HAVAL RABUN BQUIPYENT, GE? 0 ORIPS WIT YOUR RADAR, AADAR {5 one of the Cost revolutionary assets whieh has corp to the Navy ston King AlfVed nade his culinary error, It 1s cporable with the change fran sa{l to steat, Its full end efficient doplomnent, hovover, cepends upon the of fieors who coruand its uso, It ts unfortunately true that, in © vory Large nimiber of cases, its euployrent fs based on teormnce, ond oven suspicion, There ig still a tendency to imagine that RADAR 4s boscd on principles shich the average mortal eannot under stend, and that 1ts problens ulIL be settled by the RAOAR branch, In cotuch feet, there 1s no RADAR bronch as such, position of RADAR in the Nayy {5 snalogous to socimnship, It 18 tho responsibility of ll, any officer 4s Licble to be detaflod to take over MADAR responsibilities, whether spectali st oF noy Tt Xs hoped that chevtor T has gone sere vay towards dispelling, the prevslont {doa thet RADKR 4s Block Megle, It ts dosired in thts chopter to ncko It perfeetiy plein thst, vherens 1n pure rlreless 1t does not natter to the officer shethor his signs 1s nado on type 16, 49 or 65, tn RADAR the type munber rotters very considerably, Confusing though the numbers sey bo at first, tyyo 28h oust ean sonething to’ the officer sn tems of fishting efftelency ond hitting povier, ‘There can be no shirking this, An Officer of the Voteh would not think of arriving on the brtdge without beln: equipped sith binooulers, Furtherncre, he learns how to use them, in order to Anorease the distance at which ho can sight sisplelous objects, ond inprove his ener Al nlortness; but for sone unknorm reason, he wiil not give 2 thought to cn instru ent which gives hin vislon up to 20 alles against surfoce objects, and 100 alles agatast afreraft, vhon he enmot soe bis hend in front of his face with the hunen eyo, Stotlorly, mn officer tekes It os his duty ve study the guns with whteh his ship 18 fitted, aid appreciate their fine-poner, Tenge cad securacy, Ho even Yokes pride in, ond boasts of the gun=power of his ship, RADAR WIL Ot find tus Tightful pleco’ tn the Novy until {t 1s put on the sue level, Offioers have got to take ft £8 thofr duty to inv shot the RADKR eaulmKent In'thotr ship 13 doing for then, ond how to use ity ond when orsting tht their ship ts fitted vith this or thot ‘nunber of guns ~ add: tayt 7OiR types 27, 27h cnd 275%, There can bo no real adairnticn for the ship vodcy without that" Last. opproct ation, Apart from this, officers should algo be 2ble to Lock at 2 ship end tcke In at 2 glance the RADA equipient which ts fitted, To do this It 48 aot necessary to teke the sexsboot over ond lock 1n the RADAR office, for every RADAR sot hos {ts on peculiar aerial systen, cod con easily be recornisod, Of ficors must be able to eck at a ship snd edvise their Adntral or Captain on the rightful plage for thet ship to ccoupy tn the disposition of the Fleet; for 1t will, or should, be profoundly affected by tho RADAR equiztiont of which she boasts, | For this reason, dicgrans howe boen prepared tabuleting, the Warning and Gunnery equip= Pent, the last column of which Siors the associated aorlet syste, A RADA frequency spretrun hes algo been prepared which shows sihere tip verlous types of equipriont le in frequency wth reference to each other, Sets are deslprad to fulfil oert~sn requireronts, and are classified under severe} general headings, Dirterent fruquenofos fulfil different requtrenonts, THE, PROCHSS OF PRODUCTION, ‘The proccss 1s wry often s slow one, judged by wartine stcndards, but it usucty has the virtue of being sure, Sclentists design o set to certain staff requirenents, and perhaps one or two nodals are produced, These are sont to sos, here they do extensive tricls in all sorts of omditions, They retum to the designer to the accanpeninent, usually, of a host of complaints, 4 number of nodi fications are introduced, and the sct goes vo sec ogain,This process ney be repected agoin perhaps twiee befare the fined design 18 decided upon, It nay toke bobmgen R$ to 3 years before the sot resches its fincd fara, ont Leng though this period $e, the aqulprent ab the end of ft usually gives continuous good service both fron the operational end patatenance point of view, Type 79 1s £ typical oxanple of tis precedure, It ras produced sonetine before ‘the wor, ond is still goin; strong ond hes given less trouble thon any other set designed since, Tho necessities of wertine dencné thet this sonanh=t lefsurely procedure be cut dom to «nlaims, ond ceny of the troubles vith which we heve had to contend today in RADAR equipsnt produced since this war sterted, have been due to this, ‘THE BIRTH OF RADAR, It 1s Into-osting to trace a short history of the start of AAD:R ond tts development up to the uresontmday stendord, It nas as carly as 1935 that H.MyCovornnent began to consider the question of warning egoinst aly attack frva the Continent of Europe, the #hole ongantsation of tho Fighter Defence of Groot Britain depended on sufficlont warning of the approach of eneny afrersft befnc avafloble, It was essential that Fighters should be kept. on the ground natvinn to Moot the acsautt when {t cate, To maintain fighter patrols in th, {5 probably not possible even todey, when cur air power 15 at the air, in stm its height. ‘This vital potion vies hendod over to cur leading solentists of the cay 12, 28 to shother thure Was eny means knoun to sofence which mould give us this tine interval; which ras, in fact, as 1t tumed out in the Battle of Britain, a Ute ond decth need, Mr, Hotscn Watt, nov Sir Robert Watson Watt, stated they he bed been ongagod 1: employing the rofleetng properties of electrownagnetie waves to deter= mine the height of the Lonosphero ~ and it would cppecr ot first steht that