Question on MRU radar stations

[Rob Stuart]

I am trying to figure out why AMES 254, a MRU (Mobile Radio Unit) radar station, did not detect the Japanese aircraft approaching Colombo on 5 April 1942. MRUs had directional antennas, much like the Chain Home stations, so I have to wonder if maybe it was pointed toward the southwest instead of south, which is the direction the Japanese flew in from. Can anyone say how wide an arc a MRU could cover? For example, if oriented to the southwest could it pick up aircraft approaching from the south? Also, to what extent, if any, was range reduced toward the edges of the arc which could be covered?

Thanks,

Rob

[Ross_McNeill]

Of the two radar stations only one was operational (Trincomalee). The one at Colombo was still being installed and so could give no warning of raid. It was only when visually observed that alert was given.

However the early, albeit confused, report from the Catalina patrols had meant that Hurricane pilots were at readiness sitting in the cockpits.

Weather also played a factor with conditions at Colombo of 8/10 to 10/10 cloud with a base of 2,000 feet. Heavy tropical rain was falling with the associated gusts.

Regards
Ross

[Rob Stuart]

Hello Ross,

In fact, I have the ORB for AMES 254, a 2 May '42 cable from Layton to Churchill and the AHB narrative called "Radar in Raid Reporting" which all say that AMES 254 became operational on 28 March. Secondary sources which say otherwise may have confused AMES 254 with the other radar unit in the Colombo area, AMES 524, which was still being installed on 5 April. The 222 Group report on the Colombo raid says that the early warning system "failed" on 5 April and not that there wasn't one. The AMES 254 ORB notes that its Lewis guns were in action on 5 April but does not say whether or not the radar detected the approaching aircraft.

Cheers,

Rob

[Ross_McNeill]

Hi Rob,

My info comes from two different sections of the AHB Narrative Far East Campaign Vol III India Command.

The most pertinent being in the section entitled "The Attack on Colombo". Actual references and words used are:

IIJ50/14/1 D of Ops Folder cited as source of Colombo not having operational Radar

IIK18/9 and IIJ50/14/6

"34. The radar system was still in process of installation at Colombo and no information regarding the approach of enemy aircraft was therefore received until they were actually sighted."

This suggests that no unit at Colombo was operating on the 5th.

Regards
Ross

[Rob Stuart]

Ross,

Thanks for alerting me to the AHB narrative on the Far East Campaign. I’ll have to get my hands on a copy of it. However, I’d point out that the AHB narrative on radar says the opposite, and as it’s specificly on radar I think it should be the more reliable – and it was completed five years after the war instead of only two. Furthermore, I’d say that the AMES 254 ORB has to be acknowleged as the primary source for what AMES 254 did, and it notes very clearly that:

-its personnel arrived at Colombo on HT Talma on 18 March and its equipment arrived on another ship at 0900 on 22 March. My the end of the 22nd the “R” mast was laid out ready for assembly at the Ridgeway golf course, about seven miles north of Ratmalana

-assembly of the R mast started at 0600 on 23 March

-the “T” mast was erected on 24 March

-the station became operational at 1800 on 25 March, but without telephone lines to the operations room

-on 28 March the station was connected by telephone to the operations room, making it fully operational

-the section of the ORB covering April gives no indication that it detected the approaching aircraft on 5 April but there is a note saying “Normal Operations throughout month”, which indicates that it was in operation on the day of the raid.

There is also, as I mentioned, a 2 May cable from Layton to Churchill in which he reported that “M.R.U. Ridgeway [AMES 254] installed 25th March experienced interference from hills. Range approximately 60 miles.” As C.-in-C. Ceylon, Layton would have got this information from 222 Group, so this is a reliable primary source. His cable to Churchill may not have been available to the AHB in 1947.

