HF Towers at Rugby 'A' site: image courtesy Google
As a kid I was fascinated by fields full of radio towers. There is something about their man-made dominance of the landscape, standing silent yet radiating their signals out to whoever will listen tens, hundreds or even thousands of miles away. I'm 52 years old now and even though my career has been as a radio engineer, this fascination has never gone away.
MSF on 2.5MHz as it sounded in 1976 (MP3 format 40kb/s 2 minutes simulation)
The truth though is that these stations are rapidly disappearing as restructure follows restructure and rationalisation plans are carried out. However, although modern satellite and internet communications have removed the need to use many HF long haul links, HF still has an important role to play in short and medium range military communications. This web site is an attempt to document many of the sites before they disappear for ever. Others already have and are included for historic reasons.
In terms of technology we have turned a new corner; Google Maps and Street View imaging mean that you can now look at many things without leaving the comfort of your home- and I have made extensive use of them in this series of articles.
History is so important to us, and I would dearly like to hear from anybody who can contribute stories, pictures or anything else about the stations in these pages. Please contact me at alancordwell at blueyonder dot co dot uk.
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Last Modified 09/10/2011; previous 26/03/2010
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