Watching The Sky') and I would totally recommend it. One of the things I found very informative from that book was not just the history about the Magnetron in my kitchen, but the research done in the development of the Silicon Crystal Diode for the receivers of microwave radar that led to the solid state electronics in all of the other electronic devices in the house. Also loved the story of how the term Ground Environment came about (as in SAGE, NADGE, UKADGE, etc.)

[ORAC]

MAINJAFAD, I would recommend all of them, but especially the last. It is short, but well worth the read. Copies available for around £10 inc. postage (http://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/isbn/9780863034596/).

[BEagle]

It always amused me in Dr No, that James Bond refers to the radar on the island as 'Type CH'. Chain Home? I don't think so.....:rolleyes:

[ORAC]

For those interested, The EF50, the Tube that helped to Win the War (http://www.dos4ever.com/EF50/EF50.html)

[tucumseh]

ORAC, thank you for that link. Excellent. I'd like to think some of those old companies still have a museum of sorts. Mullard were always proud of their heritage, and used to present outgoing MoD project managers with huge prints of a Lancaster with their radar fitted. Now Thales-owned, so I doubt if they even think of it. But the likes of Ferranti still have samples of all their designs.

It struck me that my first boss in MoD(PE) was one of the very young replacements in the wider team that succeeded Watson Watt's. I remember my interview board. One hour, 2 questions. Explain how a spin tuned magnetron works, and diagnose a fault in a double superhet by calculation, from a circuit diagram annotated with values.

I thought myself very lucky to get the job but boss was sensible enough to know MoD was moving away from expecting project managers to have done such things. All he knew was vacuum valves; I'd been taught valves and germanium, then something called silicon and then microcircuits had come along and we were snookered. Sobering to be reminded how incompetent I was compared to some real geniuses.

[CoffmanStarter]

ORAC ... Thanks for that ... a great find :ok:

Just a little side story ...

Whilst studying A Level Physics (2nd Year) as a young lad ... during one particularly long afternoon "treble" session on Thermionic Valve theory ... I asked our Physics Master when we might move on to Transistors ... after a very long stare from his elevated lab bench ... he pronounced ... "Young man, valves were good enough in helping to protect England during WWII, so they are good enough for you". That was me shot down in flames :uhoh:

Good old Mr Nicholls (aka "Kojak" ... but that's another [war] story how he got that nickname) ... He was a great teacher ... His Bible "A Level Physics by Nelkon & Parker"

We finally got around to studying Germanium Transistors ... but good old Mr Nicholls was most certainly a valve man :ok:

[radar101]

Re ORAC's "I have 5 radar history books I would recommend"


All good in their ways - the Colin Latham / Anne Stobbs book (one of 2 or 3 by them) is excellent if you know something about radar history as it comprises the words of the people involved.


I especially like Charlie Cox's view of the Bruneval Raid - especially his view of the quality of the Wurzburg: "I thought it was beautifully made, the way it all fitted together in units for easy servicing"

[Courtney Mil]

Valves are tougher (electrically) and easier to understand. But more tricky to build into a chip. Unless you like your chips fat, Coff. What's your favourite transistor? I always liked the BC108, but that was (I think) a step up from germanium.:E

[CoffmanStarter]

Courtney ...

I started with the AC126 (PNP Germanium) ... A bog standard amp transistor for audio applications ... also the AF116 (PNP Germanium) which I used for the Front End on a few Long Wave radio projects ... it had 4 wires :eek:

I think I also had a few BC109's (NPN) ... not built by Messerschmitt I might add :=

Great fun a long time ago ...

Best ...

Coff.

[radar101]

" I started with the AC126 (PNP Germanium)"


Yep, a good push-pull amp pair of AC126s gave 10W of power to boost my old Dansette record player to something audible for 60s music.

[CoffmanStarter]

Good man Radar101 ... Used to make bespoke Heatsinks in Metal Work too ;)

[Rosevidney1]

Poor old Watson-Watt was fined for speeding by the police using a radar 'gun'. Imagine his chagrin! He wittily penned this little piece:




Pity Sir Robert Watson-Watt,
strange target of this radar plot
And thus, with others I can mention,
the victim of his own invention.
His magical all-seeing eye
enabled cloud-bound planes to fly
but now by some ironic twist
it spots the speeding motoris
tand bites, no doubt with legal wit,
the hand that once created it.

[Molemot]

Orac....you swine...I've been reading your EF50 link for hours!!! That valve was part of my childhood; my father had been involved in radar in WW2 and built our first television, and EF50s were very noticeable...the "Pye Strip" from your link is very familiar. The first thing to appear on the magic screen was the last King's funeral, and we were very popular around the Coronation! The set itself was an agglomeration of chassis spread over a table, with no regard whatsoever for safety, everything was exposed....

Thanks to your link, a lot of knowledge gaps have been filled!!

[smujsmith]

Having watched it tonight, we recorded it last night, what a smashing piece of television it was. Apart from the technical excitement it seems to have generated, I can't help but reflect on how it seems to accurately reflect the attitude of the political class toward such developers, and the retrieval of the pen at the end indicative of how quickly you can be forgotten by such bar stewards. One we will keep and watch again, I still have the full series of Longitude, another good piece IMHO.

