Visit to Snelling's Radio and TV Museum and the RAF Neatishead Radar Museum
29th September 2009
A group of about 20 members attended the visit to the Snellings radio and TV Museum at Blofield Heath.
Our guide took us through the exhibits in chronological order taking many of us back first of all to the days of crystal sets
(or cat's whisker sets as they were affectionately known!). We were allowed to listen in via these ancient sets to modern broadcasts.
We then had a look at some of the early valve radios, including some fairly heavy so called portable sets that, together with their necessary
batteries, needed substantial biceps to move them. We also were introduced to some very early Bush, Ferguson and PYE TV sets; again this brought
back memories of the early fifties when, as the guide pointed out, many of families bought their first TV to view the Coronation live!
Snellings have to be congratulated on preserving these early technological and socially historical artifacts. The NES would very much like to
thank Snelling for allowing us to see the exhibits for ourselves.
After a very enjoyable luncheon break at the New Inn at Horning about 10 members made their way to the nearby Neatishead Radar Museum.
For those of you that haven't been it is a very worthwhile place to go to not only because it deals with the history of this pivotal establishment
in the defence of the UK during the cold war but it also houses the RAF Coltishall Museum after it was found homeless with the station's closure
in 2005. We all took a guided tour starting first with a comprehensive well presented audio visual overview of the site and its 'raison d'etre'.
We were then taken to a 'mock up' of a Battle of Britain Sector plotting room. The guide went through all the aspects of this establishment
including data aquisition, information filtering and the very important process of decision making as to which squadrons were sent up on patrol
and interception, which ones would be put on standby and which ones would be stood down.
After this we were then moved on to a 1942 version of a sector station and shown the vast array of improvements that had taken place in
the intervening 2 years. The obvious differences were in the aquisition of data using rotating attenna rather than static arrays and
how much more advanced techniques were used in data filtering.
Neatishead, indeed, came into existence as a site of one of the early mobile rotating anttena arrays; the first aerial was temporarily powered by an
aircraftman pedalling a bycycle couple to the antenna. The guide concluded our formal tour by taking us to the 1970s conrol room that
had been based at Neatishead. This station was responsible for complete coverage of the whole Eastern seaboard of the UK. This room was
almost as complete as it was in its final year of operation because it was kept in working order so that if anything untoward happened to
the new facility (which is still on the same site) it could be quickly brought back into operation. When Neatishead was taken offline a
decade or so ago fortunately a decision was made not to dismantle the room for scrap which could so easily have taken place; thank
goodness this didn't happen!!
When the formal tour was concluded members were allowed to choose their own things to go and look at including the Coltishall memorablia,
the history of photographic recconisance, the development communications and the history of radar technology. Particularly impressive was
the cutaway section of one of the klystrons from the early days of the Fylingdales early warning station on the North York Moors.
Many thanks to RAF Neatishead Museum for an interesting visit. The majority of us felt that we could easily spend at least another day there!! If you haven't been you must make every effort to go.
Ray Hannent
Oct 2009