Chain Home
Videos
Chain Home, or CH for short, was the codename for the ring of coastal early warning radar stations built by the Royal Air Force before and during the Second World War to detect and track aircraft. Ini
Chain Home at RAF Poling, West Sussex
Robert Watson-Watt's position with the National Physical Laboratory placed him at the centre of a network of researchers whose knowledge of radio physics was instrumental to the rapid development of radar.
Stanley Baldwin's 1932 comments on future aerial warfare led to a "feeling of defencelessness and dismay." It was the UK's concern about this issue that led to so much support being given to radar development while other countries had a much more lackadaisical approach until the war started.
A 1925 radio magazine photograph of Grindell-Matthews' death ray
ROTOR
Videos
ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was in
Chain Home
…launches. UK radar systems were wound down after the war but the start of the Cold War led to the Chain Home radars being pressed into service in the new ROTOR system until replaced by newer systems in the 1950s. Only a few of the original sites remain. From the earliest days of radio technology, signals had…
Entrance bungalow to former ROTOR station at Kelvedon Hatch