Misplaced Pages

#231768

121-566: In the 1950s the RAF deployed the ROTOR reporting network, and later improved this system with the AMES Type 80 radar. While these were being built, the carcinotron radar jammer was tested against it and found to completely blank out its display. At first, it was feared the carcinotron would render all long-range radars useless, but over time a number of new concepts emerged to deal with this threat. Among them

242-403: A 10 MW L-band klystron and an advanced moving target indication (MTI) system. Calculations suggested that a carcinotron could produce about 10 W of signal on any given frequency. The 10 MW klystron transmitter would produce 11 W of return signal at 200 nmi, thereby overpowering, or "burning through", the jamming. Unfortunately, the klystron proved to be a problem and

363-560: A ROTOR bunker was constructed above ground to allow equipment to be tested in an operational environment. The building, locally designated as H Building, originally incorporated a replica of the sector operations centre at RAF Bawburgh. The building was demolished June 2020. RAF Staxton Wold is the only Chain Home site still used as a military radar site but with no remains of the CH station on site after being rebuilt for Linesman/Mediator in 1964. Today it

484-580: A Telefunken production center, SFR produced mainly for the German army. 65% of its turnover was devoted to German armaments from 1940 to 1944, reaching 86% in 1943. The number of employees was 2,600 in February 1940, dropped to 1,000 in August 1940 but then rose to more than 4,000 by 1943. Most of the output was equipment designed by Telefunken. Several capital increases were arranged, supported by BPPB. Pierre Grivet ,

605-436: A Type 85 and a Type 84. Two of the northern ROTOR stations, RAF Buchan and RAF Saxa Vord , would retain their Type 80s purely for early warning - although these radars could be jammed, any attempt to do so would indicate a raid was coming from the north and thereby put the main stations to the south on alert. Two additional Type 84's would be placed at these stations. Information from the three main stations would be sent over

726-465: A beam that was 6 degrees high in total, and the vertical angle of the target could be estimated by comparing the strength of its signal in adjacent horns. To match the resolution of the Type 80, the antenna had to be wide enough to focus the signals into a similar 1 ⁄ 3  degree wide beam. The downside to such a tightly focused pencil beam is that the beam sweeps past targets very rapidly as

847-479: A graduate of the École Normale Supérieure, was appointed to the Lavallois-Perret research laboratory during World War II and participated in a project to develop a 60kV oscilloscope , needed for television research. Grivet acquired expertise in electron optics, and obtained a government order for an electrostatic electron microscope during the period of German occupation. In the early 1950s Robert R. Warnecke

968-602: A large center at Basse-Lande ( Brains, Loire-Atlantique ), with two arc transmitters and one spark transmitter. SFR delivered 65 fixed stations with over 5 kW power, 18,000 aircraft stations, 300 stations on vessels and 300 mobile stations on vehicles. A new machine providing continuous waves using the Bethenod process was installed at the Lyon la Doua station. Creation of the Compagnie générale de la télégraphie sans fil (CSF) in 1918

1089-421: A minor threat by the mid-1960s. In response, Minister of Defense outlined the problem with jamming aircraft: ...since the defense of the deterrent has been abandoned in 1960, air defense was now limited to prevention of intrusion and jamming. Macmillan called a second meeting on 19 September where he agreed to allow Plan Ahead to continue but only if it was the only air defence radar under development. Blue Joker

1210-537: A new military air traffic control system. ROTOR ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers . To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era systems, notably the original Chain Home radars for the early warning role, and the AMES Type 7 for plotting and interception control. Data from these stations

1331-529: A result of the introduction of the Type 80, many of the existing ROTOR sites were rationalized into Master Radar Stations (MRS), while the rest were made redundant, some only two years after opening. During the same period, the introduction of the first surface-to-air missiles rendered the anti-aircraft guns obsolete, and the Army handed the air defence mission entirely to the RAF. All of the AAOR sites were closed. A few of

SECTION 10

#1733085255232

1452-481: A single input voltage. By continually sweeping through the frequencies of known radars , it would overpower the radar's own reflections, and blind them. Its extremely wide bandwidth meant that a single carcinotron could be used to send jamming signals against any radar it was likely to meet, and the rapid tuning meant it could do so against multiple radars at the same time, or rapidly sweep through all potential frequencies to produce barrage jamming . The carcinotron

1573-468: A square, meaning the entire sky would be scanned after it rotated 90 degrees. This allowed the rotation to be slowed to 1 ⁄ 2  rpm, thereby greatly increasing the number of "paints". Meeting the resolution goals required a parabolic reflector that was 75 by 50 feet (23 by 15 m). Four of these together produced an enormous system, so large that there was no way it could be mounted on existing bearing systems. They ultimately settled on

1694-634: A subsidiary that provided a similar service in the Near East. The SFR, based in Levallois-Perret, began experimental broadcasts in June 1922. On 31 October 1922 it was authorized to broadcast regular programs, with the proviso that advertising was not allowed. The first broadcast of the Radiola station from Levallois was made in early November 1922. Radiola was the first French private radio broadcasting station. It

1815-481: A successful sneak attack by missiles. Such a system did not require a large number of radars nor country-wide coverage. To reduce the cost of this much smaller network, studies on integrating the military radars with civilian air traffic control led to the Linesman/Mediator system of only five primary stations. The original ROTOR was replaced by Linesman in stages, starting in 1967. A similar expedient system in

1936-546: A target for outright cancellation. In response, in 1958 a new design was built by combining the electronics from the Blue Riband with a smaller antenna originally developed as an upgrade for the Orange Yeoman radar. The result was the still-prodigious Blue Yeoman design, which was further upgraded using the larger antenna from the AMES Type 84 . The resulting Type 85 was declared operational at three sites in 1968. By this time

