大象传媒

The second happening required a rather special sort of volunteer. An airman (expendable as always) was put down in a dinghy some miles out at sea by our local Air-Sea Rescue Walrus. Various radar sensitive aerials were used and the miserable airman in his dinghy was moved yet further out to discover the maximum range at which ditched crews could be seen and rescued.

The third involved disturbing dozens of pigeons at the top of H鈥檚 church tower. A small aerial was fixed to the top and telephone cable was used to link this aerial with the radar receiver about half a mile away. The signal was fed into the PPI time base circuit so that a perfect horizontal polar diagram was produced on the PPI tube and could be copied on tracing paper. The tracing showed that our aerial system was giving excellent results.

During 1942 workmen had been busy building a new ops block, a gantry, a 180 ft tower and a brick standby diesel house for a new CHL, to be called H2, situated about 200 yards away from HI. The aerials were to be electrically driven and my most vivid memory is of the hoisting of the turning gear and the skill of the tower erectors. H2 was a much more modem set up than HI. Not only was the building of brick and concrete, but it was larger and therefore less crowded and was provided with a rest room, toilets and a simple kitchen. Apart from the electrical turning gear, the basic equipment was much the same as at HI except for the Skiatron, an underused piece of equipment not much suited to CHL operation. It consisted of a flat faced PPI tube of about 3陆鈥� in diameter with an intense purple, long afterglow trace. This was projected on to the underside of a frosted perspex table top on which one could record an aircraft鈥檚 track. The Skiatron should have been in HI where I鈥檓 sure the controllers would have found it useful, but space and technical considerations made this impossible.

For reasons unknown we were involved in commissioning this new equipment. The various bits and pieces worked individually except for the transmitter. The 25KV capacitor was found to be US, although testing it was not easy as all we had was a 500V Megger. Once the capacitor was changed, the transmitter worked and we were on the air. Or were we? The first discovery was that the ground echoes ofH2 were running along the range and the PPI tubes of HI and vice versa. Neither station could work under those conditions.

The cure was to build a small four-valve unit to feed a signal from HI to H2 to lock the two transmitters together but 180掳 out of phase. The last valve of this new unit was a cathode follower and the signal, a pip, was sent via telephone cable draped over the fence and hedges separating HI and H2. I was most surprised, and relieved, when a beautiful signal turned up on the oscilloscope at H2. End of problems? No!

H2 aerials were of the continuously rotating type and the 360 ft towers of the CH at West Beckham were used to check bearings, signal strength, etc. After only a few revolutions of the gantry aerial it seemed that West Beckham was moving their towers. We assumed that part of the gearing linking the selsyn at the aerial end or the selsyn in the receiver was slipping and much time was wasted in checking the tightness of grub screws. After a great deal of unproductive messing about, it was discovered that one set of gearing had a pinion with 15 teeth, whereas the other had a pinion with 14 teeth. The PPI trace was gaining or losing 1 tooth per revolution of the pinion. The solution was to make a new pinion the hard way (brass rod, hacksaw and files) and that really was the last of the problems at H2 until the WAAF arrived, but that was a very different ramble.

As a result of demands from overseas, male operators and mechanics were posted and WAAF operators arrived at HI (including my future wife Daphne). I was promoted to Corporal and transferred to day work instead of being a watch mechanic.

As soon as H2 was fully operational more WAAF operators arrived, as well as three WAAF mechanics. These girls were reputed to be university graduates and they were certainly very good. Starting the standby diesels was not expected of them.

One evening Eileen, a watch mechanic thought she heard a squeak at the top of the tower and, although it was dark and very windy, she climbed up to find out what was needed. It was a little bit beyond the call of duty. When at the top, she telephoned to say that she did not fancy going down without some help. So I dressed up for the occasion and we came down together. I suspect future wife was not best pleased when told of these goings-on.

As a result of being transferred to day-time time duties I became involved with Flt.Sgt. George Slack in the preparation of the quarterly report. It was a comprehensive load of waffle which covered every aspect of the station鈥檚 operation in minute detail. This was done at night and took most of one night to complete. I have no idea where this report finished up but I was informed that it was considered the best of its kind and was used to train future report compilers. Bumph triumphant!

My landlady, Mrs Leeder, prepared a special dinner for us Christmas Eve 1942 to which Daphne was invited. But for me it was not to be. A component of the Centimetric Height Finding (CMH) equipment required welding at Coltishall and I was to take it there on the unit鈥檚 motorcycle. An engineer officer and a welder were summoned from their respective messes; the job was completed but the evening was spoilt for quite a number of people.

Although, of course, I did not know it, my time at H was rapidly drawing to an end. When I had arrived the CO was a Flight Sergeant controlling a small number of men. By the time I left the strength of the unit was doubled, the unit was nearly all women and the CO was Flt Officer Matthews. It was almost a pleasure to be hauled up before her for not wearing a hat whilst riding my motorcycle.

Early in 1943 I was promoted to Sergeant and posted in charge of AMES 6083, a light warning unit. This was disbanded shortly before D-day and I then joined 15o54 FDP and went to Europe.

But that is yet another ramble.

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