I also have the ORB for No. 20 Operations Room, which was the ops room to which AMES 254 was connected. It notes that “the early warning system failed to provide information on the Japanese aircraft until they were very close to Colombo.” So the AHB Far East narrative is right that there was no early warning but almost certainly wrong about why that was the case. I think the explanation remains to be determined, and I’m just wondering if part of it might be that the station's non-rotating directional antennas might not have been pointing to the south. The Japanese approached from a little east of south. They made landfall about 60 miles south of Colombo and approached it over the land and not over the sea.

Rob

[Ross_McNeill]

Hi Rob,

One that needs a great deal of spade work to get the originals and try to fathom out why the words were written. I suppose failure/non operational can mean different things to different people.

What is clear is that Colombo was on alert and that various reports had drawn attention to the location of the Japanese task force so I would be surprised if radar the could be turned was pointed in any direction other than ordered.

Catalina report on the evening of the 4th reported the large enemy force approacing from the South East some 360 miles out. Despite the loss of this aircraft and others elements of the force were shadowed during the night until lost in the early morning due to adverse visibility.

In the early hours of the 5th the CinC East Indies station gave orders for dispersal of shipping from Colombo to the north and the west including Dorsetshire and Cornwall to Addu Atoll.

Catalina regained and reported contact with one Japanese Battleship and two Cruisers at 07:00 on the 5th, subsequent messages sent in error were quickly corrected but there is no indication that any carriers were reported as part of the fleet composition.

AOC Ceylon had assumed that the carrier position was associated with the erroneous report 85 miles east of the 07:00 Battleship/Cruiser report.

A Blenheim strike was assigned but these could not take off until after the first Japanese air attack at 07:40 hrs on Colombo Harbour and a second wave of approx 40 aircraft going for Ratmalana where the RAF/FAA aircraft were either airborne or dispersed when the aerodrome was hit.

So shipping dispersed, part of the Japanese force being shadowed in contact and aircraft in the process of taking off.

Regards
Ross

[Rob Stuart]

Ross,

I have done some more research and have more or less answered at least part of my original question. I was hoping to find a specific figure in degrees indicating how wide an arc the signal from the directional antenna array could cover (e.g., 90 degrees). I didn’t find any specific figure but did learn that the signal floodlit a wide frontal area and that the diploes had reflectors, so that most of the signal was directed to the front. The radiation pattern may therefore have looked liked Figue 5 on the page at http://www.hp.com/rnd/pdf_html/antenna.htm. If this is the case, then maximum range was attainable across an arc of 40 degrees and close to maximum range for at least a further 40 degrees, so pretty good range across an arc of at least 80 degrees.

I agree with you that AMES 254 was not going to go mucking about with its antenna orientation on 4 April after Birchall sighted KdB approaching, especially as it had taken them three days to put their masts up in the first place. Considering that Colombo was some way up the west coast of Ceylon and taking into account Ceylon’s position in the Indian Ocean, it would have been clear to 222 Group that Japanese carrierborne aircraft could attack Colombo from west, southwest, south, or any bearing east of south. Since ground-based observers could give some warning of an attack approaching from the south or anywhere east of south, I’d be sorely tempted to point my radar to the southwest. Also, if I were expecting an attack from the south I’d want to put my early warning radar to the south of my main fighter base and not seven miles to the north of it.

To summarize this scenario:

-Layton says that AMES 254 had a range of 60 miles
-if the antenna was pointed more than 40 degrees off due south there would have been some reduction in range. A 10 percent reduction would make the range 54 miles
-subtracting the seven miles by which AMES 254 lay to the north of Ratmalana leaves 47 miles. The Japanese aircraft were approaching at about 150 MPH, so there would have been less than 20 minutes left to get a warning through to No. 20 Ops Room and for it to get a scramble order through to Ratmalana and Racecourse.

This is of course only one possible explanation. As you say, more digging is needed.


Rob

[Rob Stuart]

I'd like to note that I was apparently wrong to state in this thread from a year ago that MRUs had directional antennas. It seems that MRUs and TRUs had the same electronics as Chain Home stations but different "all round" antennas.

