Primary radar systems at British airports.

[Mooncrest]

It's been a few years since this was discussed.
At Leeds Bradford the 1989-vintage Plessey Watchman is still turning and doing the business. I believe its had a few upgrades and tweaks over the years, some very recent. As far as I know, none of the NATS airfields are still using the Watchman but I think Newcastle and East Midlands still have their Marconi S511s. Built to last ?

[Glamdring]

Still got a Watchman at EGPH. Although there is a Terma SCANTER 4002 which has been under trial for a year and I think the eventual plan is for this to replace the Watchman.

[Mooncrest]

Thankyou Glamdring. I thought the Edinburgh Watchman might have gone during the NATS era but obviously not. I haven't heard of the Terma SCANTER model before. Must investigate. I know Thales and Raytheon primary radars are a popular choice for new installations these days.

[chevvron]

Thankyou Glamdring. I thought the Edinburgh Watchman might have gone during the NATS era but obviously not. I haven't heard of the Terma SCANTER model before. Must investigate. I know Thales and Raytheon primary radars are a popular choice for new installations these days.
I wouldn't call the Raytheon ASR10 'popular'; it's rubbish compared with the Watchman but the problem is, the users (radar controllers) don't have any say if the airport they work at decides to buy one.

[Simtech]

Newcastle has a Thales STAR 2000 PSR and a Terma SCANTER 4002 as a windfarm infill radar. I think that East Midlands still has the S511 - a replacement/update was mooted some time ago but I don't know if a decision has been made. They also use an Aveillant Theia 16A for windfarm mitigation.

[ZOOKER]

East Mids' even have their own wind farm too.

[Simtech]

East Mids' even have their own wind farm too.

I was born and brought up not far from EMA, and went to school in Spondon, the location of the windfarm that requires the mitigation radar.

[Mooncrest]

I wouldn't call the Raytheon ASR10 'popular'; it's rubbish compared with the Watchman but the problem is, the users (radar controllers) don't have any say if the airport they work at decides to buy one.

I don't mean popular as in well-loved but rather the one everyone goes for, for some indeterminate reason. What's the problem with the ASR10, compared to the Watchman and the S511 ?

[Mooncrest]

Newcastle has a Thales STAR 2000 PSR and a Terma SCANTER 4002 as a windfarm infill radar. I think that East Midlands still has the S511 - a replacement/update was mooted some time ago but I don't know if a decision has been made. They also use an Aveillant Theia 16A for windfarm mitigation.

Obviously I am behind the times. Most pictures of Newcastle Airport I have seen have the S511 lurking in a corner. When did they get the Thales ?

I've seen a few pictures of the Terma Scanter now but the Aveillant is another new one on me.

Leeds Bradford is surrounded by windfarms but there's no obvious extra piece of equipment for windfarm mitigation. The Watchman was 4G-proofed some years ago and a new data processor came along in 2016. I don't know if the latter has dealt with the windfarm issue though.

[Simtech]

'Twas in 2016...

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/drone-footage-captures-installation-high-11481086

[Mooncrest]

'Twas in 2016...

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/drone-footage-captures-installation-high-11481086

Thankyou Simtech.

[NorthSouth]

Still got a Watchman at EGPH. Although there is a Terma SCANTER 4002 which has been under trial for a year and I think the eventual plan is for this to replace the Watchman.Well it's not really a Watchman. It's a Watchman antenna but the electronics were all replaced some years ago with the Sensis SPE 3000 transmitter etc, turning it into what is called an NASR10. Glasgow and the wind farm mitigation radar at Kincardine are the same configuration.

The only other remaining S511s are at Prestwick (which is another hybrid
- basically S511 electronics with a Watchman antenna) and the MoD range at Manorbier in Wales.

[Mooncrest]

So Newcastle and Inverness have the Thales. Anyone else ? The Raytheon ASR10 seems to be the other new generation machine.

Interesting to read about these hybrid Watchman and Marconi mash-ups. I know this used to go on some years ago, e.g. the Cossor ACR6 becoming an EN4000 or something like that. Probably companies like Selex and MARIS get involved. How does an operator gain approval to commission a hybrid radar ?

