Aerial farm nr Leominster

Near Leominster in Herefordshire there is a large aerial farm. Anyone know what its name is or its role? My guess given its location is that it is to do with 22 SAS, but anyone know anymore?

Where is the site in relation to Leominster?

A few miles to the north we have Wooferton, here . It was one of the four original transmitter sites for the BBC overseas service. The others are Daventry, Rampisham and Skelton. (I used to work at the latter). All have large aerial farms so that they can beam their signals to selected areas of the world.

wiki.ibs.org.uk/audiocompendium/%20...%20=Wooferton

Graham

Yes it is to the north of Leominster, I think youve answered my question. As for Daventry didnt the world service stop using it for transmissions?

canberra wrote:

As for Daventry didnt the world service stop using it for transmissions?

Yes - I was unaware of this, but found:

Q1: Why did the Daventry site close?

A1: Mainly because of the end of the cold war as 'Voice Of America' did not need Woofferton anymore. By this time the Daventry antenna infrastructure needed major re-engineering work and so it was more cost effective to close Daventry and move services to Woofferton.

Glad you asked that as I discovered an interesting free book (download) on Daventry here - it includes the pre-war Radar tests.

At Skelton we transmitted lots of stuff to Russian occupied countries. They would be jammed. Normally when you powered up a transmitter 15 minutes before programme start you'd first apply preset settings from a chart, then bring it up to around 50kW and do some fine tuning. Then to 75kW and retune, before full power at 100kW and a final readjustment.

When we did the Eastern European stuff the rule was to do a 'Crash Start' - theoretically so the Russians couldn't preset their jammers. You'd apply the settings and with just 20 seconds to go power it up immediately to 100%. I'f you'd got some tuning setting wildly out there would often be a spectacular firework display.
Totally unconvinced that a Crash Start fooled the Russians - I assume they had access to Radio Times

The Daventry book describes the urgent building of secure bomb shelters during WWII - not for station personnel, but to store the spare precious high-power valves.

Graham

And werent aerials built at Daventry because it was the highest point in roughly the centre of England?

canberra wrote:

And werent aerials built at Daventry because it was the highest point in roughly the centre of England?

The site was originally a long wave transmitter with an omnidirectional aerial - hence for maximum coverage the centre of England is the optimum place.
Short waves are completely different and travel around the world because they bounce (skip) between the surface of the earth and the ionosphere. The aerials are fairly directional and aim at a low angle to get the stuff down to Oz with a relatively small number of bounces. Conversely you aim at a high angle to the earth to get signals just into Europe. Skelton was built near Penrith for two reasons: 1) it was further away from the Luftwaffe than Daventry, and (2) Daventry was too close to France for the first wave reflection when it came back to earth. The Lake District was a much better site. I always remember you could pick up the signals clearly in Penrith and Carlisle (ground wave), but on the East Coast - Teesside - there was nothing whatsoever because the ground wave had petered out and you were 'inside the skip-distance'.

Years after I worked there I discovered that the aerials used were very very similar to the Chain Home radar arrays.

End of lecture on propagation - I'm amazed I can remember this stuff but the maths involved is another story that always sorted the men from the boys

(My neighbour got her maths PhD on a 'simulation of over-the-horizon radar propagation'. Now that really does impress me!)

Graham

I found that quite interesting carnaby. So what role did Droitwich play, I thougth that transmitted the world service as well.

Yes I found it interesting as well.

And when you say Skelton is near Penrith, it isnt the site thats between Penrith and Wigton is it? Ive seen one near the b road between Penrith and Wigton.

bigherb wrote:

I found that quite interesting carnaby. So what role did Droitwich play, I thougth that transmitted the world service as well.

Thanks for the compliment (guys). The next lecture will be at 14:30.

Droitwich (IIRC) handled more of the long range transmissions, rather than 'The European Service of the BBC'. The most boring job at Skelton was monitoring the stuff going out - a rotating 6 seconds each of, often a dozen programs none of which were in English.

Yes bigherb, Skelton is where you stated - the aerials have changed dramatically since my day from 'Chain Home Curtains'

I've just remembered every few days we'd run a 'backscatter test'. This involved sending out a string of high power pulses and measuring the reflection / echo to determine where the first skywave hit the earth. Decades later I discovered that the pulse' transmitter used for this was an ex AM Gee or Oboe device.

Remember one night the Senior Engineer had to ring 'The RAF' to advise that the power to all the red obstruction lights on top of the 31 masts had failed.
RAF had apparently no knowledge of any obstructions in Cumbria, and asked how high the masts were? On being told '150 to 325 feet' they remarked that it could be a problem. We then reminded them that, up the road was the TV transmitter at Caldbeck - a 1,000 foot mast. 'That's useful knowledge', they replied, 'we didn't know anything about that one'

Great article here which mentions, The buildings are constructed of eighteen inch solid brick outer walls with reinforcing rods built in to the masonry. Certain inner walls are also eighteen inch, but the main structure is steel. Sorry Paul don't know if it's Stretcher or Flemish

Graham