The last photo on page 9 of the document at http://www.dunwichmuseum.org.uk/reslib/PDF/20120123112009Radar%20at%20Dunwich11.pdf shows the crossed horizontal dipole receiving antenna. I also have a photo, not in the public domain, of the transmitting antenna. It also had crossed diploes, but it looks like there were six of them - three parallel to each other facing one direction and another set of three at right angles to them. The photo at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Royal_Air_Force_Radar,_1939-1945_CH15200.jpg shows a MRU in operation, with the transmitting mast on the left and the receiving mast on the right, and it is clearly visible that the antennas are small arrays attached to the mast and not slung between them.

I think that the radiation pattern from the transmitting antenna was probably like the pattern shown as view "A" in figure 4-39 in the document at http://www.rfcafe.com/references/electrical/NEETS-Modules/NEETS-Module-10-4-41-4-50.htm. If this is correct then the coverage from a MRU or TRU station was as near to omnidirectional as makes no difference and antenna orientation was not a factor in the Japanese attaining surprise at Colombo.

If anyone is in a position to confirm or refute any of this I'd be grateful to hear from them.

Thanks,

Rob

[Ross_McNeill]

Hi Rob,


You may like to have a look at Signals Vol 5.


The footnote on page 62 says:


The technical equipment A.M.E.S. No.254 (M.R.U.) reached Colombo from Great Britain on 23 March 1942 and was working by the evening of 25 March. The plotting line was serviceable two days later. The failure to detect the raid on 5 April was attributable in part to the very troublesome permanent echos and to gaps subsequently discovered in the vertical polar diagram of the station. Another contributory cause of the failure was an unequally divided watch-keeping roster resulting in operators continuing on watch with diminished alertness.


Regards
Ross

[Resmoroh]

Ross (et al)
That footnote was clearly drafted by someone who had suffered all the vicissitudes mentioned. I felt for him – even after all this time - having had much the same, more modern, experiences. The vertical polar diagram anomalies referred to were exploited in our Cold War (and subsequent) Tactical Decision Aids (TDAs) whereby (to put it simply) WE could SEE (or forecast!) where the gaps were in THEIR radar coverage/returns and send OUR a/c into those gaps! But getting a big AMES up and running in 48 hrs was good going! Compare that with transporting 1 ACC (in its TINSMITH incarnation) which took near half the Herc fleet!!! Made 1 ACC about as tactically mobile as Windsor Castle!!
HTH
Peter Davies

[Ross_McNeill]

Hi Peter,


The fine line difference between mobile and transportable - not forgetting that if we need to move the transportable unit by air we had better not disposed of the Short Belfast that was the only aircraft that it could be transported in!


During some work that I did on Chain Home it struck me that I knew very little about how the early CH stations operated, assuming that it was not much different to the dustbin lid full of glowing maggots that could be visually understood in a sweep of the beam.


The first eye opener for me was that the Chain Home beam was not a 4 degree cone that swept but a 100 degree stationary fan that returned echoes from everything in front and behind at the same time.


The operator had to manually look at the fan in steps like looking at a complete room through the letter box with a telescope. No wonder that being inattentive caused information to be missed.


This is a description of what the screen operator did in a 1941 Chain Home station from Signals Volume V:


"Observer
This Radio Operator sat opposite the cathode ray tube wearing a Head and Breast Telephone set and observed the echoes on the tube.


He (sic) dealt with them in turn starting with the echo nearest the ground ray on the left-hand side of the tube.


He first sensed the echo to determine whether the aircraft was in front or behind the C.H. station and then side-sensed it to decide which side it was of the line-of-shoot.


He then placed the manually controlled range pointer on the left-hand edge of the echo and took a bearing by swinging the goniometer until the minimum signal strength was obtained.


When the operator pressed two switches which actuated the electrical calculator this caused a grid reference (controlled by the settings of the positions of the range marker and the goniometer dial) to appear on an illuminated display panel situated in front of the teller.


The Observer then switched to the height aerials and repeated the performance causing a height to appear below the grid reference.


A further set of switches indicated the estimated number of aircraft in the raid.


