QUOTE:
Anyway back to the weather ‘broadcast’. Each station ops room had a teleprinter which was updated every 5-minutes with the actual weather observations from the stations above so that if the weather closed in a quick glance at the TP print-out would show which alternative airfields were available with better weather in the Sector.
The Ops room at each airfield had a time to enter the current weather so for example Biggin Hill would enter its weather at 5 and 35-minutes past the hour, North Weald at 10 and 40-past and so on. The Metropolitan Sector Controller in his HQ at Kelvedon Hatch had a repeater chattering away with the latest weather as entered by the individual airfields so he was able to see whether the weather was deteriorating in any particular airfield and could advise the aircraft airborne and under his control accordingly.
That is not to say that every base reported the weather every five minutes ....which would need TWO Met Observers working almost full time. I write as an ex-observer, amongst other job descriptions.