Castles in the Sky, the story of Radar and Watson Watt

[Top Cap]

Having started this thread to inform members of the upcoming program, I am delighted it produced such an informative amount of detail. The PYE TV 45MHz TRF Receiver using EF50's was taken up by the Ministry for CH as it was already built and tested, thus saving much time and money as an I.F. Strip.
The details of this are here:- http://www.pyetelecomhistory.org/pro...ms_1939_-_1946

[Nicklyons2]

Originally Posted by Skywave

Agreed; both quotes.

Hmmm, what more can I add.. well the blue / brown flex they were messing with a some point looked suspicious to me! The 'off hand' remark about boiling water whilst pointing a parabolic dish at a pint pot was just outrageous given they hadn't got as far as C.Home never mind entimetric radar.

And, to me the portrayal of Mr Churchill as some bitter guy who had nothing better to do than pursue petty vendettas and grievances was insulting. I don't believe he was a flawless man but I do believe it was a damn good job he was where he was when he was.

If it had been 'Hollywood' or US TV I would have growled at it then laughed but as it was the BBC with the 'blessing' of the OU, I think it was little short of scandalous.

[trh01uk]

Originally Posted by Top Cap

Having started this thread to inform members of the upcoming program, I am delighted it produced such an informative amount of detail. The PYE TV 45MHz TRF Receiver using EF50's was taken up by the Ministry for CH as it was already built and tested, thus saving much time and money as an I.F. Strip.

Hard information on the date of the arrival of the EF50 is hard to pin down, but this article suggests that Pye were depending on it for a TV set to be shown at the August 1939 radio show.

What that means is that most of the work on Chain Home must have been done with some predecessor of the EF50 - probably the SP61. Indeed, the same article states that the radar team were using a TRF receiver developed for early TV by EMI, rather than the later famous IF strip made by Pye which did use the EF50.

The EF50 was of course so good for VHF work, that everyone wanted to use them everywhere. While a few valves for CH would have been no problem, once the Air Ministry wanted 100s of equipments for airborne radar such as AI, ASV, etc and radionavigation such as GEE, the shortage of EF50s became a serious problem.

Designers at TRE were being pressed to not design in EF50s to their equipment. I have copies of correspondence on GEE for instance, which shows that designing in EF50s got the design team black marks. They had to subsitute SP61s wherever possible.

Its interesting that Pye got away with using a single EF50 in the Wireless Set No.19.

Richard

[trh01uk]

Originally Posted by Nicklyons2

And, to me the portrayal of Mr Churchill as some bitter guy who had nothing better to do than pursue petty vendettas and grievances was insulting. I don't believe he was a flawless man but I do believe it was a damn good job he was where he was when he was.

As far as I know, Churchill had very little technical knowledge, and relied totally on Lindemann for technical advice. Wikipedia is not complimentary about Lindemann:

"....anti-democratic, insensitive and elitist, Lindemann supported eugenics, held the working class, homosexuals and blacks in contempt and supported sterilization of the mentally incompetent."

He was, in fact, a rather typical man of the time. And the fact that Churchill held him in high regard suggests a certain lack of judgment - or perhaps lack of access to anyone better. Apparently, Lindemann had a gift for explaining the technical to the non-technical......which may go some way to accounting for Churchill's reliance on him.

If Lindemann had had his way, then there would have been no Chain Home developed. The team would have put their efforts into aerial mines and infra-red beams.

Its easy to look back with 21st century eyes and thinking, and assume that people in the 1930s/40s were just like us. They were not. For one thing the ruling class ruled, and "knew" they were totally superior to the mass of the population. And indeed, the mass of the population believed that too - and followed orders without question. A rigid hierarchy was built into society back then, which was just what was needed to effectively "militarise" the entire country.

The trouble with hierarchies is that the wrong people can end up at the top of the heap. Those who get there not because they are gifted and able, but because they "know the right people", or were born to someone already at the top. To some extent the same problem still blights the UK today, but back then the system was set in concrete.

The truth is that Churchill was deeply flawed, but had just the right mix of gifts and abilities for the very peculiar circumstances that applied in WWII. For one thing, he was second son of a lord, and thus had the right "connections". That no doubt gave him influence despite not being in favour in the mid-30s. The fact that the British people quickly gave him the boot in 1945 showed that they knew full well what his limitations were.....

Richard

[paulsherwin]

Let's not drift off topic folks.

[woodchips]

Read all through this thread and not certain whether to add or not.

My dad worked for Ecko (Ekco) at Southend in the late 1930s on the TV production, getting the sets to work.