2057-527: Is perfect, and some enemy aircraft would get through. If they were carrying conventional weapons, or even early atomic bombs , the damage being caused would be survivable. The goal of ROTOR was to limit damage to the UK while RAF Bomber Command was destroying the USSR's ability to launch additional attacks. The introduction of the hydrogen bomb seriously upset this concept. Now even a small number of aircraft making it past

2178-585: Is the former home of an RAF TPS 77 RRH (remote radar head). RAF Boulmer is a working RAF building, which is housed in an ex-"ROTOR" R3 RAF Boulmer ('EZS') GCI R3 ROTOR Radar Station & Control and Reporting Centre in the UK Air Surveillance and Control System. In terms of current condition, the ROTOR sites vary from demolished to intact. For example, West Myne in Somerset was the last ROTOR 3 CHEL site. It

2299-569: The Air Ministry felt there was no point introducing new radars that would likely become obsolete in a few years. They planned to allow radar to continue developing through this period and use the existing WWII-era systems in the meantime. To consider the issue in more depth, the Cherry Report was commissioned in 1945. This report noted that the increasing speeds of new bombers, and especially future designs that were jet-powered, would travel across

2420-593: The Bristol Bloodhound to produce the Bloodhound Mark II that was effective at about 75 miles (121 km) range. The cost of this adaptation was very low, and it was accepted for development in spite of there being doubts about its mission. This gave added reason to have a radar that could provide early warning with enough range even in strong jamming to give the missiles ample time to aim and fire. Considering all of these changes, and especially new tests with

2541-579: The Operational Requirement F.155 interceptor and the Blue Envoy missile. This left even less need for a long-range radar like Blue Riband. A much more important issue, moving forward, would be a system to provide early warning of a missile attack. Some consideration had been given to using Blue Riband in this role, as part of the Violet Friend anti-ballistic missile research. But by this time it

SECTION 20

#1733085255232

2662-494: The Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) began experimenting with new low-noise crystal detectors that improved reception by 10 dB, and new cavity magnetrons of roughly 1 MW power. Combining these together on a lashed-up antenna, they were able to detect bomber aircraft at hundreds of miles range. A production version of this "Green Garlic" prototype would be available years before

2783-469: The cavity magnetron system in the short wave domain at 16 cm and 80 cm, a CSF team led by Maurice Ponte and Henri Gutton, son of Camille Gutton, filed a patent for a radar detection system in 1934. In 1934–35 CSF equipped the SS Oregon and SS Normandie with anti-iceberg collision detectors with a range of about 10 kilometres (6.2 mi). The PTT asked CSF to study television, and CSF launched

2904-471: The rainbow code "Blue Riband", the design goal was simply to "produce the largest, most powerful radar that could be deployed in the ADUK." Blue Riband would overwhelm any possible carcinotron design, while also providing enough accuracy to directly guide interceptors. Further, they highly desired the system be a 3D radar so the separate height finders could be eliminated; height finders were often as expensive as

3025-566: The École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Yves Rocard later contributed to developing France's atomic bomb. Ponte was placed in charge of the SFR vacuum tubes department and of the general research laboratory, and was given a free hand in hiring physicists to assist in electronics and electromagnetic radiation research. In 1925 the CSF group had about 1,600 employees. By 1935 it had grown to 4,900 employees, including

3146-449: The "lampes" department, the name used for electronic tubes at the time, but continued to be directly involved in research, particularly into magnetrons to generate ultra-short waves for obstacle detection. This was an early form of Radar, although it was used to detect boats and icebergs rather than enemy aircraft. In the 1920s French physicists Camille Gutton and Émile Pierret had experimented with 16 cm wavelengths. After researching

3267-415: The 'R' series (R1, R2, R3 and R4 etc.), while those on the western side of the UK were generally semi-sunken hardened structures ('R6') or above ground 'Secco' type huts (Hartland Point etc.). The R-series bunkers themselves were otherwise similar, featuring 10-foot-thick (3.0 m) concrete walls with all equipment, operations generators and air conditioning located inside. Additionally, ROTOR re-arranged

3388-631: The Allies from 1943 to equip hunters and bombers. On 8 May 1940 Maurice Ponte went to London in person to present the CSF magnetron to the British, who would combine the advantages of the SFR prototype and their own prototype. After the German occupation the Levallois and Cholet plants were placed under the supervision of Telefunken. The SIF plant in Malakoff was placed under the supervision of Siemens & Halske, and

3509-419: The Compagnie des Applications Mécaniques et Electroniques au Cinéma et à l'Atomistique ( CAMECA ). The company retained its core business but diversified into precision engineering, making scientific instrumentation and aerospace radars. In 1955 CAMECA was structured with three departments, one to produce Radio-Cinema and Charlin film projectors, one undertaking mechanical production for other CSF subsidiaries, and

3630-689: The Foreness, Kent station which grid ref is TR 385710 Compagnie g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale de la t%C3%A9l%C3%A9graphie sans fil The Compagnie générale de la télégraphie sans fil (CSF: General Wireless Telegraphy Company) was a French company founded in 1918 during a reorganization and expansion of the Société française radio-électrique (SFR), which became a subsidiary. The company developed technology for radio-telegraphy, radio program transmission , radar, television and other applications. It provided broadcasting and telegraphy services, and sold its equipment throughout