Smudge:ok:

[MAINJAFAD]

Likewise Orac, A great link. I've heard of TV's being built out of radar equipment post WWII. Didn't known that the heart of the 1.5 Metre Radar receivers actually came out of the TV's in the first place.

[MAINJAFAD]

It always amused me in Dr No, that James Bond refers to the radar on the island as 'Type CH'. Chain Home? I don't think so.....

Beagle, In fact its Felix Leiter (Jack Lord) that tells Bond that Dr No has a radar on his Island and its a 'Low Scan CH'. If he means Chain Home Extra Low, not exactly a large bit of kit and exactly the type of Radar that Dr No would actually need to use if he wanted to spot surface and airborne intruders out to about 20 miles.

http://media.iwm.org.uk/iwm/mediaLib/150/media-150076/large.jpg

CHEL

[CoffmanStarter]

Chain Home (CH) operated at around 20 MHz, Chain Home Low (CHL) at 200 MHz and Chain Home Extra Low (CHEL) at 3 Ghz I believe.

[ORAC]

The Radar Pages (http://www.radarpages.co.uk/index.htm)

Chain Home Low (http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/chl/chl.htm)

http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/images/type2chlm.jpg http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/images/type11m.jpg

Chain Home Extra Low (http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/chel/chel.htm)

http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/images/type13m.jpg http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/images/type14l.jpg

[BEagle]

Was it 'Felix Leiter'?

Apologies for memory lapse, my excuse being that my memories of Dr No are rather more about 'Honey Ryder'.....:ok: But those earlier Bond movies were so much better than the more recent attempts with their excessively gratuitous violence, total lack of humour and worst of all, that scowling lead character.

I watched Castles in the Air yesterday on iPlayer. Unfortunately my Internet-connected TV monitor doesn't provide a good enough PC picture with HDMI, so I have to use VGA, which stretches the image no matter how much I try to sort out the resolution. A good programme nevertheless and Eddie Izzard is as good in this as he was as Erich Fellgiebel in Valkyrie.

[Nugget90]

MAINJAFAD, I noted your observation that by the end of 1935 the Air Ministry was committed to building 5 Chain Home Stations at Bawdsey and then took a look at my father's Pilots Flying Log Book that covered this period.

He was in late 1936 a pilot on No 64 (F) Squadron flying Hawker Demons having recently returned from Mesopotamia where they had been evolving tactics designed to repel bomber attacks on the UK. (How's that for anticipation!?)

Specifically, on the 21st of December 1936 he flew K4509 for 1 hour and 30 minutes from Martlesham Heath, where the Squadron was based, via Shellness and Bexley on a task recorded as, "TACTICAL EXERCISE. Raid on London. Fog and Smoke". Then again on the 21st of January 1937, in K4509, "Raid on London. Thick cloud."

I shall never know, but they might just have been simulating a hostile raid for the benefit of the ROC and radar defences associated with the Air Defence of Great Britain.

He went on, later, to fly Hurricanes on authorised defence sorties in the BoB, but as he was at the time on the strength of No 9 Service Flying Training School, RAF Hullavington, which was not under the control of Fighter Command, didn't qualify for the Battle of Britain Clasp. Later, he flew Wellingtons from RAF Marham so his 1939-45 Star now bears the Bomber Command Clasp.

[RimBim]

Favourite transistor? OCP71 - the optical jobber. My dad could get dozens from work and we covered them with black bodge tape to make a more generally useful OC71. Could use them in just about everything a young lad wanted to make in Practical Wireless!
He taught Radar in REME towards the end of the War and later invented the siting unit for Swingfire when at Fairey's.

[Windy Militant]

I have a book I picked up second hand
Britain's Shield: Radar and the Defeat of the Luftwaffe by David Zimmerman (ISBN: 9781445600611) Which goes into the establishment of the whole of the system not just the radar technology, not a page turner but a very well researched and annotated book.
There's a small part of a Chain Home Lo station visible as you head West towards Portalbot on the M4. You can just see it from the motorway westbound just after the Margam Junction.
Subterranea Britannica: Sites: (http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites/m/margam/)

[goudie]

I know some of the CH stations took a battering but I'm surprised the Luftwaffe didn't make a concerted effort to knock them all out, with Stuka dive bombers.
Is there any record of the Luftwaffe's tactics re. the stations?

[Topcliffe Kid]

And vice versa RimBam, I remember scraping the tops of transistors (probably OC71s) to get photo electric effects. Had a Philipps Electronic Engineer set which started me on a life long (so far) interest and career in electronics!

[4mastacker]

Because I had been stationed there when it was still operating the T80 and home to the School of Fighter Control, a well -meaning aunt gave me a book written by Gordon Kinsey - Bawdsey:Birth of the Beam (ISBN 0-86138-105-X). It gives a very good account of the what happened at Bawdsey before, during and after Watson Watt's time. A lot of the content is based on the first-hand knowledge of people who were based there at various times. An very interesting and informative read.

