Winds

[Nav]

I can provide some information on that, ashaman, probably volo can provide more.

The radar stations at the time of the Battle of Britain were just tall radio masts. They sent out pulses and received echoes back - and could calculate range from the elapsed time. They did NOT give any guidance on height; and a single station couldn't find the direction either.

Direction was calculated by triangulation. There was a chain of stations (in fact, the whole system was called 'Chain Home'). If you had two stations fifty miles apart, and they reported the ranges from their respective positions, you could draw a triangle with a 'base' of 50 miles that showed where the enemy was.

Chain Home didn't give much coverage inland either. Once over Britain, German formations were tracked (and their heights estimated) mainly by the Royal Observer Corps, using binoculars and the Mark One Eyeball!

[vololiberista]

Ciao Ashaman I was up unti 2:30 am as well but I was crushing grapes ready for winemaking (another of my hobbies!!)
The first radars in England were not the rotating dishes but high radio masts. Here is a pic of the Chain home system

The orginal radar screen was a simple oscilloscope with the spikes. The radar operators were trained to "interprete" whether the spike was a flock of birds or Germans! The oscilloscope had an electronic scale that allowed the operator to "estimate" the distance.They became quite skilled at this. Different frequencies were used for radar establishements used for different purposes. In order to see in more detail the operator could use a gain switch to increase the intensity of the radar beam. All in all a much more practical use of the cathode ray tube oops cardboard round tube than pubblicit

[ashaman]

Thanks guys. I've got the picture. It's quite strange I never found on the net the same informations you gave me, perhaps I was looking in the wrong direction.


PS
Wine making is one of my (and my father's) seasonal hobbies too. This year though, thank to hail, we'll be having little new wine. It's a shame really.