3751-648: The French colonial empire and in many other parts of the world. In 1968 CSF merged with the Thomson-Brandt to form Thomson-CSF . From the mid-19th century the world was connected with an increasingly dense network of telegraph wires and submarine cables. In 1887 Heinrich Hertz of Germany conclusively proved the existence of electromagnetic waves. Alexander Stepanovich Popov of Russia developed antennas to transmit and receive radio waves. Scientists such as Édouard Branly and Nikola Tesla also contributed to development of

AMES Type 85 - Misplaced Pages Continue

3872-823: The French colonial empire, Serbia, Argentina and Chile. The CSF also had branches in the Middle East, China Japan and the USSR. To help promote radio technology, on 19 October 1920 the Secretary of State for Posts and Telegraphs granted the CSF the concession to build and operate all international radio links from France. One of the company's early achievements was construction of the Sainte-Assise long-wave transmission station , near Melun , through its subsidiary Radio-France. Eight 250 metres (820 ft) towers supported two antennas fed by four 500KW alternators. The station entered operation in 1922. Short wave transmissions, reflected by

3993-568: The MEW. MEW was turned into a long-term development project and spun off to Marconi Wireless . Green Garlic was rapidly developed as the AMES Type 80 and deployed beginning in 1954, with the initial network operational the next year. It was soon realized that the system, with minor upgrades, had the optical resolution needed to guide interceptor aircraft to targets even at very long range. This task formerly required dedicated ground controlled interception (GCI) radars with special antennas that provided

4114-478: The MEW. The MEW had, by this time, become the AMES Type 84 . Sharing the same antenna system had significant benefits. The feedhorns were modified from the original concept to produce a beam 3 ⁄ 8  degrees horizontal and 1 degree vertical, and placed in a staggered configuration side-by-side. The antenna was designed to be fit at either of two angles, covering 1 to 12 degrees vertically, or 3 to 15 degrees. While Metrovick began production of

4235-572: The Netherlands under which CSF would drop its amateur equipment line and Philips would not compete on professional equipment. Philips bought half the shares of Radiotechnique, but in practice fully controlled the subsidiary. The market for amateur receiving stations exploded in 1930. CSF used the sale of shares and its stake in Radiotechnique to strengthen its position in the professional sector. Development and manufacture of professional electronic tubes

4356-670: The ROTOR and AAOR stations were re-used for Regional Seats of Government or local authority wartime headquarters. Until the end of the Cold War , many of the sites were retained by the government. They were later sold to private buyers, converted into museums (for example Hack Green ) or transferred to the National Air Traffic Control Centre . At the Radar Research Establishment in Malvern, Worcestershire

4477-588: The RRE North Site, the Army-oriented centre, had invested some effort into a new radar antenna to replace the rather complex lens system used on the AMES Type 82 "Orange Yeoman". This emerged as a conventional 45 by 21.5 foot (13.7 by 6.6 m) parabolic reflector. A prototype was developed for installation at the North Site, along with a new klystron that would replace the Type 82's magnetron. Further development

4598-525: The Radio-cinéma subsidiary for this purpose, with the first objective being to develop talking movie projectors for large cinemas. Radio-cinéma was founded as a subsidiary of CSF on 21 June 1929, in the year that talking movies first appeared. The first workshops were in the 20th arrondissement of Paris . The subsidiary designed and made movie projectors for big cinema screening rooms. CSF did not get involved in television cameras and receivers, but from 1935

4719-573: The Radiotechnique plant in Suresnes under that of Philips Electro Special, a German subsidiary of Philips in Berlin. During the war Paul Brenot had the title of technical director of the SFR, but was the right-hand man of Émile Girardeau. Under the German occupation there were very friendly relations between the CSF and Telefunken, for which Brenot was later criticized. In his defense, Brenot said that Telefunken's permanent representative in Paris, Doctor Schultz,

4840-516: The SFR developed musical frequency resonance alternators, established stations in the Belgian Congo and Russia, developed field transmitters that could be carried by car or mule, which were tested in the 1912–13 Balkan Wars , and installed the first transmitters on airships, airplanes, warships, fishing boats and passenger boats. World War I (1914–18) stimulated radio research. New stations were ordered by Serbia and Romania. The French Navy built

4961-459: The Type 85 with a number of smaller and more mobile radars so that backup systems could be placed off-site and then rapidly brought into service if the main radars were attacked. The Type 85s went offline some time in the 1990s. In the early 1950s the threat of nuclear attack by the Soviet Union led the UK to build an extensive radar network known as ROTOR . ROTOR initially envisioned two phases,

AMES Type 85 - Misplaced Pages Continue

5082-500: The Type 85, EMI was given a production contract for its klystrons. As the effects of the 1957 White Paper were examined, one interesting possibility came to dominate radar planning. This was the idea that the Soviets could fly an aircraft far offshore, as far as 300 miles (480 km), and use a carcinotron to jam the BMEWS. If it were jammed there would be no way to detect a missile launch, and

5203-521: The United States was the Lashup Radar Network . As the threat of German air attack became ever more remote, UK radar operations were wound down late in the war, and by the time the war ended were already largely unused. When the war ended, there was a general feeling that another war was at least ten years in the future. Given the rapid ongoing improvements in radar systems through this period,

5324-478: The V-force would have to launch on warning as a safety measure. If the Soviets repeated this trick, it could quickly wear out the bombers and their crews. Such aircraft would have to be attacked or driven off, which meant that some form of anti-jamming radar would be needed to get the interceptors into range of the jammer. Throughout the 1950s a second concept for dealing with the carcinotron had been developed. This used