By 1939 he was employed at Bawdsey as a civilian employee on the radar development. Something called the Bawdsey abortion, whatever that was. From there he was transferred, still a civilian, to Dover where he 'joined' the RAF and was bombed out of the station in the Battle of Britain. Transferred to Ventnor he was then bombed out of there as well. He then spent the rest of the war in the middle east, traveling all over it repairing radars. He started the war a corporal, and ended it a corporal, he loathed the RAF and everything to do with it. See post 104 above, in spades.

But, where else other than the TV industry did video amplifiers and working at 10s of MHz occur? There is no doubt that Blumlein was a very clever man, but what was needed was lots of people to fix radar sets, and the only place these could come from was the TV industry. It is obvious that TV design benefited from radar, but radar was only possible because of TV.

I wonder how many radar service people were electrocuted, my dad always kept one hand in a pocket, never knew why at the time of course. None of them ever got a medal.

[SteveCG]

EF50ed PYE IF strips were used for post-war Radio-Astronomy as well at 405 line TV. I think the IF strip's gain was controlled by altering the suppressor grid voltages since the EF50 was not variable mu.

[KeithsTV]

Just received my copy of The Secret War and watched the Battle of the Beams. I know what I'll be doing tonight.

Wonderful to see this after 37 years since it was first broadcast and shows how much we owe to RV Jones.

Keith

[wireful3]

Just watched part of it myself. It is absolutely absorbing without resorting to histrionics. The technology is simplified without dumbing down.

[HamishBoxer]

Bought those wayback Keith and all I can say is Excellent.

[turretslug]

A bit of gentle searching on "NT46 valve" turned up the fact that not only did they suffered the occasional spectacular failure when hard-pressed and over-run to squeeze the maximum transmitter power but that the generally rewarding development and progress of the radar systems would sometimes be hit by manifestations of a well-known law when it embarrassingly failed to perform for important delegations. So, there's at least a kernel of truth in two of the programme's themes. I'm sure that even to a modern layman, the "transmitters" featured seemed embarrassingly puny- I reckon that it wouldn't have cost too much to rig up some of those big old transparent envelope sodium street lamp bulbs (unpowered) in a skip-fodder grey file shelf cabinet (sans doors and shelves) with a bit of imaginative and inexpensive peripheral "tech" dressing as a "transmitter". We'd still have scoffed, but to the majority audience, it would be a better simile of a piece of edgy, developmental, somewhat dangerous piece of '30's technology. And the fire-crackers would have made more sense!

It seems Watson-Watt had a reputation as a captivating and convincing salesman- perhaps the talk of trip-wires and other quirky scenes was a rather lame attempt by the script-writers to convey this aspect of his character.

As for the featured kit and chronology- well, those in the know (and, as I've noticed in the course of my career, especially male techie types...) will always pick to pieces anything that deviates from their particular narrative and detail knowledge. If we listed all the films where Routemasters, 4-6-2s, M47s, Tiger Moths etc. etc. feature inappropriately, it would take a week! No programme or film has unlimited time or money to get all the minutiae spot-on, some do quite well but at great expense and a diminishing number of cognoscenti will always find fault.

The "heating soup" scene was indeed risible and the delving inside a TV for a "new, small, powerful valve" only slightly less so- I can only assume that these were late script alterations in order to tick the "wider themes" and "contemporary relevance" boxes.

All in all, it's difficult to fit a real-life story with such a huge range of technical, historical and political aspects into 90 minutes with a real-world budget and please all of the people all of the time. In a way, I saw the programme as a sort of lower-key, British counterpart of "Shadow Makers"- that took a few liberties with character, events and technology but got other things right and conveyed the basic theme to a wide audience who might otherwise have been uninterested.

[Tractorfan]

Hi,
Does anyone know if and when it's likely to be repeated? As usual, it clashed with one of wifey's programmes on the other side (after days of 'nothing on') and I only caught the final 30 minutes.
I don't have the benefit of Iplayer here, so am reliant on the jolly old Beeb's programme planners to fit it in somewhere else in the near future.
Cheers, Pete.

[trh01uk]

Originally Posted by turretslug

As for the featured kit and chronology- well, those in the know (and, as I've noticed in the course of my career, especially male techie types...) will always pick to pieces anything that deviates from their particular narrative and detail knowledge.

That's a fair comment, however it should be contrasted with the extreme efforts taken by filmmakers to get period costumes and street scenes correct. I saw Cambridge with its "makeover" for the production of "Chariots of Fire". We had plastic gutters in the street, whole shop fronts repainted, and anything "modern" masked or moved. It may be a matter of budget of course as to how far they go. But my mother-in-law, who could remember Cambridge in the 1920s, said that it was as she remembered it.