Did Ronaldsway ever get their Watchman replacement off the ground ?

[chevvron]

I don't mean popular as in well-loved but rather the one everyone goes for, for some indeterminate reason. What's the problem with the ASR10, compared to the Watchman and the S511 ?

Holes.
Whereas the Watchman has Adaptive MTI and thus 'cancels' just non-moving objects and slow moving weather returns, the ASR 10 we had at Farnborough relied not only on cancelling non-moving objects but also on designating areas of the radar where the threshold speed was adjusted to cancel out unwanted moving objects too. A prime example is the Hogs Back upon which the A31 road runs. With Watchman and its predecessors you could see road traffic on it and you got used to it; they were only tiny 'blips' anyway, but the ASR10 displays a much larger processed symbol and has this whole area cancelled by a threshold speed of supposedly 50kts rather than the 30kts around the rest of the picture; all I know is anyone flying a slow moving aircraft or doing training or aeros in this area doesn't show at all on primary radar. A similar effect occurs in several other places, plus of course the setting up PEs have to be in an area where the threshold speed is set to zero.
Unless you had worked with the AR1 and Watchman at Farnborough, you wouldn't realise there are holes, but they are definitely there.
Never seen an S511 picture so I don't know what it would be like.

[Simtech]

I understand that all the Watchman radars at MOD sites will be replaced by Thales equipment (possibly the STAR 2000NG) as part of Project Marshall, the modernisation/update programme for military ATC.

[NorthSouth]

Thales STAR-2000s at Newcastle, Inverness, Manston [since withdrawn], Belfast International, Cardiff, Oxford, Guernsey, Birmingham, plus 20 at RAF and other military units, first one now in place, others being installed up to 2021.

Isle of Man has a Leonardo (formerly Selex) ATCR-33S. Commissioned Sept 2017. Other ATCR-33s at Southend, Bristol, Belfast City, Bournemouth and Newquay. Plus an ATCR-44 at Warton.

[NorthSouth]

Re chevvron's "holes", quite apart from the different MTI threshold speeds, this is an inevitable consequence of replacing raw video display radars like the Watchman with plot-extracted radars. The former will display anything deemed to be a valid plot on first scan; the plot-extracted radars have to see a plot on at least three consecutive scans before they'll display it. For things like gliders that may appear fleetingly on only one scan, this inevitably means the newer radars will be giving a lot less information on this type of target to controllers. For those providing ATSOCAS that can be a significant concern.

It will be particularly interesting to see how the RAF deals with this issue with their shiny new STAR-2000s.

[Mooncrest]

Might be an idea for LBA (and anyone else who still has one) to hang on to their Watchman for a while longer, or at least until the 'holes' get filled in.

[cossack]

Leeds Bradford is surrounded by windfarms but there's no obvious extra piece of equipment for windfarm mitigation. The Watchman was 4G-proofed some years ago and a new data processor came along in 2016. I don't know if the latter has dealt with the windfarm issue though.
Its been a while since I've been there but since LBA is pretty much on top of a hill, are the wind farms nearby effectively below the radar's field of view?

[PDR1]

I understand that all the Watchman radars at MOD sites will be replaced by Thales equipment (possibly the STAR 2000NG) as part of Project Marshall, the modernisation/update programme for military ATC.

Are you certain about that? From what I remember the Marshall budget wasn't anywhere near enough to replace all the primary radars along with all the other stuff that it had to cover.

PDR

[Mooncrest]

Its been a while since I've been there but since LBA is pretty much on top of a hill, are the wind farms nearby effectively below the radar's field of view?

The windfarm at Ovenden Moor is the largest and most obvious (I can see it from my home in Yeadon). I don't know its elevation but it can't be far off LBA's elevation of 682ft, if not higher.

[Simtech]

Are you certain about that? From what I remember the Marshall budget wasn't anywhere near enough to replace all the primary radars along with all the other stuff that it had to cover.

PDR
As far as I am aware, yes. The replacement program is scheduled to run until 2021 and involves the supply of 20 PSR and 4 SSR systems.