5445-406: The V-force, the only way to ensure the V-force survived in sufficient numbers to present a credible deterrent was to launch every available bomber whenever a serious threat appeared. If this was the case, any defensive systems would be protecting empty airfields and unflyable aircraft. While the need for early warning of the attack still required a powerful radar, requirements for anything beyond that,

5566-438: The antenna rotates to scan the sky. In the case of the Type 80's pulse repetition frequency of 250 pulses-per-second and its rotation speed of 4 rpm, this meant only 3 to 5 pulses would hit any given target as the beam swung past it. This leads to a relatively low blip-to-scan ratio , and if even a few of these pulses are jammed, the target might disappear. To solve this problem, Blue Riband proposed mounting four antennas in

5687-435: The area above the stations, so an adjacent radar would have to provide tracking when aircraft entered these areas. Additionally, the passive tracking system had to combine information from multiple sites. As more than one radar would always be involved in the tracking exercise, the system was naturally centralized. Two MCCs were planned, at RAF Bawburgh and RAF Shipton were selected as these sites. In non-jamming conditions,

5808-472: The basis for their own nuclear force. Defensive systems against aircraft would only be needed for a short period while the USSR built up its missile fleet, and beyond the mid-1960s the only purpose of radar would be early warning. A powerful radar like the Blue Riband simply couldn't justify its cost, given that it would only be needed for a few years after it might be ready. As part of this same general reasoning, other air defence systems were cancelled, among them

5929-429: The beam up and down. Squint causes the signal to change angle when its frequency changes. By setting the dozen klystrons to different frequencies, squint would cause each one to exit at a different angle. This concept was abandoned when it was pointed out that steering the beam using the frequency meant any one aircraft would always be hit by the same frequency, which made the jammer's job much easier. Another concept that

6050-506: The carcinotron itself as the signal source, and used a modified version of triangulation to pinpoint its location. The idea had been considered throughout the 1950s, but it was only now that there was a clear reason to build it; this system could detect the location of the aircraft at ranges far beyond even the Blue Yeoman, even when the aircraft was still below the radar horizon . This system required at least two antennas per detector, and it

6171-521: The carcinotron that were revealed to the Air Staff in July 1957, plans for a new network began to emerge in late 1958. This would be based on a set of three main tracking stations arranged roughly in a triangle, RAF Staxton Wold , RAF Neatishead and RAF Bramcote , and three passive tracking stations for the anti-jamming receivers at RAF Hopton , RAF Fairlight and RAF Oxenhope Moor . Each would be equipped with

SECTION 50

#1733085255232

6292-523: The centre of the assembly. Their power was fed to the antennas through a series of twelve rotating wave-guides, something that didn't exist at the time. Two possible waveguide designs were trialled, one at the RRE and another at Metrovick. During development, a possible way to build the system with a single rotating wave-guide was presented. This fed the antennas a single signal through a vertically oriented slot antenna , and used an effect known as " squint " to move

6413-489: The command and control systems. The introduction of the carcinotron radar jammer in the mid-1950s was a serious blow to these plans; a single aircraft carrying a carcinotron could jam the ROTOR radars so completely that they were rendered useless. At the same time, the introduction of the hydrogen bomb and ballistic missile greatly changed the nature of the strategic threat, and the idea of whole-country defence became untenable. The only way to defend against missile attacks

6534-736: The concepts. In 1895 Guglielmo Marconi , a student at the University of Bologna, invented wireless telegraphy. In 1897 he founded the Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company in England. Its subsidiary the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America was formed in the US in 1899. The Telefunken company was created in Germany in 1903 as a joint venture of Siemens and AEG . In France

6655-505: The costs that would otherwise require two separate networks. Air traffic control (ATC) was an area of interest at the time due to the introduction of the first jetliners . Previously, propeller-driven airliners flew at altitudes on the order of 25,000 feet (7.6 km) and speeds around 250 to 300 miles per hour (400 to 480 km/h). Military aircraft had been flying at much higher altitudes around 40,000 feet (12,000 m) and speeds of about 600 miles per hour (970 km/h). Operators on

6776-417: The data network originally intended to be part of ROTOR Phase 3, which envisioned digital computers being fed information from the radar sites, automatically generating tracks, and sending guidance to the interceptors in digital form. Another change from ROTOR was centralized command and control at two Master Control Centers (MCCs). One reason for this was that the new radars scanned the horizon and did not cover

6897-455: The defence would wreak catastrophic damage on the country. Damage limitation was no longer a useful concept; if nuclear war came it was likely the UK would be destroyed. In this new environment, deterrence became the only possible form of defence. Thus, from as early as 1954 the strategic thinking came to look at air defences primarily as a way to protect the V bomber force, ensuring it would have enough time to get airborne. For this role, there

7018-643: The engineer captain Gustave-Auguste Ferrié (1868–1932) gathered a team to work on wireless telegraphy for the military. Ferrié demonstrated the value of radio telegraphy to the government during the volcanic eruption of the Mount Pelée in Martinique , and showed the value of placing antennas at the summit of the Eiffel Tower . In 1908 the young polytechnic Émile Girardeau joined Ferrié's team. Girardeau and

7139-486: The entire 500 MHz band in a form of barrage jamming. By 1956, the installation of the Type 80s to the existing ROTOR network was going well. Attention was turning to replace these sites with anti-jamming radars like Blue Riband and MEW. However, this was also a time of intense debate within the Air Ministry about the entire nature of air defence. ROTOR was based on the concept of damage limitation. No defensive system

7260-428: The entire Linesman concept had been called into question, as the radar sites and unhardened centralized command centre would be trivial to destroy even with conventional weapons. Funding for future upgrades to the system was instead directed to replacing it as soon as possible. Type 85 remained in service through the 1970s and into the early 1980s, when it formed part of the new UKADGE system. The Improved UKADGE replaced

