AncientMariner:

I have perhaps an unusual background which includes Military Avionics, Maritime Communications & Radar together with a Private Pilots Licence. In fact I am one of the very few PPL holders to have a CAA Flight Radio-Telephony Operator's Licence which is also valid for HF radio communication. Most PPL holders have a R?T Licence restricted to VHF only, which will get you as far as Singapore apparently. (If not further) Having held a Maritime Radiocommunication General Certificate since 1975, which enabled me to use any mode of communication on HF at sea, I was pig headed enough to find a CAA exam centre where I could take the aviation HF equivalent. I never used it, mainly because I didn't want to emulate Alcock & Brown's transatlantic flight  with one engine less! They at least had two. 

But Google and Wikipedia gave me the exact answers.

Clive

I live quite close to the  Trimingham WW2 R.A.F. radar station in Norfolk, which is still operational. At that location there is a large white ball on the cliff top. It resembles the white balloon out of The Prisoner from television. During WW2 female motor bike dispatch riders would collect info. from similar stations and return it to Bletchley Park for de-cyphering. They were armed and very young women. They had to use the back entrance to Bletchley Park as the motor bike engine noise would distract the code breakers from their work in their huts. The women went out at all times in rain and snow, heat and  cold, day and night. The motor bikes were heavy and had a poor turning circle.

Dispatch rider's motorbike. Bletchley Park code breaking m… | Flickr




Z.

 

AncientMariner:

I have perhaps an unusual background which includes Military Avionics, Maritime Communications & Radar together with a Private Pilots Licence. In fact I am one of the very few PPL holders to have a CAA Flight Radio-Telephony Operator's Licence which is also valid for HF radio communication. Most PPL holders have a R?T Licence restricted to VHF only, which will get you as far as Singapore apparently. (If not further) Having held a Maritime Radiocommunication General Certificate since 1975, which enabled me to use any mode of communication on HF at sea, I was pig headed enough to find a CAA exam centre where I could take the aviation HF equivalent. I never used it, mainly because I didn't want to emulate Alcock & Brown's transatlantic flight  with one engine less! They at least had two. 

But Google and Wikipedia gave me the exact answers.

Clive

I live quite close to the  Trimingham WW2 R.A.F. radar station in Norfolk, which is still operational. At that location there is a large white ball on the cliff top. It resembles the white balloon out of The Prisoner from television. During WW2 female motor bike dispatch riders would collect info. from similar stations and return it to Bletchley Park for de-cyphering. They were armed and very young women. They had to use the back entrance to Bletchley Park as the motor bike engine noise would distract the code breakers from their work in their huts. The women went out at all times in rain and snow, heat and  cold, day and night. The motor bikes were heavy and had a poor turning circle.

Dispatch rider's motorbike. Bletchley Park code breaking m… | Flickr




Z.