[Nobodys Desk]

The PSR at Prestwick is an EN4000, as NorthSouth correctly pointed out, a hybrid Watchman but it is being replaced by a Terma Scanter 4002. This has been on site for over a year but hasn't been flight trialed yet.

[Mooncrest]

I noticed on eBay yesterday a couple of radar heads for sale, a Watchman and a Raytheon. Both, apparently, unused. I think I'll pass !

Is there any market for used S-band radars or do they end up in the scrapyard ? I often wonder what happened to the old ACR430 that graced Leeds Bradford for more than twenty years. The Watchman has outlived it by some margin.

[chevvron]

I noticed on eBay yesterday a couple of radar heads for sale, a Watchman and a Raytheon. Both, apparently, unused. I think I'll pass !

Is there any market for used S-band radars or do they end up in the scrapyard ? I often wonder what happened to the old ACR430 that graced Leeds Bradford for more than twenty years. The Watchman has outlived it by some margin.
Better tell Talkdownman about those radar heads; they're always searching for spare parts for Lasham Radar.
By the way, the '430 is X-band (3cm) not S-band (10cm)
From memory, the 430 head was not dissmilar to the Watchman head, the difference being the 'guts'.
The 430 was a development of the 424/ACR7 which in turn was a development of a shipboard radar; the 424 only had a 'pencil' beam whereas the 430 had a pencil beam and a 'cosecant squared' beam same as the Watchman.
The 430 operated on a pulse generated by a klystron or magnetron whereas the Watchman used a 'Travelling Wave Tube' or 'twit'.
The 430 had no MTI, the Watchman had 'Adaptive MTI'.

[Mooncrest]

There was a Decca 424 at Leeds before the 430. It ended up at Brough.

Would Raytheon and Watchman spares be any good for a 424 ? It used to be Ford Anglia belts that were sought after !

[chevvron]

There was a Decca 424 at Leeds before the 430. It ended up at Brough.

Would Raytheon and Watchman spares be any good for a 424 ? It used to be Ford Anglia belts that were sought after !

From what TDM tells me, it's valves they're short of; but then none of you lot probably knows what a thermionic valve is.

[Mooncrest]

I do not but I guess it's heat-related. And a valve.

[aterpster]

From what TDM tells me, it's valves they're short of; but then none of you lot probably knows what a thermionic valve is.

My TV set used to have about 24 of them.

[NorthSouth]

The PSR at Prestwick is an EN4000, as NorthSouth correctly pointed out, a hybrid Watchman but it is being replaced by a Terma Scanter 4002. This has been on site for over a year but hasn't been flight trialed yet.Oh so have they now decided that the Scanter will do the full job, without a replacement for the EN4000? I understood there was some doubt about providing the service with a radar that only has a range of 40nm

[NorthSouth]

Are you certain about that? From what I remember the Marshall budget wasn't anywhere near enough to replace all the primary radars along with all the other stuff that it had to cover.Ha ha that's a good one! NATS sign up to a contract that doesn't cover its costs? I would have thought £1.5 billion would just about cover it. But they're already way behind the contracted schedule and not getting any quicker.

[NorthSouth]

The windfarm at Ovenden Moor is the largest and most obvious (I can see it from my home in Yeadon). I don't know its elevation but it can't be far off LBA's elevation of 682ft, if not higher.Ovenden is visible on the LBA Watchman and is not mitigated.

[Mooncrest]

Ovenden is visible on the LBA Watchman and is not mitigated.

Interesting. Perhaps windfarms aren't an issue round here. However I don't work in ATC so I don't know for certain.

[chevvron]

I do not but I guess it's heat-related. And a valve.

Valves were what made 'steam' radios work. They were superseded by transistors in the early '60s and they have now been pushed aside by silicon chips.
Y'know those documentaries about the Bombes used to make Enigma decoding work? Did you see those funny shaped glass things like lightbulbs inside the Bombes?
They are valves.

[ZOOKER]

A fascinating discussion indeed, I wonder how much 'Radar Theory' is included in modern APS/ACS courses?

