[jamesinnewcastl]

I also collect real life stories so that I will be able to make an authentic documentary myself - here are some W/O sections:

The gunners and wireless operators went out to their aircraft to do their D.I.s (daily inspections); wireless operators had to change the two-volt batteries for the radio set. There were eleven of them to change, which was a problem of carrying eleven batteries out to the aircraft.

Once the under carriage and flaps were up I went back to my wireless duties where I kept a listening watch on the group frequency in case of recall and switched off the IFF (identification friend or foe) 50 miles out from the English coast.

As we approached the enemy coast the wireless operator's duties were to listen on frequencies he had been given at briefing and listen to German broadcast waiting to hear the word 'enda', which was the same as our word for 'over' at the end of a transmission. When we heard that word we had to back-tune our transmitters to that frequency and turn the transmitter to R/T (radio telephone). There was a microphone fitted in the port inner engine nacelle so when I switched to R/T it transmitted engine noise on that frequency and would hopefully interfere with the night fighters' instructions.

I had to get a fix on the MF DF (medium frequency direction finding); this gave us our exact position at the time so we could then set a course for home base. I switched on the IFF (identification friend or foe) at 100 miles from the English coast then I could get QDNTs (a course to steer to reach base with zero wind) from our HF/DF (high frequency direction finding) at Newmarket. This brought us right over base where we made a good landing.

OTU was almost entirely devoted to navigation practice. The w/op was fairly well occupied obtaining a quota of QDMs, loop bearings and radio fixes.

we lost Gee which was our primary position finding device. The navigator called for a radio fix, but to transmit on medium frequency I had to reel out the trailing aerial which was 150 feet of wire; this was also located in the mid-fuse, near the reserve oil tank.

The Loop Aerial, Radio Fixes and QDMs.
These facilities were of no use over enemy territory, but could be useful for finding your way home in an emergency. The loop could give a bearing from a radio beacon, or allow the pilot to 'home' on it. To provide a radio fix, there were groups of three Direction Finding (DF) stations at a number of points over the British Isles. The w/op called the control station on Wireless Telegraphy (WT /Morse) requesting a fix,and the three DF stations each took a bearing on the aircraft's transmission. The outstations relayed their numbers to the control station by land line where the bearings were triangulated and the position was transmitted to the aircraft. There were DF stations spread over the whole of the British Isles from where the w/op could obtain a QDM by WT. Strictly speaking, QDM meant "Your course to fly to reach me is ...", but in practice they were mainly used as bearings - at least by BC aircraft. Finally, there was 'Darkie', which was raised on channel D of the TR 1196 - the pilot's Radio Telephony (RT/voice) HF set. This was a low powered channel with a very short range which was mainly used by fighters to ascertain their position. However, it did have the added use of receiving 'squeaker beacons' attached to 'friendly' barrage balloons to warn of their presence.


There are a good many such stories on the internet - you just have to search for them really then draw out the operation sections which are fewer as the authors don't seem to talk a lot about their everyday 'jobs'.

I also have a document which details how the pilot calls up ground stations if you are interested.

Cheers
James

Cheers
James