this coult be applicd to ctreraft, It hod also been observed that when afreraft were flying 1n the vielalty of Television Stations and Recotvors, 2 double picture scretines epperred, This stronthened the belief thet reflections could, in fact, be odtalncd fra afreraft, which vas the only wy these double images could be accounted fur, As 1s nox woll-knoim, developsent and production then wont shead to produce ¢ ccsstel chrin of Marning Stations round our coasts, which were to play s0 vital © pert tn saving Britala fron defeat tn the anxious days of 1910, ‘Tho potentiaLitics of such velusble oquiprent were immedictely « to the Mavy, for wher: viorning of alr attack vas equally a vital need; but as in oll noteriel fitted n ships, on) particularly warships, rest practical difficulties heve to be overec:i2, Indcad, usually scvere Limitations are suffered when eaupared Lo the sae aquipriont set up ashore = and RADAR equipment 1s no exception to this, The siting of the coricl sycten, for instence, irs to be 2 conpranise between cone sideretions of topwelcht, fold of viok, and the design of the reflecting systex, HyHSdgncl School, hevever, sot to work to design equipeent which could be fitted in chips, Ab first, !t was largely o natter of designing valves which would produce 2 vovelongth short onough to enable the aerial systen to be sited ‘high up dn the ship, without heving to ricke prohibitive sacrifices for this addtt= fonal topwotght., PROGRESS OF DEVELOPER. cote, 38, it the start of the fin, two of jODK.Y ant Ove In the SHEFFIELD, ond 38 nore were on order, 21 Lobe of 70° and © detection renge of 96 niles on m atrerafy of 20,990 fect, This set, 06 before stated, has perforned with grect siecess, Expcrienes quie‘ly inéiected that echoes coult also be obtained fra: surfaco craft, o-4 the gotentielictes of this vere AnedLately recognised as applied to Gumary Prscetsktnn,“Be 279 A nauging panel vos designed and fitted ro the 79 and it ves called in this event «279, The ungoundness of the policy of using the some sot to Eive ofr warning as es to be used on © tactical bests to give Gunnery ranges wes very soon realised, ind there wos a eall for separote Gunnery sets, ‘This 1s now done and 279 Is obsolete, the ranging panel having been dropped, 281: A new Warning set was soon brought out called 281, The reason for this Wes to elve etter cover against low fliers cnd At opercted on ‘cbout half the iaavelength with a 18° beam, 1% was mare powerful than the 79, and was fitted with Sean gultehing, and hed en Increased detection range over type 79 of about 25 niles, The better protection ogcinst lox flying cfroraft provided by an Anereased frequency 15 discussed In the chapter on height finding. When © type rambar 1s succeeded by the surtix letter (B) this mecns that the set operates for trenauftting and recetving cn the same sot of dorfals, cc. type 79.5, 281 B, This modification hes been necessary due to the oanpetition for sites with’a clear field of view, and ts perticuLarly epplicoble on afforeft onrriers, where tuo Horning sets are now fitted, and where masts ere not in etimdanoe at the best of times, types 79, 279, 201, Here ai under the general olossttteation of Alp Morning sets, or KA sets, " All crulsers end chove have WA sots to the propor= Vion of 756 261, ‘ond 236 794 There Was Som B call for some form of RADAR set for destroyers and ancl croft, No sect vhich Worked oh 2 short enough vis¥elength for o destroyer to cerry its acrich syston vas yet designod, mich less tn production; or at any rate, in suffietent minbers, A Mees Air ars ielrus airerafe fitted with on LAr, Afr Surface Vessel sot (A.8,V,) vids ob this titwe on the sLIpway ot LeowonSolent, It nos observed that whhon the A,8.¥, set mins switched on the novenent of shipping fn the Solent could be observed, ‘The Navy, therefore, applicd to the RAF, ho had a very Large mnber of these ASW, sets, fttted in’alrereteynhtoh worked on & wavelength ef cbout 1b metres, It Was cdnaldaned thas these oould de fitted as an interin measure end woold give folrly reasonable proteotton or tarning agninet surfoce craft and olrerctt, ‘The RAF. wore willing to release 4 surftolent nunber for our use, and these 4,8,¥, sots,'whteh were classified as W (or Karning Conbinad) sets, f111ed an important cap. In the Nowy tt wos called type 286M, and the firat one Yad « fixed septal system, vhich resoablod, in sone respects, © bedstead, ant nas titted to tho rorenast focing forward, It Hag not a popular sot, particularly because Commanding Officers had to siting their ships to obtain becrings, thich ere never very aocurate; 1t had quite a large back echo up to 5,000 yards, md only ecve cover betiwen sixty degrees on efthor baw, 266 M quickly gave place to 286 P, which ws the sone set provided with fe rotateable aertal, and vas © constderable Laprovenent, not only fron the Latter point of viow, but Aso that this bean width vas norroimd te 3% An effort was thon made to Inervase the poor, and therefore the detection range, of this oct, whlch saffered tron lack of hefght chon used tn smcll ships, % nore powerful tronenftter wes, therefore, added by Aicuirelty Signal Establishment, and the modified sot was called 286 PQ; Dut 1ike ol? oqulpment of this tyre, it 18 never Very sdt= isteotory adding bits for which 1t wos not destened, ond In faoty 1% Rewer soetabd ‘wo develop the theoretical adcttioncl range, Furthermore, 236 being an afrerart sot, wes not destmned on the lines: which Navel sets are, the RAF, do not banpein Tor maintencoe fa the air, Their naintenonce 1s dono 0 the ground by export stafts, Whereas In the Nyy tho equipment ‘hos to be mafntalned whilst st sen for pertods up to three weeks, Lack of waves noter ané eslibnatar was, therefore, 6 further enbarrassient,