[Eric T Cartman]

@ ZOOKER
Who can forget John Townsend's erudite explanations of tangential fade & associated equations ? ;-)

[Talkdownman]

@ ZOOKER
Who can forget John Townsend's erudite explanations of tangential fade & associated equations ? ;-)
...and his Sine Wave 'soft-shoe-shuffle'...

JT got a lot of radar theory across to a lot of students who wouldn't otherwise have got it! Most memorable and entertaining! I owe JT...

[ZOOKER]

I think many of us do TDM. Always enjoyed his lectures, and using a primary-only fluoride radar was one of the most satisfying aspects of the job.

[Mooncrest]

Is a fluoride radar a green monochrome display, as opposed to an orange one ? They once had those at Blackpool, Stansted and Birmingham (Ferranti ?), as I recall, probably fed by any number of primary radar heads.

[Talkdownman]

Is a fluoride radar a green monochrome display, as opposed to an orange one ?
Our (https://atchistory.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/424_1.jpg) Decca 424 was orange. We have succumbed to flat screens now. I understand the old 1950s kit has gone to the Plessey museum on the IOW. The fluoride had lost almost all of its persistence towards the end. We were vectoring fast-decaying pin-heads.

[Mooncrest]

Our (https://atchistory.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/424_1.jpg) Decca 424 was orange. We have succumbed to flat screens now. I understand the old 1950s kit has gone to the Plessey museum on the IOW. The fluoride had lost almost all of its persistence towards the end. We were vectoring fast-decaying pin-heads.

Radar out !

[Mooncrest]

By the way, I do like the loudspeakers in the bottom right corner of your picture. They look the same as those in the Leeds Bradford tower between 1967 and 1986. Love the old kit, e.g. Pye Tulip microphones, Astrolite headsets and so on.

[Talkdownman]

Yeah, the Pye Tulip got very floppy, especially by the time we got to 2 miles...quite theatrical really...not enough hands...

Eight point three has meant that the chunky old speakers and solid SPST switches have had to go. Now everything is 'touch display' with all channels piped through one speaker. All very pretty, but all the tactility has gone.

[Mooncrest]

Yeah, the Pye Tulip got very floppy, especially by the time we got to 2 miles...quite theatrical really...not enough hands...

Eight point three has meant that the chunky old speakers and solid SPST switches have had to go. Now everything is 'touch display' with all channels piped through one speaker. All very pretty, but all the tactility has gone.

The price of progress I suppose, although I hadn't expected 8.3khz to find its way to airport and airfield RT just yet.

[chevvron]

The price of progress I suppose, although I hadn't expected 8.3khz to find its way to airport and airfield RT just yet.

I'm afraid it has; Farnborough tower was 122.5 and is now 122.780.
Big thread on www.forums.flyer.co.uk

[ZOOKER]

Mooncrest, I think you're correct about the displays being green monochrome, but having orange filters over them. Even the processed Plessey 22" 'flat-tops' we had at 'CC were like that too, they even had cursor lines and a rotating bearing-ring. Vectoring was a bit like driving a bus!

[Mooncrest]

[QUOTE=ZOOKER;10030121]Mooncrest, I think you're correct about the displays being green monochrome, but having orange filters over them. Even the processed Plessey 22" 'flat-tops' we had at 'CC were like that too, they even had cursor lines and a rotating bearing-ring. Vectoring was a bit like driving a bus![/QUOT

Sounds like fun. The monochrome displays initially used at LBA with the Watchman also had the rotating ring thing. They were upright...sitting on borrowed canteen tables!

[FragRad]

The new 'all processed' radar systems all seem to be giving problems at airfields providing services outside CAS. In the Isle of Man (Ronaldsway) a Selex ATCR-33S PSR was installed in 2011 together with a Wide Area Multilateration Mode-S SSR. It only became operational towards the end of 2017, with several limitations imposed on services outside CAS, compared with the Watchman which remains on standby.

[chevvron]

Is a fluoride radar a green monochrome display, as opposed to an orange one ? They once had those at Blackpool, Stansted and Birmingham (Ferranti ?), as I recall, probably fed by any number of primary radar heads.

