Lindholme Radio Tower

Four of these right at the very top, one on each corner would probably provide a great omni radiation pattern wouldn't they? Well that is how it and others were configured.

I cannot think that this could have been anything related to RAF Lindholme or to Northern Radar at the time.

Mould maybe, as in that era we could hear Mould comms strong on the 430-430 MHz band from Yorkshire to Lancashire. Could it have been something to do with 840 Signals? Or was it to do with Red Cap comms . Or was it just a handy tower for the HO to put the antennas on for the Police? I guess we will never know.......

Thanks

MOULD was principally for mobile and foot soldiers. All the MOULD sites at regular few minute intervals would handshake with other sites sending a data pulse containing for instance, site security, equipment temperature etc. There was no transmitting activity from the Lindholme site at all.

There was frequently MOULD voice traffic on UHF linked to VHF MOULD. Allegedly, as a newly licensed radio amateur it was slightly disturbing to allegedly hear of the quantity of injured and deceased persons and enemy forces attacking an airfield etc, until the listener realised that this was just an exercise. Then 'Sunray' would spoil everything bringing the proceedings to a conclusion.

MOULD was an extensive network the length and breadth of the mainland using a multitude of VHF and UHF frequencies, antennas & sites. An interesting topic in itself. Steve Scanlon provides some information here-
www.ringbell.co.uk/ukwmo/Page251.htm

I have made a few enquiries with ex-colleagues and it's thought unikely to be civilian police, although that type of antenna was widely used. Also unlikely to be MOULD as low-band (around 70MHz) was used for mobile comms and, as has already been stated, UHF was used for point-point links. The prison had a single base station, so wouldn't need 4 antennas like this.

Were the MOD security people using UHF Storno equipment still, or perhaps these had been left in place from that time? 4 antennas would seem to indicate a 4-channel radio system (or maybe 3-channel with a spare?).

May not be for voice comms of course - could be data links for security or other telemetry - although I would have expected to see more diretional (Yagi) antennas used for that. Or could be just antennas with no radios permanently connected, for emergency use or used on exercises.

Not sure if this helps! Hope so...

Martin

Four antennas would to be indicate something akin to DRDF.

MOULD for example, 74.1125 MHz was paired with 79.800 and with 142.6125 and 149.8875 and 433.625 . A signal on one frequency would be simultaneously heard on all the others.

The antennas at this site were not stacked above each other but side by side producing 360 degree coverage.

At that time, the MOD Police were on 78 &79 MHz, at least at Finningley they were. USAF base coms (Mildenhall & Upr Heyford) were changing from 35MHz to UHF 415MHz etc around that time. But this does not give us any clues. Unless there was a significant USAF presence at Lindholme?

Certainly this type of structure with the same antennas could be seen at many places in the 1980's. It was commonplace then. I need to retrace my journeys in the 1980's to the South East to try to remember where else I saw them!

News to me that MOD police were at Finningley, MOD police were at very few RAF flying stations. Do you mean RAF police? Looking at those frequencies at sure the first two are STORNO frequencies.

RAF Police at the Air Shows were generally 75-79MHz. Finningley Tower ground comms 79.025 & Fire 79.375MHz.

With regards to MOULD, I am not aware of the equipment types but I read that that some were Pye Pegasus.

The frequencies which I referred to were one set of the many MOULD frequencies in the North West of the UK at that time, as subsequently confirmed by Steve Scanlon.