What you have there is a Dual DF antenna setup. The 6 dipole array is a VHF/UHF array and the dome is an enclosed UHF/SHF array. The two antennas together can DF from as low as 20MHz to upwards of 3GHz. The white box is either a connection box or a combiner. The DDF processor would be in the green container. Because these systems can DF on many sources of RF and across a massive spectrum, it's impossible to say who is using it for what, however, the satellite view of the site shows the dome to be a definite green colour which likely indicates a military DF use. BUT... ..look at the site, it is very poorly maintained. Whoever runs the site has no interest in site maintenance. It doesn't look like it's had an Ofcom inspection in years. Also, that container may not be locked. You can clearly see the locking arms hanging down. (maybe there's a lock under that lock cover, but maybe not) My guess is that the site is abandoned. Next time you're up there, if the container is unlocked, have a look inside. No harm in that.
Used to work at BT and we looked after the comms to these old ROC. Interesting fact was the telex/telephone cables ran on poles to many of the bunkers. So if there had been a nuclear blast...all the cables running to them would have been gone. They had almost no facilities.
You're right it's a monitoring station for Ofcom. The antenna is wide and and covers a large spectrum. At the bottom is usually a comms receiver controlled remotely over mobile network. They can use it to listen to anything record and gather audio data for any investigations. They have a mobile version too you might see appearing in places
The ROC posts make up a fascinating part of the cold war history. The aircraft monitoring role was given to the ROC shortly after WWII. They used small concrete platforms called Orlits for this. The nuclear monitoring posts were usually built in close proximity to the Orlit because they already had the land and the volunteers in that area.
I imagine one could take some detailed photos of the tower and then do some math with the angles, to determine the exact length of those antenna dipoles, which can then reveal what frequency they're tuned to operate on. The determined frequency band, if unrecognized, could probably then be correlated with the government's spectrum database (which should be in the public domain) in order to get a better idea of the tower's purpose, unless it's an undocumented frequency or some kind of obscure radar or something, lol
Great video as usual mate, glad its not just me that parks up at radio masts and films :-) apart from the Drone video you posted have you ever been stopped and asked why you are filming? whilst doing our long range wifi tests a few years back the police stopped me twice and came to my house a 3rd time and this was before all the terror incidents. They must be even more sensitive about it now, even though what I was doing was legal I have to admit, me stood next to my car with a satellite dish on a tripod, a laptop open on the roof of the car and me on my 2m HT flashing a large 2,000 candle power torch in to the distance might have looked odd to some people LOL, we managed to get off the shelf wifi routers to transmit and receive 18 miles line of sight!! amazing stuff, all with home made LNBS , bit of copper wire and some circuit board, just amazing how many wifi points we picked up along the trip with no security, for fun i logged on to someones wireless printer who was a few miles away and printed "your networks not secure" on the printer! ha ha great fun we had.
You should put your footage up mate would love to see that! I've never been asked about filming yet but it's always in the back of my mind. The dish on a tripod experiments sound amazing too! I'd love to see pics/vid of that or hear more stories! Do you still do it now? My idea of fun. Add me here if you're on: facebook.com/M3HHY Cheers as always
Ringway Manchester yes got lots of pictures and some video yes I'm going to do a video of it shortly, we also had a permanent setup as well which was real cool, should make for an interesting video.
"Terror incidents" are you serious?? The controllers responsible for the current, viral boogie man (hysteria) hoax have brought you every single, "terrorist" boogie man ever to appear in mainstream media and on the cult of personality, phony, high ranking, (never been elected) "public officials '' lips
I used to live uphill from a KFC. You can barely see it from my house. I made a coffee can antenna and stuck it in a bush outside. I could pick up the KFC’s Wi-Fi from about a mile away. Used it for years. It was free Wi-Fi and I did shop there so I paid them for some of it. LOL.
You were right in your assumption. That actually is a remote monitoring station that looks for interference from pirate radio, jammers, or any other sorts of interference. Typically they are not monitored on site. If there is someone there on site it will be a rare occurrence. They actually built a bunch of mobile units that look very similar to what you have there. Mounted to land Rover’s And other types of vehicles with enough room for the computer equipment inside, they would have an antenna similar that would extend upwards and they could take them out to an area where they thought somebody was messing around.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s the main antenna site was used as a repeater station for the police at Stalybridge and Ashton, another repeater station was located at Tameside hospital on the maternity block roof, they transmitted on 452.350 and 452.550, hope this info helps.