7381-474: The entire United Kingdom. This led to the Master Radar Stations that filled both early warning and ground controlled interception roles. The original ROTOR plans for 66 radars was repeatedly reduced, ultimately only requiring half that number of stations. Many of the operations rooms, recently completed, were sold. ROTOR called for the continual upgrading of the network over time, both the radars and

SECTION 60

#1733085255232

7502-436: The estimated cost of the system in its present form and still have a useful system; both suggested either building it as-is or cancelling it outright. Zuckerman went further, pointing out that the coverage during peacetime made the system an excellent way to track civilian aircraft as well, and suggested that Plan Ahead might form the basis for a shared military/civilian air traffic control network. This would allow it to share

7623-581: The existing RAF Fighter Command structure into six "Sector Operational Commands" (SOC) with their own command bunkers (three level 'R4' protected accommodation). Only four of these were built. Additional "Anti-Aircraft Operations Rooms" were built to coordinate the British Army 's AA defences in the same overall system. The entire network of bunkers, radars, fighter control and command centres used up 350,000 tons of concrete , 20,000 tons of steel and thousands of miles of telephone and telex connections. The work

7744-464: The existing coastal ROTOR station at Boulmer on the coast. This would maximize the coverage over the V-bomber bases. It was at this point that Prime Minister Harold Macmillan heard of the plans and demanded they be discussed at a 13 September 1960 cabinet meeting. At the meeting, Macmillan outlined his objections to the system, arguing that its high costs could not be justified by to counter what would be

7865-529: The existing radars if they were upgraded as the Cherry Report suggested. Most of the new network would be made up of 28 rebuilt Chain Home systems, while the rest were taken from the existing selection of Chain Home Low , Chain Home Extra Low and the various Ground-controlled interception (GCI) radars. This was, in part, a stop-gap measure anticipating the availability of the dramatically improved radar, which

7986-547: The first using upgraded World War II radars like Chain Home , and then from 1957, these would be replaced by a dramatically more powerful radar known as the Microwave Early Warning, or MEW. A key part of the concept was a set of six Sector Control Centers where data from all of the radars would be sent to produce the Recognized Air Picture of the surrounding area. As ROTOR was just getting started, in 1951

8107-417: The ground could tell the types apart at a glance. The RAF was used to having upper airspace to itself and flew where it wished. This easy separation was upset by the jetliner, which flew at the same speeds and altitudes as military traffic. With the ever-increasing amounts of air traffic in general, there had been a number of close-calls and this was sure to get worse over time. This led to late 1950s plans for

8228-457: The ignition noise, looked like very short pulses in any single frequency as it swept through the band. This offered an improvement in performance up to 40%. At the same time, the teams at Bristol and Ferranti that had been working on the Blue Envoy missile had struck upon a clever idea. Using those portions of the Blue Envoy that had been completed, the new radars and ramjet engines, they adapted

8349-414: The initial three radars and single MCC at Bawburgh, bringing the cost to around £60 million. By the end of 1960, parts of the equipment were beginning to pile up at the manufacturer's sites, but deployment had still not been authorized. As it appeared the three-station network would be all that would ever be built, the layout was modified from a triangle to a line by moving the inland position at Bramcote to

8470-701: The inter-war period the German Telefunken, the British Marconi, the American RCA and the French CSF operated as a cartel, avoiding competition. During meetings of the International Broadcasting Union ostensibly concerned with regulating use of radio frequencies the company leaders made agreements for cross-licensing of patents and for carving up the market. The CSF's main markets were France,

8591-469: The interceptors and missiles, was questionable. Debate on the topic raged from 1956. Into this debate came the 1957 Defence White Paper , which had an enormous effect on the British military. A key issue in the Paper was the conclusion that the strategic threat was moving from bombers to ballistic missiles . The UK was within the range of medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) fired from Eastern Europe, and as these were simpler and cheaper than bombers, it

8712-508: The ionosphere, are generally a better solution for intercontinental transmissions but are sensitive to weather and variations in the ionosphere. The huge Sainte-Assise installation remained useful for emergencies. In Sainte Assise the Radio-France subsidiary began broadcasting to Europe, America and the Far East in 1921 under a 30-year state concession signed in 1920. The Société Radio-Orient was

8833-519: The jammer-carrying aircraft, to cover all of England north to the Scottish highlands as well as the eastern half of Ireland. The costs of the system were estimated to be £30 million (£914 million). A skeleton system of three radars and one MCC could be available by 1962, which was when the new version of the Bloodhound missile would be available. The Air Ministry approved the concept on 8 January 1959, and it

8954-407: The klystron can amplify any source within a bandwidth of about 100 MHz, beyond which its efficiency falls off. Thus, by moving to a klystron it was possible to change the frequency of the signal with every pulse by connecting it to a series of different source signals. To jam such a signal, the carcinotron would have to broadcast across the entire 100 MHz band, thereby diluting the signal to

9075-439: The longer wavelength is that optical resolution is an inverse function of wavelength , so by operating at about three times the wavelength of the Type 80's 9 cm meant it also had three times less resolution. Some other radar would still be required to accurately guide the fighters. With the failure of the MEW's original klystron, in 1956 the RRE began development of a new radar in partnership with Metropolitan-Vickers . Given

9196-400: The name AMES Type 80 , began in 1954 with the first systems declared operational the next year. As installations continued, it was found that the accuracy was such that it could also be used to direct the interceptors, with no need to forward the information to the ROTOR control centres. By concentrating all of the plotting at a single site the total number of operators was greatly reduced. As

