Uniter

Off topic slightly, where on earth is that UNITER building in Dunfermline??? I was stationed at Pitreavie(nr Dunfermline) in the late eighties and had never heard of UNITER, in fact Id never heard of it till 91.

Hi Canberra, the location is given in the same link that inspired your question on the UH thread, click on this www.secretscotland.org.uk/index.php/Secrets/UNITERBuildings and there is map showing the locations including the Dunfermline one.
Not all Uniters are on military establishments, some are are in normal locations but fenced off, a small number have been sold up for sale to anyone interested lately.

Edit, in fact the Dunfermline one is for sale here, www.scottishproperty.gov.uk/search/index...details&uprn=F011672

Canberra; Uniter and its partner Boxer were not commenced at Leuchars until late 91 early 92 possibly even later. I had moved from 56 hanger to 55 when they were laying the fibre optics. I clearly recall the day they hit a 10 inch water main outside my office at Hgr 55. . The fibre optic carrier was in a trench 3 meters deep -- in your money about 9 Ft 9 inches-- it was on a gravel bed topped with half a meter of gravel which was capped with 2 meters of reinforced concreted. then covered with the appropriate substrate material. However the terminal buildings - I think they were called NUBS were above ground as were the regional buildings as at Dunfermline; absolutely stupid. they were then connected accross the UK and into Europe via the Boxer microwave links. Bearing in mind this was considered one of the ultimate cold war comms systems you needed power from the National Greid. it was not connected to any of the Station's standby power supplies. Every time we had a power cut Uniter ceased to work. As is well documented the cold war was long over before Uniter was completed. An ill concieved system for my money.

TED
p.s. that 10 inch main and many other services hit while the work was in progress did not appear on any Leuchars plans or drawings.

Ted, not sure why you think the system was a stupid idea, the Uniter buildings had standby power and weren't required to be linked to station standby sets, indeed some were located too remotely for that. As you can see their construction was extremely protected and solid and due to remote locations and duplication were very unlikely to be individually targeted or be destroyed, even by a nearby a strike if such a thing happenened.

Mawganmad. firstly; the on- station fibre optics was extremely resilient way below ground; covered in 2 mt of concrete plus gravel etc and sitting in a bed of gravel to alleviate shock wave damage. but everything else is above ground.

Second. Whilst the big HUB set ups such as Dunfermiline may well have had standby power, on stations which simply had a NUB (if that is the correct term) they did not.
As DI staff on evaluations we would routinely knock out the station power The Uniter phone system would simply shut down no resilience there then !! Some sections including designated refuges etc only had a Uniter phone the normal phones in some locations were removed on installation of Uniter. Believe me and I don't really want to create a threat on the failings of Uniter if you travelled around a station during a power outage some locations were clueless in how to maintain even a cuppa !! and the moan would always be the bloody phone is off !! Yes Uniter had some outstanding features many of them still remain secret to us lesser mortals but as a resilient phone system it didn't even pass the first test. The first test of any resilience system is -- how does it function at user level with a mains outage ??

TED

It sounds like there was a problem there then, I've never heard of the Mawgan ones being a problem during outages and generator switch overs etc (unlike the tower A centre and radar etc!), but as you suggest it comes down to how they are managed, the idea is a sound one though.
I knew a civie comms enginer who was involved in wiring these things and he was staggered at the amount of protection and back-up systems in place.
I think people tend to imagine that all our top defences and systems were actually buried right underground, but it might be surprising just how many weren't in fact.
The conversation came up on the UH visit, at the end of the day there was probably little we could do to counter a successful pre-emptive nuclear strike, but there was plenty we could do to try and combat conventional, tactical, and chemical attacks, it seems many systems were geared up more for these scenerios.

Yes we in station ops only had UNITER phones and as Mr Angus has said in a power cut we lost all our phones. And one glorious day contractors came in to the COC and with no by your leave knocked the power off, and the standby power didnt kick in! The eng ops controller grabbed a torch and went in to the plant room and told them to get the pwer back on or else! Once power was restored the contractors were told to leave the COC and a phone call was made to works flight and the contractors were escorted from the unit.

And it was never esteblished exactly they were doing, and I dont think they did either!

Is there a Uniter at Scampton?

No Uniter at Scampton Al, if you was up this way why didnt you pop in mate?

Hawkeye001;129851 wrote:

No Uniter at Scampton Al, if you was up this way why didnt you pop in mate?

Didn't have a chance mate, was with family and not driving.

It's odd because I saw a building today at Scampton that seemed pretty much identical to a building at Coltishall that I have been told is a Uniter building. Will research further...