RAF Ventnor: Home Page & Index. Domestic & technical sites.

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RAF Ventnor

Type 80 1955-1961. See 'Acknowledgements ' page for attribution

This green part of the site is dedicated to all those who served at RAF Ventnor. Use the following link for accounts of the author's service at
West Kirby, Locking, Leeming and El Adem.
Fame!
FAQ : Ventnor? Where on earth might that be?
This Ventnor section is not a definitive history but an account of the author's experiences there, combined with descriptions of the equipment and enhanced by additional information received from site visitors. It also serves as an eulogy to the remarkable Type 80 radar which guarded all our lives throughout the early part of the Cold War.
The author served at Ventnor for just one glorious summer in 1957 as a nineteen year old newly trained Ground Radar Fitter working on the rotating equipment. During those months he met his wife-to-be and found that his future father-in-law had been a Radar Operator at Ventnor during the war years, hence the page about that earlier equipment.
Please feel free to make contact, especially if you also served at Ventnor.

Complete index to the Ventnor pages
- Outline of Contents -
Click on picture.
"Take Leave" returns
Arrival at RAF Ventnor and first impressions of both domestic site and technical 'topsite'

About girls, booze and work, but mostly about the work as that balmy summer drifted by

Sundry excitements and further and final events before being posted away

The mighty Decca Type 80 : an unparalleled and remarkable state-of-the-art search radar of the fifties

What was to be found within an underground R1 'Hole'

The PDU : an ingenious projection radar PPI display which formed a dynamic plotting table

The nodding Type 13 centimetric heightfinder and its close relative the Type 14 search radar

Chain Home at Ventnor- the top-secret wartime equipment: how it was invented, worked and evolved. Links to RAF St. Lawrence & RAF Blackgang pages.

The cavity magnetron: the invention of which has a little known tenuous Ventnor connection

On Parade : a page devoted to those ex RAF Ventnor and other RAF personnel who have made contact, with several individual experiences pages added.

A Postscript which gives some idea of the site as it is today

Acknowledgements & Links

Kilroy has been here times since January 1st. 2007,
having visited the old site 6600 times during the previous two years.

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Rev 220508

	Arrival at RAF Ventnor and first impressions of both domestic site and technical 'topsite'
	About girls, booze and work, but mostly about the work as that balmy summer drifted by
	Sundry excitements and further and final events before being posted away
	The mighty Decca Type 80 : an unparalleled and remarkable state-of-the-art search radar of the fifties
	What was to be found within an underground R1 'Hole'
	The PDU : an ingenious projection radar PPI display which formed a dynamic plotting table
	The nodding Type 13 centimetric heightfinder and its close relative the Type 14 search radar
	Chain Home at Ventnor- the top-secret wartime equipment: how it was invented, worked and evolved. Links to RAF St. Lawrence & RAF Blackgang pages.
	The cavity magnetron: the invention of which has a little known tenuous Ventnor connection
	On Parade : a page devoted to those ex RAF Ventnor and other RAF personnel who have made contact, with several individual experiences pages added.
	A Postscript which gives some idea of the site as it is today
	Acknowledgements & Links