What us "techies" are objecting to is inaccurate history, not "deviating from their particular narrative". This isn't just a personal whim, its about "telling it as it was". No-one who knows the history of early radar is likely to say "this is how it was".

I think what we see here is a general failure to recognise that technology is now the foundation of our civilisation, and to dismiss it as unimportant. Lets face it - most of the population is technically illiterate. And when a subject of great importance suffers almost total neglect by the population at large, any portrayal of it is better than nothing.

What people who have been captivated by the Bletchley Park story don't realise is that radar, as portrayed in this film, was absolutely critical to winning the Battle of Britain. All BP can say is that their efforts "shortened the war by two years". Without radar, the war would have been lost before BP even got off the ground.

Richard

[richrussell]

Originally Posted by Tractorfan

Does anyone know if and when it's likely to be repeated?
I don't have the benefit of Iplayer here

The Radio Times website doesn't list a repeat date, but most of this type of programme do tend to get repeated, so maybe keep checking the listings.

There are ways to access iPlayer from outside the UK, some of them legal

[raditechman]

I watched half of the programme, then went to bed.
Two points.
I think they would have used M/cs.
In the part where they go to get some equipment from the Navy there is a UHF TV aerial visible on the roof of the building. (At the start of that part).
John

[M0FYA Andy]

One of the real heros of that time, and if he got a mention I missed it, was Dowding. He fought long and hard for Chain Home, and was willing to argue with Churchill.
If Chain Home hadn't been built the Battle of Britain would have been lost and I dread to think what the consequences might have been.

Andy

[Phil G4SPZ]

I just watched the programme on iPlayer and enjoyed it very much. It's probably the first time I've watched 90 minutes of TV for years. Yes, there were historical errors and technical anachronisms, but these were (to me) of passing interest and didn't detract from the enjoyment.

I think the programme ceases to be available on iPlayer from tonight...

[SiriusHardware]

Originally Posted by KeithsTV

Just received my copy of The Secret War and watched the Battle of the Beams. I know what I'll be doing tonight.

I've just watched the first two programmes tonight, having ordered it after you (Keith) alerted us to its availability.

Did anyone else notice R.V. betraying an obsession with precision by wearing a watch on each wrist?

I was also quite amused by the way the Germans (classically educated) kept giving their projects code names which were significant clues to what they did - so for example the British boffins (also classically educated) could deduce that something named after Freya - who had a watchman called Heimdall who could see for a hundred miles by day or night - must be a Radar.

One of the best things about the series is that it, like 'The World At War' was made at a time when some of the most significant individuals involved were still around, in good health and able to tell the same stories from different viewpoints.

I complained earlier that the 'Castles In The Sky' drama hadn't even made a decent effort to properly recreate the relatively simple 'proof of RDF concept' experiment carried out by Watson-Watt. In 'The Secret War' they not only did that but they had the original technician sitting in their 'van' (a Landrover) operating the controls.

Elsewhere, we got to see Randall and Boot using a replica of their original Magnetron apparatus.

In the unlikely event that anyone here has never seen the series, it's an absolute must-see, especially for those with a keen interest in vintage technology.

[KeithsTV]

I did wonder why he wore two watches. Reminds me of someone where I used to work wearing two watches, a mechanical one for telling the time and a digital LED one for impressing people.

As you say having been made about 35 years after the events most of those involved were still alive and able to talk about their exploits. I was a great revelation to me that the electronic aids on both sides were so advanced in fact I think the German radar systems were more advanced than ours but we had probably the foresight to develop the whole of the fighter command structure to deal with any threats something I don't believe the Germans had done.

Not long after the series was aired I bought the book of the series and read it in a day. It gives more information than the TV series did. I recently bought RV Jones Most Secret War book, again another fascinating read. If you've enjoyed the TV/DVD series these two books are a must have. It's also amazing that Most Secret War is still in print after 37 years.

[SiriusHardware]

Originally Posted by KeithsTV

I did wonder why he wore two watches. Reminds me of someone where I used to work wearing two watches, a mechanical one for telling the time and a digital LED one for impressing people.

My grandfather (a civil servant for most of his life) had the same habit (of wearing two watches). He had a horror of not knowing exactly what the time was to the nearest second. Atomically correct MSF watches would have been his dream come true, but unfortunately he died before they came along.

In Jones's case it may simply have been that one of his watches was the better timekeeper, but the other had some useful additional feature the main one didn't, like a calendar, stopwatch, timer or something along those lines.