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Chain Home

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Marconi tower at sunset.
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Marconi tower at sunset.

Chain Home / AMES TYPE 1 (Air Ministry Experimental Station) was the codename for the ring of coastal radar stations built by the British before and during World War II. The system comprised two types of radar: the metre-wave Chain Home stations which provided long-range early warning, and the centimetre-wave Chain Home Low / AMES TYPE 2 stations, which were shorter-ranged but could detect aircraft flying at low level.

From May to August 1939, LZ130 German Zeppelin was performing flights near Great Britain's coastline, where its goal was to confirm the theory that the 100 m high towers that the British had erected from Portsmouth to Scapa Flow were used for aircraft radio-localisation. LZ130 performed a series of tests, from radiowave interception, through magnetic and radio frequency analysis to taking photographs. However, the poor quality of the German equipment resulted in their failure to detect operational British Chain Home radar, and thus the LZ130 mission's result was the conclusion that the British towers were not connected to radar operations, but rather formed a network of naval radiocommunication and rescue.

The Chain Home stations were arranged along the British coast, initially in the south and east of England, but later throughout the entire coastline, including the Shetland Islands. They were first tested in the Battle of Britain in 1940 when they were able to provide adequate early warning of incoming Luftwaffe raids.

The Chain Home system was very primitive, and in order to be ready for battle it had been rushed into production by Sir Robert Watson-Watt's Air Ministry research station near Bawdsey. Watson-Watt, a pragmatic engineer, believed that "third-best" would do if "second-best" would not be available in time and "best" never available at all. Chain Home was certainly a "third-best" system and suffered from glitches and errors in reporting. However, it was still the best in the world then available and provided critical information without which the Battle of Britain would have been lost.

During the battle, Chain Home stations, most notably the one at Ventnor, Isle of Wight, were attacked a number of times between 12 and 18 August, 1940. On one occasion a section of the radar chain in Kent, including the Dover CH, was put out of action by a lucky hit on the power grid. However, though the wooden huts housing the radar equipment were damaged, the towers survived owing to their steel girder construction. Because the towers were untoppled and the signals soon restored, the Luftwaffe concluded the stations were too difficult to damage by bombing and so left them alone for the rest of the war.

The Chain Home system was dismantled after the war, but some of the tall steel radar towers remain, converted into new uses for the 21st Century.

One such 360-foot-high (110 m) transmitter tower (picture above) can now be found at the BAE Systems facility at Great Baddow in Essex (2003). It originally stood at Canewdon, and is said to be the only Chain Home tower still in its original, unmodified form.

Compare to the German Freya radar.

Contents

Chain Home / AMES Type 1 Sites

See also

Further reading

External links

 

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