9317-415: The plotting boards of the existing Dowding system so rapidly that they would fly off the maps before the interception could be arranged. The report suggested that a radar with 250 miles (400 km) range would be needed to replace the existing AMES Type 7/GCI systems, which were limited to about 90 miles (140 km) against bomber-sized targets. Estimating that such a radar would be available around 1957,

9438-427: The point where it could no longer overpower the radar's pulses. Due to the radar equation , the energy of the radar's pulses falls off with the fourth power of range, so having enough power to ensure the carcinotron could not keep up at long range meant the output had to be huge. Blue Riband solved this problem by mixing the signal from multiple klystrons together, two or four depending on the model, and then broadcasting

9559-415: The primary radars and time-consuming to operate. Magnetrons are somewhat odd devices in that they produce a powerful microwave signal in one step, and the frequency of the microwaves they produce is a function of the physical dimensions of the device and cannot be changed after manufacture. In contrast, the klystron acts purely as an amplifier. Given multiple reference signals, say from crystal oscillators ,

9680-413: The radar stations themselves. Ultimately, after several changes in plans, the system emerged with nine Master Radar Stations and about another twenty radars feeding data to them by telephone. In 1950, engineers at the French company CSF (now part of Thales Group ) introduced the carcinotron , a microwave -producing vacuum tube that could be rapidly tuned across a wide range of frequencies by changing

9801-446: The report suggested that existing GCI stations should receive upgraded antennas with more accuracy, new electronics for better performance, upgrades to their display systems, four Type 13's for height measuring, and two Type 14 units for anti-jamming use. Additionally, their information would be sent to six new command centres, who would produce much larger maps of the airspace, up to 1,000 miles (1,600 km) across. Additionally, all of

9922-457: The required resolution. Upgrades to the Type 80 would allow this task to be combined with the EW role. At the same time, a new 2.5 MW magnetron became available, increasing range beyond the original versions. These Type 80 Mark III's led to many changes in the ROTOR layout as the centralized control rooms were removed and the entire battle from detection to interception was instead handled directly from

10043-483: The resulting "Green Garlic" did not meet all of the requirements for the original MEW, it was close enough and would be available years earlier. The decision was made to make the MEW a long-term development with additional features such as moving target indication while the Green Garlic would be mated to an enormous antenna that would give it range over 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi). Installations, under

10164-406: The resulting 8 MW signal. Having high-power pulses does not solve the problem completely, one also wants to focus that signal into as small an area as possible to maximize the energy on the target. Blue Riband planned to use the output of a dozen transmitters, each with two or four klystrons feeding a single feed horn with a 1 ⁄ 2  degree vertical angle. The twelve horns produced

10285-529: The resulting network would cover the entire British Isles, and a significant portion of north-western Europe as far as Denmark. The remaining Type 80s would extend this far into the Norwegian Sea . In the worst-case jamming scenarios, the coverage would shrink to the area south of about Dundee in Scotland, covering most of England except Cornwall . The passive tracking system would extend this out, at least against

10406-525: The scientist Joseph Bethenod decided to found a French company to meet military and civilian radio communication needs. The Société Française Radio-Electrique (SFR) was launched on 3 April 1910. Paul Brenot was an important contributor to development of the SFR. Bethenod's new techniques were used in the first radiotelegraph link in the tropics, between Brazzaville and Loango . This led to orders for SFR equipment from Belgium, Mexico, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia, Italy, Russia and China. Between 1910 and 1914

10527-419: The sides before they were visible outside the jamming signal. The system was so effective that it appeared to render long-range radar useless. While ROTOR was being installed, the original MEW design at Marconi was still being worked on. With the RAF's immediate needs filled by the Type 80, the requirements for the MEW had been modified to produce a much more capable design. The resulting specification called for

10648-669: The sites would be upgraded with hardened bunkers to allow them to survive a near miss. The Berlin Blockade of July 1948 led to concerns about the next war's estimated time-frame. A White Paper on the state of the network was completed in March 1949. This found that the stations were in a terrible state, with many of them suffering weather damage and a number of them having been broken into and vandalized. A complete defense would also require 1152 fighters and 265 AA regiments, of which only 352 fighters and 75 regiments were actually available. All of this

10769-508: The solution used by the 250 foot (76 m) diameter Lovell Telescope at the Jodrell Bank Observatory . This runs on a modified railway roadbed with multiple sets of bogies carrying a huge triangular framework. For the Blue Riband, they adopted a somewhat smaller version with a 100 foot (30 m) diameter with six bogies carrying a framework on top that acted like a flat turntable . The twelve transmitters would be buried in

10890-595: The subsidiaries, for which the CSF played the role of banker. The CSF revenues came from royalties paid by the subsidiaries for the exploitation of patents held by the parent company. Dividends remained low. The CSF managed a general research laboratory at the central level, and held all the patents in the group. The CSF gave attractive salaries and facilities to young physicists who could not obtain academic positions. These included Yves Rocard (1903-1992), who joined Radiotechnique in 1928 and Maurice Ponte (1902-1983), who joined in 1929. Both Rocard and Ponte were graduates of

11011-512: The system was used to develop the system's constant false alarm rate , a complex dual-horn feed that reduced sidelobes , and new two-pulse moving target indication systems. Based on this ongoing work, in November 1958 the Air Ministry set the specifications for a production model and gave it the name AMES Type 85. This was similar to the prototype but had a larger antenna of 60 by 21.75 feet (18.29 by 6.63 m) that had originally been developed for

