Many moons ago I owned a Cessna 172 and I fitted a Philips Decca Navigator. I certainly remember "chain shift" along with "slaves and masters". In retrospect - very antiquated but in its day was regarded as a reasonably reliable adjunct to VFR navigation. Brought new meaning to the acronym DME. Had a very interesting whip antenna – I frequently had sarcastic comments from fellow pilots to the effect - “What’s yer nine good buddie?”
You'd certainly have to put some pennies in the meter to get a signal nowadays.
Nice period piece. Just see one bowling up to The Antiques Roadshow with a well-kept version. Horatio Ponsenby Smythe, the aviation collectables expert would state something like "stamps were issued to commemorated the 50th anniversary of the first use of the Decca Navigator QM system on June 6, 1944" " Do you realise that this would fetch over 50 quid at auction?"
One would step back in amazement, uttering - “of course it’s not for sale……..”