[Hipper]

Valve, or tube, gear is highly thought of in high end Hi-Fi:


Unison Research Unison Research Preludio Integrated Valve Amplifier available from Vickers HiFi (http://www.vickershifi.com/Products/URPreludio)


Mullard valves are often used:


mullard tubes : mullardtubes.com (http://www.mullardtubes.com/About.aspx)


(NOS = New Old Stock)

[Danny42C]

Very watchable programme (and there aren't many of those around these days).

But please, BBC Producers, who told you that we all went around in those times wearing "trilbies" like that flat-brimmed job lot that some con-artist sold you for your Costume Department ? (and you're not alone: did Channel 4 borrow them for "Foyle's" War ? - and there are other offenders)

The brims look as if they've been starched and ironed (and are worn), so that none deviate more than 2 degrees from the horizontal, and you could cut yourself on the edges. Know now that trilbies were very popular, but they came in all sizes of brim, tilted to suit the wearer (down in front, up aft) was common, some floppy, some not. I myself had a soft, malleable, blue velour job (Dunn's Best) and thought myself no end of a dog with my elegant light blue raincoat with a kind of "Prince-of-Wales Check".

And bowlers were still common, and rakish panamas, and berets, and we of the lower orders wore "rat-catchers". It was considered polite to take your hat off indoors (unless you were a policeman or some other official, when you kept it on to preserve your authority).

As for the microwaves, by '55 (and possibly earlier) our GCA Radar mechs had found that, by inserting slices of bread into a section of a waveguide, very nice toast could be made.:ok:

[GreenKnight121]

Hence the first commercial microwaves being named "Radar Range".

Raytheon had invented the microwave oven in 1947

Percy Spencer, an engineer (radar tube designer) working for Raytheon durng WWII, invented the first microwave oven after World War II from radar technology developed during the war. Named the "Radarange", it was first sold in 1947. Raytheon introduced the commercial Radarange Model 1611 in 1954.

Raytheon later licensed its patents for a home-use microwave oven that was first introduced by Tappan in 1955, but these units were still too large and expensive for general home use. The countertop microwave oven was first introduced in 1967 by the Amana Corporation, which was acquired in 1965 by Raytheon.One day while building magnetrons, Spencer was standing in front of an active radar set when he noticed the candy bar he had in his pocket had melted. Spencer was not the first to notice this issue, but he was the first to investigate it. He decided to experiment using food, including popcorn kernels, which became the world’s first microwaved popcorn. In another experiment, an egg was placed in a tea kettle, and the magnetron was placed directly above it. The result was the egg exploding in the face of one of his co-workers, who was looking in the kettle to observe. Spencer then created the first true microwave oven by attaching a high density electromagnetic field generator to an enclosed metal box. The magnetron emitted microwaves into the metal box blocking any escape, allowing for controlled and safe experimentation. He then placed various food items in the box, while observing effects and monitoring temperatures.

Raytheon filed a patent on October 8, 1945 for a microwave cooking oven, eventually named the Radarange. In 1947 the first commercially produced microwave oven was about 6 feet tall, weighed about 750 lbs, and cost between $2,000 and $3,000. In 1967 the first relatively affordable ($495) and reasonably sized (counter-top) microwave oven was available for sale.

[FODPlod]

I appear to have something in common with other posters. A few years after my late father joined the RAF and won the war (the Japanese surrendered three days after he was sent to India but they left him out there for another 18 months just to make sure), he joined the Air Ministry and was somehow involved with land-based radar stations. Our family followed him around the country to live near West Prawle in Devon, St Margaret's Bay in Kent, Oxenhope Moor in Yorkshire and finally RAF Signals Command, Medmenham in Buckinghamshire. He also had reason to visit radar stations abroad and I'll never forget receiving a postcard from the Tiger Balm Gardens in Singapore. This programme motivated me to research the radar he worked on and I believe he must have been involved with the post-war ROTOR (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ROTOR) air defence system.

We also had a TV he built himself during the early 1950s using a lurid green light-emanating oscilloscope and were very popular with the neighbours. Having been among the first to learn about solid state circuitry at night school, he was headhunted by Boeing in 1965 whereupon we moved to Renton then Bellevue in Washington State. He died in 1992.

[teeteringhead]

Danny It was considered polite to take your hat off indoors (unless you were a policeman or some other official, when you kept it on to preserve your authority).

exactly so - as the poet Milligan put it (from American TV coppers one presumes): Why?

American Detectives
Never remove their hats
When investigating murders
In other people's flats.

P.S. Chinese Tecs
Are far more dreaded!
And they always appear
Bare-headed!

:ok:

[NutLoose]

The magnetron emitted microwaves into the metal box blocking any escape, allowing for controlled and safe experimentation. He then placed various food items in the box, while observing effects and monitoring temperatures.


As you are not supposed to put metallic objects in a microwave and I've heard of the Gold edging on a plate "fizzing", why does it not effect the metal box ?

[CoffmanStarter]

Nutty ...

Short answer ... Faraday and his Cage

Long answer (more technical) ...

It is not unsafe to put all metals in the microwave.

Metals in the Microwave (http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/08/why-you-generally-shouldnt-put-metals-in-the-microwave/)