11132-593: The workforce of Radiotechnique , which at that time was jointly owned with Philips . In 1935 the state required that its most important suppliers have facilities south of the Loire , and the SFR moved to Cholet , Maine-et-Loire. The Cholet plant, which had been a subcontracting plant to the main Levallois factory, became an autonomous facility with the full range of administrative, technical and testing services. It grew from 25 workers in 1937 to 1,250 in 1957, with an area of 22,000 square metres (240,000 sq ft). During

11253-504: Was a former composer and virtuoso pianist with whom he had formed cordial relations before the war, and who was liberal, anti-militaristic and anti-Nazi. The SFR set up a study center in the free zone in Lyon . The Personnel Department was instructed to facilitate the transfer of all Jewish employees who wish to move there. A small factory was also set up in Algiers. Controlled by the occupants as

11374-508: Was a holding company that included the SFR for radio telegraphy and had other subsidiaries for management of radio telegram traffic, maritime radio and radio broadcasting. In 1919 the SFR created a factory in Levallois-Perret in the northwest of Paris. Paul Brenot left the army to become technical director of the SFR. There were strong financial relations between BPPB and the CSF holding company, but BPPB did not have much involvement with

11495-510: Was an American radio astronomer who had grown frustrated by the interference caused by automobile ignition systems , which in the 1930s were very noisy in the radio frequency spectrum. He noticed that the noise was in the form of short pulses, and designed a filter that removed such signals. In 1960, the Canadian National Research Council published a report on using this design to filter out carcinotron signals, which, like

11616-445: Was believed these would be the primary force aimed at the UK by the mid-1960s. Studying the issue, there seemed to be no scenario under which the first attack would be by bombers alone, although mixed bomber/missile attacks were envisioned. In this case, there would be no need for accurate guidance, all that was needed was early warning. In response, the UK would also move from bombers to intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) as

11737-454: Was cancelled when it was found the Type 80 could guide missiles without the Type 82's assistance, the role that the Type 82 had originally been developed for. Like the Blue Riband, the Type 82 had a stack of twelve vertical feedhorns in order to provide height measurements. This led to an early-1958 effort to adapt the Blue Riband's powerful transmitters to this new antenna. This resulted in the obvious code name Blue Yeoman. The prototype antenna

11858-687: Was cancelled, and Plan Ahead continued. Macmillan called several additional meetings to discuss the system and whether or not its cost could be reduced. Both the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Ministry of Aviation, Solly Zuckerman , and the Chief Scientist of the Ministry of Aviation , Robert Cockburn added to a report studying Plan Ahead and presented it on 24 November 1960. The report stated that there appeared to be no way to significantly reduce

11979-590: Was completed in 1957 after the introduction of the Type 80 radar and after many ROTOR stations had already closed. The site was within Exmoor National Park and its creation was strenuously opposed by the National Trust who lost no time in obliterating the site immediately after closure. Many of the buildings have been re-purposed since being active as ROTOR sites. An example is the Bawburgh R4 SOC which

12100-507: Was deterrence, and if that failed, interceptor aircraft and missiles would have no measurable effect on the eventual outcome. ROTOR was initially to be replaced by a new network dedicated largely to defending the V-bomber force, the "1958 Plan". This role was eventually abandoned, leaving only the task of locating aircraft carrying jammers to keep the BMEWS radars free from interference and prevent

12221-577: Was director of microwave research at the CSF in Paris. After World War II Radio-cinéma moved to Courbevoie , near to the other factories in Levallois. The project to develop the Spectro-Lecteur spectrum analysis device was launched at Radio-Cinema in 1947 in response to a request from the metallurgical company Pechiney . Early in the 1950s Radio-Cinema acquired the company of André Charlin , an engineer known for his expertise in talking movies, loudspeakers and stereophonics. In 1954 Radio-Cinema became

12342-512: Was due to the success of the SFR and the initiative of investors led by the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas (BPPB) and including the Compagnie Française des Câbles Télégraphiques (CFCT), which operated transatlantic telegraph lines. One of the benefits to the bank was that it allowed it to make use of the rights it had to German assets seized by the Allies. Émile Girardeau headed the CSF, which

12463-588: Was formed in 1919 to research and develop electronic transmission and reception tubes at its Suresnes plant. The "Radiola" trademark was used for radio receivers produced by Radiotechnique as well as for the radio station. Although France was not immediately affected by the Great Depression , CSF felt the effect in 1929 since radio transmission was mainly the result of global commercial activity. In 1929 it merged amateur equipment manufacturing into its Radiotechnique subsidiary and made an agreement with Philips of

12584-543: Was given extreme urgency with the 29 August 1949 test of the first Soviet atomic bomb . That month, a new directive stated RAF Fighter Command 's mission was the defense of Great Britain. It was known that the Soviets had made exact copies of the B-29 Superfortress as the Tupolev Tu-4 , and these aircraft had the performance needed to reach the UK with a nuclear payload. These were fast, but not fast enough to escape

12705-445: Was given the name Plan Ahead in August. Within months the price started climbing as the true requirements of the computer systems became fully realized. The system was now estimated to cost between £76 and £96 million, and as much as £100 million (equivalent to $ 3,045,317,789 in 2023), once all the phone lines were included. In response, in May 1960 it was decided to cut the system to only

12826-465: Was known that the US was looking for a northern European site to host their new BMEWS radar-warning system. The UK approached the US in October 1957, initially offering a site in northern Scotland, but in February 1960 it was moved south to its eventual location at RAF Fylingdales in order to allow it to fall under the protective cover of the shrinking air-defence area. While all of this was taking place,