As soon as the complete set of information was displayed the Observer announced the name of the R.D.F. station by telephone to Stanmore Filter Room followed by the track number or identification and I.F.F., if showing."


In the 1940 version the electrical calculator was a person with calibration tables derived from autogyro test flights and a pencil, who adjusted the information from the Observer before it was sent to Stanmore.


Quite a series of steps to be done to cover the entire 100 degree line-of-shoot when all the time the hostile/friendly was advancing at 300 miles an hour.


All this goes a way to put the errors by the No.254 MRU operators into context. No real time for calibration, overlong watches, equipment blind spots and permanent echoes in distracting places on the oscilloscope style display.


You can see what an advance in situation visualisation that the PPI display brought.


Regards
Ross

[Rob Stuart]

Hello Ross,

Thanks very much for your responses. I think that the Department of National Defence history directorate here in Ottawa has a copy of Signals Vol. 5 and I’m trying to borrow it now.

The Signals Vol. 5 footnote you’ve quoted says that “The technical equipment A.M.E.S. No.254 (M.R.U.) reached Colombo from Great Britain on 23 March 1942 and was working by the evening of 25 March. The plotting line was serviceable two days later.” This agrees fairly well with the AMES 254 ORB, except that the latter says that their technical equipment came with them from Egypt, on a separate ship from the unit’s personnel.

The statement that “The failure to detect the raid on 5 April was attributable in part to the very troublesome permanent echos and to gaps subsequently discovered in the vertical polar diagram of the station.” is new for me and very interesting. Understanding it stretches my technical knowledge a little bit:

-By ‘permanent echoes”, do they mean that at certain bearings/altitudes/ranges there was always a blip and an enemy formation in it would be undetectable?

-By “gaps … in the vertical polar diagram” do they mean that no signal was being emitted, or no echo could be received, on certain bearings? (I suppose that these gaps were “subsequently discovered” because the station was operational for only about 7-10 days before the Japanese attacked and too few calibration flights had yet been flown to find them.)

“Another contributory cause of the failure was an unequally divided watch-keeping roster resulting in operators continuing on watch with diminished alertness.” I guess they’re implying here that the operators on watch between 0700 and 0730, when the Japanese should have been detected, were tired at the end of a longer than average shift. That’s interesting. A Catalina sighted the approaching Japanese carrier force the previous afternoon and the airfields went to “standby” at 0400 , so you’d think that the CO would have been on hand to make sure everyone was alert and on the ball, and that, if anything, extra hands would have been on deck.


Cheers,

Rob

[Ross_McNeill]

Hi Rob,

The Chain Home RDF/Radar of the 1938-42 era can be described as the best that could be delivered in the best time rather than the best that could be developed over an extended delivery time.

It was generally a grouping of existing solutions in the 1934-1936 period that were adapted/extended to be included in the RDF system and came with inherent problems that persisted in the final system.

Work at the turn of the century showed that an object would reflect a portion of the continuous wave that struck it.

What was not clear to the Air Ministry was that an aircraft structure would reflect enough energy to be picked up by a receiver and this was part of the reason for Dowding asking for the demonstration using the existing continuous wave broadcast transmitter at Daventry.

The eventual transmitter design used in Chain Home from 1938 varied in power output but used the same polar transmission diagram.

The transmitter would project a lobe of pulsed radio energy in front of the station as well as a lesser amount behind and to the side of the line of shoot of the transmitter installation axis.

Everything that is illuminated by the pulse in front of, behind and to the side, returns the initial energy. Returned energy that has passed the station can also be re-reflected off objects behind the station giving ripple effect echoes that can be received for quite some time after the initial pulse.

Figure 1 of this excellent site shows a plan view of the lobes associated with a transmitter.
http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/ch/chainhome.htm

Moving onto the receiver, for Daventry this was the device used by Watson-Watt for picking up the energy from lightning discharges associated from Storm Clouds. They had already used a CRT display to give a display of the energy spike received. Using a pair of aerials and looking at the slight deviation in time the spike was received was used to give left or right direction and a bearing.

