Royal Air Force Greatworth
962 SU. Brackley 3205
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PUZZLED ? I was.
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Visiters to the site ( well me anyway) may be puzzled to see that contributers to the site seem to disagree on equipment on the site and the reliability of the equipment. I will try to clear up (or confuse) the matter.
I was a national serviceman, and was not trained on the equipment, so being more confused than anyone else, I am better qualified to put the experts right.
One transmitter I worked with was what The RAF called a SWB 3 which I think meant a Short Wave Beam transmitter of 3kW output and was a Marconi SWB 8 transmitter. Another transmitter the RAF called a
SWB 10 with an output of 10 kW was I think a Marconi SWB 11 model.
Some found the night duty very quiet and were able to get a good nights rest, but I remember some nights when i felt lucky to sit down. These were nights when sun spots were about. Don`t ask me what they are, they are bad news.If you worked there when the sun had a clear face you may have had an easy time
When I first saw the photos of the transmitters on the computer, I thought they where different to the ones I worked on, but they are new modernised models that have windows where there was a panel of perforated brass in my days at Greatworth. That should make it clear.
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turner says...
T he SWB 10 in 48/49 was a 25Kw SSB transmitter on the Columbo route. It was the only SSB unit at that time.
It had long gone Eric, by the time you had arived! I only knew about it from what was `passed down', from older members of the watch. Like that Redifon 200kw beast that our Mr Turner remembers, all before our time Jeff, just like the nissen huts, when real men shaved outside from a tin bowl and `stropped' their razors instead of changing the blades. our generation never had it so good, central heating in bricks and morter, curtains at the window, dammit we even had civvy cleaners in the TX Hall!
Daily inspections were a good skive on days, you could keep out of the way of the more onerouse tasks if you had a SWB 8 or someting in pieces, even Black Jim would leave you alone for a while if you made the effort look good!
Daily inspections were a good skive on days, you could keep out of the way of the more onerouse tasks if you had a SWB 8 or someting in pieces, even Black Jim would leave you alone for a while if you made the effort look good!
When I was not on Watch, during the "dayshift", one of my duties was to do DI`s on the transmitters that were not on line (tune ups, general cleaning inside the TX, the odd valve change etc, working out intermodulation distortion etc) but I cannot for the life of me remember doing a DI on a SWB10, it is like a parallel universe!
I am still puzzled! I still do not remember seeing a SWB10 at Greatworth, either in use or discontinued, I never came across a water cooled transmitter during my time there in 1958/59, other than the unused Redifon in the basement, perhaps I missed something, whereabouts in the Hall was the SWB10 located? Mike Turner refers to a SWB10 on the Australian circuit a few years earlier (thanks Mike) but it must have been stripped out before 1958, can anyone who was there at the same time as me expand? it is a bit of a mystery!
turner says...
T he SWB 10 in 48/49 was a 25Kw SSB transmitter on the Australian route. It was the only SSB unit at that time.
It's legend lived on, over a decade later we were still refering to it!! Would be nice if we had a picture of it. What happened if the string got wet???
jeff says...
I`m getting more confused by the minute.What was the designation of the transmitter that had a SWB 10(11) driving (through a pyro-tenax link) a final amplifier that was as big as a SWB 10(11). There were two of them, one just beyond the cabin, and one on the lefthand side just before the DS 13. the concentric conducters in the link were separated by pitch which seemed to drip out occasionaly. The one beyond the cabin was so sensitive that we did not walk close to it when it was on line.
I understand that the SWB`s came about when Mr. Marconi under took to set up a radio link using less than 20 kW between Grimsby and Sydney in the 1920`s. The link had to operate for 12 hours a day working at 250 words a minute. The head of R C A offered to have his ass kicked all the way down Broadway if it worked !
Martin says...
No Eric, but the swb's 3 and 10 are a complete mystery to me! They were always swb 8's and 10's and the units that came later weren't swb's at all, but were HS's, those are the ones with windows in the doors. I did swb's and hs's at RAF Locking, not a lot of difference really, same knobs in different places, but without the built in vfo. They all had `T' numbers, but I cannot recall them! Yes the little plate centre of the top front pannel.
Confusion!! There was a swb 10, discontinued by the time I arrived at Greatworth. It was a powerfull water cooled monster at 20kw plus. water leaks I am told, were pretty spectacular, much more so than the aforementioned 50A fuse from a previous blogg. The tuning of the final amplifiers was effected with a long piece of (dry!) string and an airman each end, because of the very high EHT, conventional controls would arc, sheeeesh!!! Good ole days eh?
Jeff in his blog refers to sunspots.The period 1957/1958 was a "sunspot maximum" in the 11 year cycle, the highest number of sunspots for a couple of hundred years! 1957 was designated "International Geophysical Year" Radio conditions were exceptionally good, we could have probably carried the circuits with no more than a few hundred watts! The ionospheric mirror was brilliant, Radio Amateurs were working the world with QRP power (5watts or less).
No Eric, but the swb's 3 and 10 are a complete mystery to me! They were always swb 8's and 10's and the units that came later weren't swb's at all, but were HS's, those are the ones with windows in the doors. I did swb's and hs's at RAF Locking, not a lot of difference really, same knobs in different places, but without the built in vfo. They all had `T' numbers, but I cannot recall them! Yes the little plate centre of the top front pannel.
Confusion!! There was a swb 10, discontinued by the time I arrived at Greatworth. It was a powerfull water cooled monster at 20kw plus. water leaks I am told, were pretty spectacular, much more so than the aforementioned 50A fuse from a previous blogg. The tuning of the final amplifiers was effected with a long piece of (dry!) string and an airman each end, because of the very high EHT, conventional controls would arc, sheeeesh!!! Good ole days eh?
Confusion!! There was a swb 10, discontinued by the time I arrived at Greatworth. It was a powerfull water cooled monster at 20kw plus. water leaks I am told, were pretty spectacular, much more so than the aforementioned 50A fuse from a previous blogg. The tuning of the final amplifiers was effected with a long piece of (dry!) string and an airman each end, because of the very high EHT, conventional controls would arc, sheeeesh!!! Good ole days eh?
I too was puzzled by references to SWB3 and SWB10, I had never heard of them! a telephone conversation with Jeff came to the conclusion that his SWB3 was my SWB8, and his SWB10 was my SWB11, (undertraining at Locking it was always SW8, SWB11 and variants) It seems that the RAF may have adopted SWB3 and SWB10 unofficially to refer to the output power of each equipment, Marconi type numbers were always SWB8 and SWB11, those SWB`s that were modified for SSB and ISB working, (the variants), were referred to as SWB....E, and SWB.... E-Major, I seem to remember a SWB....H. (maybe FSK).
Incidently, the SWB`s were given numbers in the "T" series in RAF nomenclature, the basic CW SWB8 was the T1362, and the basic CW SWB11 was the T1278, remember the T1509 in the same series, can anyone expand?
Incidently, the SWB`s were given numbers in the "T" series in RAF nomenclature, the basic CW SWB8 was the T1362, and the basic CW SWB11 was the T1278, remember the T1509 in the same series, can anyone expand?
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We used to tune to Frequencies, Now 888 tune for Speed!
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(Shades of the old Speedrace Transmitter?)
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Tim Samways occupy the east of the `T' in the TX Hall
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