This Forum uses cookies only to improve the browsing experience. By viewing our content, you accept the use of those cookies.
To find out more and change your cookie settings, please view our cookie policy.

Close
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1 Send TopicPrint
Normal Topic Oxenhope Moor & Danby Beacon (Read 5,568 times)
Les Barrett
Guest


Oxenhope Moor & Danby Beacon
01.02.2011 at 17:35:08
Print Post  
I have an interest in WWII and Cold War RAF communications and radionavigation systems, and have heard that RAF Oxenhope Moor was a GEE station until its closure in 1970.  (It was listed in Flight International as one of 10 Gee sations due to close).  More reliably, I've heard that it continued for some years after this as a Passive-tracking radar - which would make more sense, for the two rotatable radar dishes still existed a few years ago.  (I believe it worked in conjunction with sites at RAF Bramcote, RAF Hopton & RAF Sopley and at the time was an important component in our early warning system). Nor was there the typical GEE 240' mast there, although there had been at least three of the standard 90' wooden masts on the site in the 70s.  (One remained until recently but had been cut short.  An old photo shows two VHF directional aerials pointing towards Ilkley Moor). 

I've also heard somewhere that Danby Beacon served as a GEE station after its official closure as a radar station in 1957, and that this was the last of the GEE stations to close.  If so where were its associated stations?

  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Graham
Guest


Re: Oxenhope Moor & Danby Beacon
Reply #1 - 24.04.2011 at 22:51:12
Print Post  
My understanding is that Oxenhope was linked with ATCC Barton Hall.  In fact, the b&W ' C Hill' picture appears to show the pair of three element Yagi's pointing that direction.  I do not recall any rotating antenna on site in the seventies, but I do remember that the exterior of the station was a very clean looking white painted place, with many MoD 'prohibited place' notices on its perimeter and lots of sheep inside the compound helping to keep the grass short.  Finally, the C Hill photo shows what appears to be a VHF Ground Plane antenna which I imagine to be for air/ground comms.
Graham G4HFG / W4HFG   
  
Back to top
 
IP Logged
 
Page Index Toggle Pages: 1
Send TopicPrint