What the gear used at Daventry did not give was a range or height.

The pulsed transmitter allowed the range to be calculated from the time from emission of pulse to return of signal but that also means that echoes are also displayed as well as the first return.

The operator needed be both skilled at operation of the set and have experienced the return from locality aircraft to be able to recognise the characteristics of false echo and discount them. This is why additional staff was not the easy answer. The establishment limited the number of trained operators and the "set time" was needed to give them the skills in radar target identification.

For Chain Home four receiver masts were used allowing a quick means of sensing the target echo eg signals arriving first at the pair of masts behind the line of shoot could be discounted immediately and then sense left or right could be made quite quickly.

However the bearing part needs quite a bit of operator skill and memory. When multiple targets are being processed the operator needs to associate the snapshot view they have with a previous snapshot to report a movement of a previous target or the appearance of a new one on a similar bearing.

The last part of the picture is height and this was derived in a similar manner to bearing but not from different masts but two aerial arrays on the same mast.

Figure 4 shows the vertical polar diagram this gives
http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/ch/chainhome4.htm

As you can see there is a gap between the lobes where reflections of any aircraft are not picked up by either aerial pair.

In normal operation the operators will become aware of ground reflections/echoes and can discount them when a target is seen but until they have time on the set in the location all must be considered as targets or all as echoes.

In a similar manner calibration flights and balloons will identify the gaps in the polar lobes and the operators will be aware that targets transiting these areas will reappear at a position that can be estimated. Also targets that approach in the gap of a lobe will suddenly appear at a much shorter range than most other targets detected in the lobes.

The sea level blank area for vertical lobes was the biggest limitation of Chain Home and it was why the Chain Home Low was developed to plug the gap of aircraft in the 5,000 ft and 25 to 30 miles area.

CH sets are only one part of the solution to coastal radar, they need CHL and CHEL to fill the gaps. For looking inward or across land a whole new set of gear is needed to be effective.

Regards
Ross

[Resmoroh]

Rob, Hi,

Radar (the Dark Arts of The Wiggly Amps) can behave in some very queer ways (many connected to meteorology in one form or another). One of these is ducting! Ducting occurs when the temperature and/or humidity in the atmosphere changes rapidly with height. This can cause (sometimes severe) changes in either the propagated signal, or the return signal (quite apart from the bog-standard polar diagram - as per Ross' post). This, in turn, can be used for either offensive, or defensive, purposes provided ‘we’ are aware of whatever ducting is occurring. I suppose one of the modern instances is that navy ships have their radars mounted as high as possible – to get max range. But just above the sea surface the temperature/humidity changes rapidly – the dreaded Surface Duct. Ships’ radars – trying to see ‘down’ as well as ‘up’ – are refracted by this duct, and can often ‘see’ little at very low level. If you can fire a missile under the duct – say, an Exocet as in the Falklands - then you stand a good chance of it being undetected until it’s too late!!

Some smart radars could alert you when a target was moving or not. MTI – Moving Target Indicator. On some early versions the wet leaves on the trees in the nearby copse in a fair wind could cause the system to alarm!!

And don’t even begin to venture into the history/evolution of the dreaded Radar Fuse for the Dropshorts!!!

I would think that it’s all improved since I was involved in the late 1980’s, but for those fighting a war in the infancy of radar it would – I suspect – have caused a considerable flow of Anglo-Saxon 4-letter words from Operators, Supervisors, and Boffins, etc, etc.

And when your operator has done 8 hrs on duty on the scope (ok, possibly rotated with others), then 8 hrs on Guard Duty, then 8 hrs eating/sleeping, you can get a very significant fall-off in attentiveness after only a few days! I know I did - and I didn't have to do Guard Duty.

HTH
Peter Davies

[Ross_McNeill]

Quite right Peter on the Met effects on the propagation, all that you said and more - to the benefit and to the determent on a day by day basis.

