Signals Museum


About us

 

What's Included in the collection.

The collection in the Museum has a few items from the early years of radio, including hard to get items from World War One. The most important piece from that era is the Stirling Spark Transmitter fitted in some aircraft towards the end of the war. This allowed the Observer to send enemy information to the ground crews, using Morse Code. Previously a streamer with a message pouch would have been dropped.

World War II equipment is well represented although difficulty in finding suitable items means there are many gaps in what is shown. There are examples of transmitters and receivers and early airborne radar equipment and several examples of telegraphic equipment such as teleprinters.

Post war radar is also well represented with three working consoles and many models of radar installations. Also included in the collection is early test equipment and smaller items such as radio valves.

As RAF Locking and it’s predecessors played an important rôle in the training of signals personnel, including thousands of apprentices, a small section of the display depicts aspects of this training.

Early in the War, Fighter aircraft could only operate during daylight hours and could offer no protection against the German Bombers which mostly came at night. It was essential that the new Radar system that was giving early warning of the approach of enemy aircraft to anti-aircraft forces on the ground, was developed in a different form to allow our Fighter aircraft to operate at night and provide the protection that was badly needed. This led to a series of Night-fighters, especially developed with Radar to provide this defence.

We have three types of Radar Console, all dating from the 1940's to early 1950's when Radar was starting to become much more sophisticated. Although Radar was developed at the beginning of WW II, it wasn't until later in the war and into the 1950's that it began to take on the form that we know today

Today's circular radar screen with it's rotating sweep showing the positions of aircraft would not have been familiar to wartime operators, until perhaps very late in the war. In those days, radar used a much lower frequency and the antenna did not rotate as it does these days. Aircraft coming from a certain direction would be displayed on a linear screen which would give an indication of height, distance and possible numbers of aircraft in the attack.

Close range communication between our aircraft and ground controllers was mostly carried out on VHF frequencies, certainly in the latter stages of the war. As the range was short, it made it difficult for the Germans to monitor our transmissions so they would not know how many of our Fighter Squadrons were coming to meet them.

The National HRO Receiver was extensively used by the "Y" Service. The function of the "Y" Service was to monitor German radio messages and these were passed on to Bletchley Park for decoding. The Creed 7B series of Teleprinters and ancillary equipments were widely used by the RAF from before WW II and into the 1970's. Shown here is a Printing Reperforator, but there are many other types in the Museum. One of the WWII 7B's was recently featured in a BBC programme presented by Andrew Marr on the build up to the Korean War. From over 2 hours of filming the teleprinter was on screen for about 3 seconds! Our working Console 64. This console started design in 1949 and was in service in 1953. It went out of service in the 1990s when the Radar Type 85 became obsolete. The photo shows the screen with the display and the two deflection amplifiers with the voltage stabiliser in the middle.
Pictured here on the left is some of the VHF Airborne equpment introduced during WW II. Also, there are two ground VHF Receivers, the R1392 in the middle - still in use into the ‘60s and the R1481 on the right
The models of the Radar Heads and the Dual Diversity reciever.

We have now been set a closure date by the authorities at RAF Henlow. This will be by the end of June 2024 but we will close for visitors after the May 2024 Open Day, and start to dispose of our exhibits.

Please go to the Museum Closure page for more information.


If you have any comments, complaints, suggestions, requests etc, please drop me a line via my Genuki email page.

Page last updated 7th July 2023 by Colin Hinson.