12947-552: Was mainly carried out by the Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company in several phases, called ROTOR 1, ROTOR 2 and ROTOR 3. As work on the Microwave Early Warning system began, researchers at the Royal Radar Establishment were experimenting with new cavity magnetrons and crystal detectors that, combined with a ad hoc antenna, increased the range of their existing microwave radars on the order of four times. While

13068-472: Was moved to the RRE's South Site, the RAF-related area, and mounted on a version of the Type 80's turntable. By mid-1959 the antenna was installed, and by the end of that year, it was operational with a single transmitter feeding two waveguides. This allowed them to experiment with the frequency-hopping systems and other features. Ultimately, only four klystrons were fit instead of twelve. Over the next two years,

13189-496: Was no need for the whole-country coverage of ROTOR. Instead, only the Midlands area where the V bombers were based needed protection. As a result of this change in emphasis, several ROTOR sites were removed and the number of interceptor aircraft was repeatedly cut back. By 1956 even this "defence of the deterrent" concept was being debated. As one could not expect to stop every attacker, and any one of those would destroy some portion of

13310-491: Was now known as the Microwave Early Warning , which was expected in the 1957 time-frame. Interception guidance would still be handled by existing systems in either case. All of the radars were to be improved in terms of siting, with the addition of hardened control bunkers to protect the operators from a conventional attack. On the east coast, where a Soviet attack would be most likely, the bunkers were underground in

13431-535: Was only able to reach 7 MW on occasion. In 1958, the decision was made to abandon it and replace it with an experimental 2 MW L-band magnetron that had been fit to a radar at Bushy Hill in 1956. It was ultimately improved to 2.5 MW. The MEW worked in the L-band at a 23 cm wavelength. This makes it much less sensitive the effects of Mie scattering off rain and ice crystals, meaning L-band radars are much more effective in rain or heavy cloud. The downside to

13552-464: Was pursued. A contract for the new klystrons was sent to EMI near the end of 1957. By this time the concept was to have each of the transmitters tuned to a different 100 MHz bandwidth, with the set of all twelve covering a band of 500 MHz, beyond which the receivers also began to fall off in sensitivity. By connecting the transmitters at random to the feedhorns, the frequency hitting any given target changed with every pulse, forcing them to jam

13673-431: Was raised was to use only two antennas mounted back-to-back and use separate sets of a dozen feedhorns on both. One would be set to a beamwidth of 0.4 degrees covering the horizon, and the other 0.6 covering higher angles. This provided higher accuracy on the horizon while also increasing the total vertical coverage from 6 degrees to 12. In total there would be twenty-four transmitters. It does not appear this design

13794-402: Was re-purposed as SRHQ4.1 and then RGHQ4.1 to suit the evolving needs of government. The building is intact, but it has been significantly reconfigured since its use as a ROTOR SOC, notably with the addition of an extra floor and the flooring-over of the original R4 operations well. July 2019; Kent Underground Exploration are starting talks with TDC hoping to be given access to find and uncover

13915-487: Was renamed Radio-Paris in 1924. Additional radio broadcast stations were created in Clichy , Toulouse , Algiers , Ankara , Tunis , Rennes , Lille and Strasbourg . In 1933 Radiola was sold to the state due to political pressure. CSF manufactured radio reception and transmission equipment for both amateurs and professionals. The Radio Maritime subsidiary provided equipment to merchant ships. The Radiotechnique subsidiary

14036-478: Was revealed publicly in November 1953. The Admiralty Signals and Radar Establishment purchased one and fit it to a Handley Page Hastings named Catherine , testing it against the latest Type 80 late that year. As they feared, it rendered the radar display completely unreadable, filled with noise that hid any real targets. Useful jamming was accomplished even when the aircraft was under the radar horizon , in which case other aircraft had to be 20 miles (32 km) to

14157-512: Was sent to a network of control stations, mostly built underground, using an extensive telephone and telex network. Work also began on a new microwave frequency radar to replace Chain Home c.  1957 . The experimental system Green Garlic was so successful that it began replacing Chain Home starting in 1954. In service, these proved so accurate that they could replace the Type 7 radars as well, and their greatly improved range meant that fewer radars would be needed to provide coverage over

14278-464: Was suggested that a Blue Yeoman could provide double duty by acting as one of the two. Thus by the end of 1958, it had been decided that Blue Yeoman would be part of this new RX12874 system as well. When the prototype system at the RRE South Site became operational, it began to be used to test a new type of anti-jamming system known as the "Dicke-Fix", after its inventor, Robert Henry Dicke . Dicke

14399-455: Was the Blue Riband radar, which used a dozen 8 MW klystrons that randomly changed frequencies in order to overwhelm the jammer signal. The introduction of the ballistic missile implied future attacks would likely be by medium range ballistic missiles , not strategic bombers . The need for a comprehensive anti-bomber system was questioned, and the high price of the Blue Riband made it

14520-457: Was the PTT's main contact for development of TV transmitters. In 1939 the company had slightly more than 4,000 employees, still considerably less than Telefunken, Marconi, RCA and Philips of the Netherlands. In the early months of the war the Levallois laboratories made important advances in the development of the cavity magnetron , which paved the way for centimeter radar that will be widely used by

14641-464: Was transferred from Suresnes to the SFR plant at Levallois. In late 1937, Maurice Elie at SFR developed a means of pulse-modulating transmitter tubes. This led to a new 16 cm system with a peak power near 500W and a pulse width of 6μs. French and U.S. patents were filed in December 1939. Rocard and Ponte both moved to Levallois after the spin-off of Radiotechnique. Ponte was appointed director of

#231768