Used to work on Tropospheric scatter links in the 80s that was used and tweaked with the met effects to wring that little bit more unlisted performance out the boxes.

The polar charts are good for estimates but amazing the changes that can happen (and be predicted).

On an island at the eastern end of the Med an aircraft on the ground needed two engineers, one local and one at Cottesmore, to talk one on one - no secure comms. MoD passed the request on to UK met magician who came back with a VHF freq and a 15 min time slot in 3 hrs time.

Sick aircraft was dragged out to a remote pan and ground power applied. At the appointed time Med bod keyed the mic not expecting any result on the short range VHF and was answered in clear by bod at Cottesmore doing the same on aircraft on the pan there.

Regards
Ross

[Resmoroh]

Ross, Hi,

Ah!, Troposcatter and OTH “Woodpecker”, etc! Sounds like you and I may have come perilous close to colliding in our previous incarnations? TCW? But it was un morceau d’urine (so to speak) to get, in the field and away from STC predictions, some reasonable frequency info by using Chirpsounders, etc. Most of us didn’t understand the Peruvian Nose-Flute Music that underlay it all – but we could look at the results and say (HF comms) “OK, we’ll go for 4’s until 0300, and then switch to 14’s”.

Good days

Peter

[Rob Stuart]

Hello Ross,

This is a belated thanks for your numerous helpful posts on this.

I am currently writing an article I'm calling A First Look at Why the British Fighters were Caught on the Ground at Colombo. I'll probably offer it to the good folks at http://www.combinedfleet.com/kaigun.htm for posting in their Articles of Interest section. A portion of it attempts to explain why AMES 254 did not provide timely warning of the approaching raid and the main portion of this part currently reads as follows:

Sufficient information is available for some informed speculation as to why AMES 254 provided no timely warning on 5 April. In the first place, we know from a cable from Layton to Churchill that AMES 254 “experienced interference from hills” and had a range of approximately 60 miles.46 This was not the best that could be expected from this type of radar. With similar hardware, AMES 272 picked up the Japanese aircraft approaching Trincomalee on 9 April at 91 miles, for example.

As noted, we also know that AMES 254 was located at Ridgeway. Ridgeway is about six miles north of Ratmalana, where three of Colombo’s four fighter squadrons were based, and one mile east of the improvised airstrip at Colombo’s racecourse, where the fourth, 258 Squadron, and the Blenheim-equipped 11 Squadron were based. The leading element of the Japanese formation, which of course was approaching from the south, was a chotai of nine Zeros from the carrier Hiryu. The Model 21 Zero cruised at just over 200 mph, so Hiryu’s chotai probably covered the roughly 54 miles between the nominal edge of AMES 254’s coverage and Ratmalana in about 17 minutes.

Seventeen minutes should have been enough time, one would think, to get word to the airfields before the enemy arrived overhead, and of course the Vals and Kates were a few minutes behind the first Zeros. There was probably no way that AMES 254 could have provided enough warning for the Hurricanes and (especially) the Fulmars to get to altitude, but it should have been possible to at least get them off the ground.

After the war the Air Ministry’s Air Historical Branch produced a number of “staff narratives” on the RAF’s wartime operations. Signals Volume V: Fighter Control and Interception makes two relevant comments. The first is that “The failure to detect the raid on 5 April was attributable in part to the very troublesome permanent echoes and to gaps subsequently discovered in the vertical polar diagram of the station”.47 To deal with permanent echoes the operator needed be both skilled at the operation of the set and have experienced the return from local aircraft to be able to recognise the characteristics of false echoes and discount them. AMES 254 had gained operational experience in Egypt and presumably had adequately trained operators, but, having been operational at Colombo for less than two weeks, it is unlikely that all its operators were yet familiar with local conditions. It’s pure speculation to say so, but it is perhaps possible that the operators on duty on 5 April may initially have taken the real echoes from the enemy aircraft as being false echoes.

