Monday 1 July 2013

Durness, Sutherland; Sango Bay Home Chain Radar

Around the coastal village of Durness you cant help but notice the amount of WW2 buildings scattered about, a lot of Air Raid Bunkers...









And Accommodation Buildings...







And a Scattering of Military buildings and Concrete Structures on a Headland above the Sea...





The once very remote area around here was changed forever during WW2 when a Chain Home Radar Base was built at Leirinbeg above Sango Bay at Durness in 1940,
Also known as Sangomore, Smoo Radar Station and Gee Station it was a Type 7000 Radar Station...

The Chain Home Radar Stations were a coastal network of Long range radar around the Coastline...


They could detect incoming Aircraft,speed ,height and a rough estimate of numbers, the Radar only worked for high level so a `Chain Low` radar was introduced for incoming low level aircraft detection,
Chain Home looked nothing like later radar equipment. The antenna did not rotate: the transmitting array was formed of fixed wires strung between 110 m (360 ft)-high metal towers which sent out a "floodlight" beam of radio energy about 100° wide...


Only One tower remains today complete in great Baddow, England...


The receiving array was on wooden towers about 73 m (240 ft) high, and consisted of two antennas at right angles to each other.
The receiving antennas were directional, so the signal strength received by each depended on the angle between it and the target. An operator would manually adjust a comparator device to find what angle to the target best matched the relative strengths of the two received signals. The angle of elevation to the target was estimated by similar comparison of the signal strengths from a second pair of receiving antennas closer to the ground, which produced a different sensitivity in elevation. The time delay of the echo determined the range to the target.

Today the Towers are gone, Border fencing and signage disappeared, but a few of the buildings are there,
Road side vehicle shed, possibly Home Guard...



Entrance Guard House...



Several of the buildings, including the transmitter/receiver block, with tracks and bunkers connected with the radar station with at mast bases...






















And a further two mast bases...











Many other buildings are also visible that like the Stations are today used by Locals for storage...






























In 1940 The chain Home radar bases came under attack by German Aircraft during The battle of Britain in 1940 but only one was destroyed, although it was thought it to be undeveloped compared to what was a further advanced radar was being used by Germany it was the eyes and ears of the RAF fighter squadrons as seen here in the famous 1969 Battle of Britain film the RAF were often scrambled and surprised the attackers... check out the remote controlled Stukas!...

3 comments:

  1. Hi! My name is Paulina, I live in Belfast and I am studying Interior Architecture. You may wonder why I am trying to contact you and I know it will sound strange. Here is what I would like to ask you: how far do you live from that building on your images 2and 3 above? I am asking because I tried to find the plans of this building and nobody is able to help me, I tried everywhere in Scotland... Would you be able to suggest some places? would you have a general idea of the size of this building? Have you bothered measuring it? would you be able to help, please. It is my final project and I really need to get the size of this building. I look forward to hear from you.

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  2. Hi, maybe if you post around on some WW2/Urbex UK forum pages someone could help you out?
    "28 Days Later Forum" or "Abandonded Scotland Forum" may be worth a try?. I have never seen any plans of WW2 Air raid building like in the pictures that i can help you with, Hope you can fiund something of use :)

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  3. "Road side vehicle shed, possibly Home Guard" was a powerhouse,theres another shed like in durness and the main power house (pics 2,3 and 4).
    the "further two mast bases" are anchor blocks for a guyed mast.
    the cross mast base is the base for an IFF mast

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