Originally Posted by
RAFEngO74to09
First operational Radar I ever got inside of while doing the Pre Employment visit to operational sites during Trade Training in early 1985. When I was in the rotating cabin under the scanner, watching the North Norfolk landscape going around at 4 RPM out of the entrance, I noted that all of the tree tops (single trees and woods) seemed to be the same height. Having looked over a wood out of the bedroom window for the last 18 years, I thought that was a bit odd. 20 odd years later, I'm based at Tidytoliet and doing a bit of volunteer work at the Museum there. I get talking to one of the visitors and he mentions that he was a Tree Surgeon and he had noted that something in the area had been stunting the growth of the trees for some reason for between the mid 1960s and had then for some reason had stopped in the early 1990's. I told him it was most likely the Type 85 Radar based at Neatishead, cooking the tops of them. They had to put special filters in this thing when it was first built as it jammed the local ITV television stations when it was first operated. The Turning Gear bearings for it was still under formal RAF maintenance when I left the place in 2007. All of the timing, modulators, transmitters, receivers, signal processing and displays for it were ripped out in the early to mid 1990's when IUKADGE became operational.