The reference to “gaps … in the vertical polar diagram of the station” may require some explanation. AMES 254’s transmitting antenna array consisted of parallel dipole elements. In the photo at http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205210707 of a Mobile Radio Unit (MRU) such as AMES 254, the transmitting mast is on the left and it can just be made out that there are three parallel dipoles pointing toward the camera and another three diploes perpendicular to them. Each of the six diploes radiated its own signal and thus had its own lobe. The lobes overlapped but there could also be gaps between them. In the height/range diagram in the figure below,48 a small gap can be seen between lobes ‘A’ and ‘B’, meaning that aircraft flying at the relevant altitude would be detected at a shorter range than at a lower or a higher altitude. In the case of AMES 254 on 5 April the altitude at which these gaps occurred is not known, and consequently it is not known whether or not the leading Japanese aircraft fortuitously flew in at an altitude at which they would be detected at something less than 60 miles out. However, the quote from Signals Volume V seems to imply that this was the case.

[Fig. 4 from http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/ch/chainhome4.htm will be inserted here.]

The second relevant comment in Signals Volume V is that “Another contributory cause of the failure was an unequally divided watch-keeping roster resulting in operators continuing on watch with diminished alertness.”49 This clearly implies that the operators on duty when the Japanese came within range had been at their consoles too long. In this context it is important to note that the operators did not have a PPI (Plan Position Indicator) display, the radar ‘scope familiar to everyone today, which displays both range and bearing. At Colombo the operators had “A scopes”, which gave only range.50 Working out the bearing, height and strength of an approaching formation entailed a number of steps which needed to be completed in sequence, and fatigue would no doubt slow things down and tend to result in errors.51

[A short summary will be inserted here.]

Here are the relevant footnotes:

46. Layton to Churchill, 2 May 1942, IZ 155, 1353Z/2, in AIR 20/4693.
47. Signals Volume 5, footnote on page 62, quoted in Ross McNeill post of 5 March 2014 at http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?14236-Question-on-MRU-radar-stations.
48. From http://www.radarpages.co.uk/mob/ch/chainhome4.htm, downloaded April 2014.
49. Signals Volume 5, op cite.
50. For an explanation of radar display types, see A.P.1093C, Vol. I, Chap. 3, at http://www.vmarsmanuals.co.uk/archive/634_AP1093C_Vol_1.pdf.
51. The process is described in a passage from Signals Volume 5 quoted by Ross McNeill in his second post of 5 March 2014 at http://www.rafcommands.com/forum/showthread.php?14236-Question-on-MRU-radar-stations. The author is indebted to Ross for his insights.


Your information was very significant for this article, so I thought I'd give you a sneak preview. Of course, please feel free to comment on it.

Thanks vey much,

Rob

[Resmoroh]

Just a little footnote!
I think something should be mentioned about the problems of erecting the masts on which all these Tx/Rx antennae could be hung.
In one incarnation I was part of the RAF Tac Comms Wing. We went around the globe from war to exercise to war, etc (wherever it/they happened to be!). The basic ‘pole’ was the SPM 30 – a 30 ft mast made up of 6 x 5 ft aluminium tubes that slotted into each other, and was guyed by 4 x guys. These could be erected with little technical skill. Two of those and you could hang all manner of fancy dipole/longwire aerials on them. The next size up was (IIRC?) the SPM 40(?). Same principal. But, again, could be erected with a sufficiency of (non-technical?) labour.
Next up was the SPM 80!! This was a big bu$$er. You had to lay it out on the ground and then turn it through 90-degs (twice) using Turfor winches to get the damn thing upright! And when we were going to hang log-periodic antennae (the dreaded Grainger log-periodic) from it then EVERYBODY on the erection team HAD to know what they were doing or folk could get killed. Sgts (and even Cpls!) in the Aerial Erector Trade would (should, and did!) order people about (some of whom were Junior Electrical Engineering Officers with Degrees!!).
And then, when we’d got the bl00dy thing up, and connected the antennae to the Tx/Rx’s we would find that the RN Ship we were supposed to contacting was now in a different sea/country/continent (delete as appropriate)!! And we had to move the log-periodic to a new azimuth!! Much cussin' & swearin'!!
What I’m trying to exemplify is that all these technicalities are relatively harmless PROVIDED everybody who knows what they’re doing is there and does it. These huge, early, mobile(?), radar masts must have been a right cow to get sorted out. Add to that the temp/humidity in Ceylon, and it’s wonder that they got anything up!
HTH
Peter Davies

[Ian Brown]

Rob,

I should perhaps mention that the quote from Signals Volume V that Ross mentions is actually a footnote on page 63, not page 62. Sorry to be pedantic, but I thought it important to ensure this is cited correctly.