When Farnborough re-equipped with Cossor Compass 9000 displays in about 1981 they were delivered with green phosphor tubes. On trialling one we quickly found it was totally unsuitable for our purposes as there was no 'afterglow' ie the blips didn't leave a 'tail' on the radar. They would have been ideal for processed radar but we only had the real thing.
The Farnborough head Techie (who of course knew nothing about how ATC was actually done) had apparently ordered these because their projected life was longer than orange phosphor tubes.
We managed to get Cossor to swap them but they weren't too happy about doing it and I'm sure we had one or two tubes which were second hand because thay already had 'burn' marks on them from a video map which definitely wasn't ours.

[ZOOKER]

Mooncrest,
I remember doing a liaison visit to LBA.....We came via Pole Hill, by road, and took pictures of the DVOR on the way. The VCR was functioning normally, but Approach was being 're-furbished'.....Everything was balanced on card-tables, with lots of exposed wires hanging out of things.......Early 1980s.

[Mooncrest]

Mooncrest,
I remember doing a liaison visit to LBA.....We came via Pole Hill, by road, and took pictures of the DVOR on the way. The VCR was functioning normally, but Approach was being 're-furbished'.....Everything was balanced on card-tables, with lots of exposed wires hanging out of things.......Early 1980s.

That might have been a bit later than you think ZOOKER. When I first visited LBA tower in the summer of 1988 the radar room had only recently been commissioned and much of the equipment was sitting on tables. Two years later a proper job was done and the tables were gone. Since then radar has undergone another refurb with new processing systems and large flat Dell PC monitors for the radar displays. It's very swish. I think there is a time-lapse video of the installation on YouTube.

[ZOOKER]

You may be correct Mooncrest.

I took a couple of Kodachrome slides which will have the processing date on them, (granted, not the month of the visit)....If I can find them, I'll report back.

[Mooncrest]

You may be correct Mooncrest.

I took a couple of Kodachrome slides which will have the processing date on them, (granted, not the month of the visit)....If I can find them, I'll report back.

Jolly good.

[ACW VGL]

Can any of you tell me what the Primary and Secondary Surveillance Radars are at Warton? I believe the PSR is a Marconi S511 but no idea on the SSR.

[chevvron]

Can any of you tell me what the Primary and Secondary Surveillance Radars are at Warton? I believe the PSR is a Marconi S511 but no idea on the SSR.

If it's still in use, I believe they had the SSR fed in from the NATS radar at Lytham St Annes. They didn't have their own interrogator because there is a policy in the UK not to over-interrogate because it causes too much fruiting and garbling, although the St Annes radar had its own little 'quirk' connected with garbling caused by the radar reflecting from a gasometer; gasometer empty - no problems; gasometer full and the reflection would give you a primary blip at about 90 deg on the display from where it should have been.

[ZOOKER]

When the St.Annes was changed to a Watchman, if the sea was rough off Starr Gate, we could sit at EGCC and see the waves.

[ACW VGL]

Thank you Chevvron and Zooker. From other sources I understand the current fit is a Selex (now Leonardo) ATCR 44S co mount.

[Mooncrest]

I'm unsure if there are any civil S511 installations left in the UK. I know that Bristol, Cardiff, East Midlands, Newcastle and Southend once had them but I believe those have all gone. As for its Plessey contemporary, the Watchman, it lives on at Leeds Bradford and perhaps still at Humberside, Teesside and Southampton. Maybe the MOD airfields still have the Watchman too.

By the way, did the S511 use magnetron technology rather than travelling wave tube ?

[TelsBoy]

There are still quite a few Watchmen kicking around MoD sites, although they are due to be replaced by STAR2000s.

[Talkdownman]

I'm unsure if there are any civil S511 installations left in the UK
Didn't Blackpool have an S511 which went to Cambridge fairly recently?

[Mooncrest]

The most recent radar I saw at Blackpool (in 1997 !) was a late production Plessey AR15. I have it on good authority that it was 'almost a Watchman' on account of its innards. I couldn't say what radar, if any, is there now. Or at Cambridge, for that matter.