Primary Only
 

Just sitting staring at the orange blips the other day wondering which other units in the UK are still working primary radar only?

As you don't mention where you are, don't know if this is yours but Manston occasionally put in the 50p for a Primary only radar service. Until yesterday when the Pease Pottage radar was brought back into service Solent Approach have been primary only too, believe they are now to go to secondry only for a while.

5mb
how busy are these places you mention that have primary only? I cant imagine not working SSR. Must be terrible!!

Southend still work on Primary only - and they are a fairly busy LARS unit. Must be a nightmare. I have given them a handover before and when they have identified the aircraft they sometimes ask "What's the fast mover 9 miles West going straight towards the aircraft?"

"It's xxxxx at FL390!!!"

Rather them than me.... we don't know how lucky we are I guess.

As one who worked without SSR and who now gives handovers to Tower Ranger..the answer to the question "how busy must these places be?" the answer is not so much how much traffic ..but more retaining the ident ...proving seperation.. keeping a very good mental picture and always keeping your strip display up to date...and I agree with the FL390 comment.Thank goodness for SSR ...never mind TR ..p'raps there will be a few pesetas...sorry euro's left in the pot after they get the "travelling folk" in to lay some tarmac:ok:

Primary only, 3cm and still doing half mile SRA's at Gloucestershire Airport...Five star service for two star aeroplanes!!

5miles- - didn`t mean to be vague Bhd`s home at present..

126.7- - I guess we can only dream of working anything else , the only time I have worked SSR is on the sims at Catc and Bailbrook, so its not terrible it just makes you think a bit harder and write a bit neater.

Hi Eastern, hows it going? Probably the one thing that has lightened both our workloads considerably is Bfs gettin SSR. Remember checkin every mornin inbound out of 6,5 and 4A and steppin down on top!!! Retaining the ident isn`t a problem when you give us the traffic early enough (which YOU do) but it definitely makes 04 departures against 22 inbounds interesting.
Ps I`m hoping they have enough left over to my driveway!!