[Rob Stuart]

Ian, thanks for the clarification. Appreciate it.

Peter, I can certainly relate to your experiences. For several years in the 70s and 80s I was an officer in what had been called the Royal Canadian Corps of Signals before the Canadian services were unified in 1968. Our linemen did the type of work you talk about, especially the erecting and maintenance of large permanent radio and radar masts. Of course our radio operators had to put up whatever kind of mast was needed for their tactical radios. For any mast which needed to be guyed, even a small one, there was a real art to putting it up, especially in the dark. We were fairly good at it, but on one we occasion messed it up, the mast came down and one section was snapped in two. I was in charge on that occasion!

[Resmoroh]

Rob, Yeah – been there, done it, got the T-shirt (and the scars to prove it!!).

But it goes the other way as well! When we were in Cyprus on Exercise (which turned into an Op when the Turks invaded!!) I set up a couple of SPM 30s. Reception not bad. But about 50 yds away was one of those windmill water-pump thingys. I asked my guys to run a long wire out from one of the SPM 30s to the windmill! Absolutely brilliant reception! Met bcasts from Bracknell, Paris, Frankfurt, Potsdam, Moscow, Alma Ata, etc, all belting in 9’s! However, the land-breeze got up about 0300. The aerials were swaying. I went out to check all was in order. The soft copper-wire aerial wire would abrade fairly easily. I followed this brilliant long-wire to the windmill where I found that my blokes had accidentally omitted to put an insulator between the wire and the galvanised frame of the windmill!! Shouldn’t have worked – but it did!! So, if somebody tells you they know all about aerials, frequencies, etc, then just ask him whether his knowledge is from a computer/desk, or from having been out in the bundoo and done it!
Good days – it beat working for a living!!
Rgds
Peter Davies

[Rob Stuart]

This is just to let anyone interested know that the article I mentioned in Reply #17, now entitled Air Raid Colombo, 5 April 1942: The Fully Expected Surprise Attack, has been published, warts and all, in the latest issue of The Royal Canadian Air Force Journal. The issue can be accessed at http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/cf-aerospace-warfare-centre/elibrary/journal/2014-vol3-iss4-fall.page. If you'd like to read the article I'd recommend that you open the pdf version, which can be accessed directly at http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/assets/AIRFORCE_Internet/docs/en/cf-aerospace-warfare-centre/elibrary/journal/2014-vol3-iss4-06-air-raid-colombo-5-april-1942.pdf. I'd very much welcome any comments anyone would care to make.

Ross, the end notes in my article acknowledge your assistance and I'd like to repeat my thanks for your help. I very much appreciate it.


Cheers,

Rob

[Rob Stuart]

Greetings from Ottawa,

I am taking advantage of the extra time I have on my hands while my wife and I self-isolate to write a revised and expanded edition of the 2014 article referred to in my last post in this thread, Air Raid Colombo, 5 April 1942: The Fully Expected Surprise Attack. I propose to include the attached 1941 photo of the interior of an AMES 259 van in the article, on the assumption that AMES 254 would have had a van like this too, both of these being MRU units. Could anyone confirm if the following caption would be accurate:

This image shows the interior of the receiver van. The airman closest to the camera plots the contacts reported by the operators behind him and “tells” (reports) the plots to a distant operations room using the hands-free telephone set he is wearing.

Thanks very much,

Rob

http://www.rafcommands.com/galleries/members/259van