South Barrule was a Radio Track Guide in the Isle of Man.
Spelled as South BarrOle the location was 54-08-11N, 04-28-25W
It appears to be here
, and was still active 5 July 1946.
The beam was almost north/south and ran very close to West Freugh and Valley. The line of the concrete is consistent with a N/S beam. Another site at Llangollen had a beam which intersected South Barrule.
Llangollen's seems to be here
at 53-01-32N, 03-11-58W. Again, the angle of the concrete looks about right.
Source: AIR20 / 6147 Radio Track Guides Scheme in the British Isles: policy
A number of other sites have been 'Google Mapped' with no remains.
Graham
Plan A is always more effective when the problem you are working on understands that Plan B will involve the use of dynamite
The South Barrule RTG beam had a marker beacon at Llanfaelog, just to the south of RAF Valley. Location given is 53-13-5 N, 04-28-25 W, which puts it about here
. Though I guess this is something else, the orientation of the perimeter fence (a few degrees west of a N/S E/W box) seems more than coincidental as it lines up with the beam angle.
If anyone ever gets up there it may be worth checking. A Google Street view is here
.
Graham
Plan A is always more effective when the problem you are working on understands that Plan B will involve the use of dynamite
The location of the Llangollen RTG site is close to the Ponderosa Cafe, a popular spot on the Horseshoe Pass road. While walking around there about 20 years ago, I found concrete blocks which appeared to be aerial anchorage points. Thanks for identifying what it it was all about!
I hadnt heard of this sort of system before, it strikes me as a very early form of eureka which then gave birth to TACAN.
The main difference between RTG and the later Eureka / TACAN systems was that in RTG the ground station sends out the beam and the aircraft is purely passive. In other systems the aircraft and ground station 'electronically talk' to each other.
The RTG stations in 1946 were:
Spitalgate
East Kirkby (called East Kirby)
Lindholme
Tadmarton Marlborough ?
Church Lawford
South Barrule
Prestwick
Llangollen Okehampton ?
Hendon
Northolt
Lat/Long for some are available - nothing on Bing or GE, other than the ones mentioned above. Italics denotes intended stations.
Graham
Plan A is always more effective when the problem you are working on understands that Plan B will involve the use of dynamite
Sorry about the question mark I have a damn biligual key board and have no idea how to get some of the symbols to appear, and I am to lazy to go to the control panel!
In the national archives, in a letter from the Air Ministry to Bomber Command, dated January 1942, about setting up the Jay beam transmitters on the east coast, it states that the one at Cransford would, as a temporary measure, use the coastal homing beam aerial at that site. In a later letter it states that letters by which the Jay beams were designated fitted in with those already applied to the coastal homing beams.
Anybody know anything about coastal homing beams used by bomber command? They were, as the above shows, definitely not the same as the Jay beams. I suspect they were the shorter range SBA beams set up on the coast with the beads directed out to sea.
I'm wondering if this was the site of the Cransford transmitter. The location in the above post places it at Boundary Farm which is half a mile to the south, but I've never been convinced about WWII lat/longs.
The street view shows two buildings, one of which might have been a generator? GE shows it was there in 1945, but doesn't extend south enough to Boundary Farm
Plan A is always more effective when the problem you are working on understands that Plan B will involve the use of dynamite
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