Civilian Buyer of RAF Neatishead Wants To Get Type 84 Radar Working
I visited the Royal Air Force Air Defence Radar Museum at Neatishead last month and found it very interesting indeed. There were presentations made during the visit by operators who had served there and explained the workings as well as a few anecdotes. One of these concerned a Soviet intelligence-gathering trawler off NW Scotland which was selected for a "roasting" for some reason. The power was turned right up and "aimed" at this ship and, supposedly, burnt out all electronic equipment. This rather puzzled me because AFAIK radar is line-of-sight and there are certainly a good few hills between low-lying Neatishead and the coast of NW Scotland and also wouldn't all this immense electronic power be destroying a swathe of electronic equipment across Britain. I asked the presenters about this and got no coherent answer.
Can anyone here tell me if this was true and/or possible, or simply a canteen story spun to anybody not in the know to amuse/impress them ?
Can anyone here tell me if this was true and/or possible, or simply a canteen story spun to anybody not in the know to amuse/impress them ?
Could have been Benbecula, but wouldn't have been the Type 92. Type 89 height finder was based there with a Type 88 Search radar.up to the late 1980's (The former AD-11 / AD-12 radars used for Thunderbird II SAM tactical control). Type 89 could be aimed at things and transmit without the thing nodding.
Last edited by chevvron; 10th Jul 2022 at 11:38.
East Anglia used to bristle with GCI stations, all fully manned and self-contained, some now RRHs. Trimingham, Bawdsey, Wartling, Neatishead and some I'm sure I can't recall. I spent a few nights in Bawdsey Manor back in Feb 1987, or there abouts, during an exercise. The old R3 housed the SADOC (Standby Air Defence Operations Centre),
FB
FB
I visited Benbecula in 1977 in an aircraft from RAE Farnborough. Why we went there I don't know (possibly something to do with the rocket range) but I did see what I believe to have been the mobile T88 on the north side of the airfield but I don't recall the height finder radar..
When I was at Lindholme in '73, the microwave link operated from Staxton Wold's T84 or 85 via a relay north of the Humber then to Elsham Wold and Lindholme; this was in mid '73 and prior to that the Patrington T80 was routed via Elsham Wold too.
Last edited by chevvron; 13th Jul 2022 at 15:44.
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Often in Jersey, but mainly in the past.
Age: 78
Posts: 7,636
Received 82 Likes
on
39 Posts
Eastern Radar, 70-73 and 76-79 [about 7 years] and never knew the detail of how we got the picture. Just glad it was there when we needed it! Grateful to the engineers and clever people! 
East Anglia used to bristle with GCI stations, all fully manned and self-contained, some now RRHs. Trimingham, Bawdsey, Wartling, Neatishead and some I'm sure I can't recall. I spent a few nights in Bawdsey Manor back in Feb 1987, or there abouts, during an exercise. The old R3 housed the SADOC (Standby Air Defence Operations Centre),
FB
FB
Ecce Homo! Loquitur...
Ash was, of course, refurbished as a IUKADGE bunker, as the standby southern SOC, and used as the OCU.
Never used operationally for anything, else then sold off afterwards. Totally hardening the bunker and installing the kit must have cost billions - so the company which bought it as a hardened data storage site got a real bargain.
I can vaguely remember attending the course, can’t remember where we were accommodated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ash
Never used operationally for anything, else then sold off afterwards. Totally hardening the bunker and installing the kit must have cost billions - so the company which bought it as a hardened data storage site got a real bargain.
I can vaguely remember attending the course, can’t remember where we were accommodated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ash
Join Date: Sep 2006
Location: Somewhere flat
Age: 67
Posts: 5,319
Likes: 0
Received 22 Likes
on
12 Posts
Ash was, of course, refurbished as a IUKADGE bunker, as the standby southern SOC, and used as the OCU.
Never used operationally for anything, else then sold off afterwards. Totally hardening the bunker and installing the kit must have cost billions - so the company which bought it as a hardened data storage site got a real bargain.
I can vaguely remember attending the course, can’t remember where we were accommodated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ash
Never used operationally for anything, else then sold off afterwards. Totally hardening the bunker and installing the kit must have cost billions - so the company which bought it as a hardened data storage site got a real bargain.
I can vaguely remember attending the course, can’t remember where we were accommodated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ash
Ash was, of course, refurbished as a IUKADGE bunker, as the standby southern SOC, and used as the OCU.
Never used operationally for anything, else then sold off afterwards. Totally hardening the bunker and installing the kit must have cost billions - so the company which bought it as a hardened data storage site got a real bargain.
I can vaguely remember attending the course, can’t remember where we were accommodated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ash
Never used operationally for anything, else then sold off afterwards. Totally hardening the bunker and installing the kit must have cost billions - so the company which bought it as a hardened data storage site got a real bargain.
I can vaguely remember attending the course, can’t remember where we were accommodated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Ash
NATS (or rather NATCS) were using the radar feeding it to West Drayton during the period I was there '69 to '72 as a remote feed for traffic east-west along the airway between Brussels/Amsterdam and London.
I don't doubt it; I'm only an ATC man and don't know too much about Air Defence radar systems; my only experience of height finders was with the T82 at Lindholme which of course had a built in height finding capability.
Sorry bit of thread drift there.