452.550 was also the main Police frequency for Thames valley police in Banbury Oxfordshire. 466.450 was the repeater input. any transmission on 452.550 FM could also be heard on 154.100 AM.
This is a TCI antenna old model 641 from 20 MHz up to 3 GHz. The new model 641 didn't use the VHF dipoles anymore. There is a dome only which contains 9 antenna elements for direction finding and an omnidirectional antenna on the middle. Actually we extended the coverage up to 8.5 GHz for dual polarisation.
Here in the US we can submit FOIA requests (Freedom Of Information Act) and get most information. I recently submitted a request for information on a strange radio tower in my city with some cellular crowns on it, I was correct and it came back with some cellular site information and some law enforcement information with most of the information about the law enforcement redacted leaving me to presume it is a StingRay site as we call it here in the US.. Upon requesting more detailed information regarding the law enforcement portion of the tower (which I said most was redacted) they came back with an exemption saying that it would reveal law enforcement tactics, so basically that leaves me to believe it is in fact a StingRay site.. Do y’all have anything similar to a FOIA request in the UK? If so, that may be the way to go. 73s! -K5DUR
John C especially you mean. adverb 1. used to single out one person or thing over all others. "he despised them all, especially Sylvester" So next time John. Don’t be so fast to take the piss
Probably a little late to comment, but my first thought on the dome antenna was firstly DGPS, with an array of airband antennas This would be for triangulation of distress calls on 121.500 mhz. My reasoning behind this is when you call on 121.500 it is picked up by West Drayton. When flying you can do test calls, and considering you can be anywhere in the country and using only 5 to 10 watts of power, West Drayton pick you up clearly. I may be talking rubbish but hey it is always worth a go.
Have it on good That's a Rhode and Schwartz direction finding receiver head. Ofcom have them all over the UK and can use them to pinpoint transmissions on any freq from about 30MHz to over 1GHz! I had a demo once when Ofcom used to have am office in Bristol. It's amazing!
I have also been told The system is able to consult the license database if it detects activity on a channel that's not licensed in the location it flags it up! This begs the question why it cannot be used to alert bogus transmissions causing QRM to some repeaters??
Apologies if the post gave the wrong impression but it was not me who had the demo but a good friend of mine who gave me this information, he says he will try to get me more information i will forward.
Looks good Pete. But I thinks its a Valisala lightning and thunderstorm system. Met Office ATDNet system. www.vaisala.com/en/products/instruments-sensors-and-other-measurement-devices/weather-stations-and-sensors/tls200
I think what needs to be made clear is what actually constitutes monitoring? For many it means listening to their personal tx. It can also mean just "watching the flow", how busy is a band, where does most traffic originate from, etc, just like "monitoring" a road. Monitoring can also be something that is merely done until something becomes a big enough problem it has to be acted upon, and there it is, the infrastructure in place. As regards pirate radio, just because it is not in Manchester now, does not mean it was not monitored or d/f'd previously of course, and once the gear is installed, usually as cheap to leave it there. Especially as Im guessing as well as Manchester it could take in signals from Liverpool, Cheshire, North Wales. The d/f array on the Airwaves tower could be almost anything. D/f is used to back up the GPS signals from Airwave sets, but, off the top of my head, the one thing police related that uses a four-pole d/f setup that could benefit from such a location is Trakker. For mobile use the range of trakker is rather limited, but one mast like that, one helo, easy to get close quickly, especially with a fast moving target.
Baldock is in Hertfordshire.To get to it from where you are, take the A1 South and come off it at Stevenage, get onto the A505 and it will take you straight there. Not far from Baldock, again on the A505, you can see a Home office sight with various masts and also the sight for the repeaters GB3PI (2m) and GB3PY (70cms).I worked for a company a while back installing security radio telemetry equipment on reservoir sites for Three Valleys Water. Maybe some of the aerials you are seeing are part of some similar system?
You should purchase on of the very inexpensive SDR "dongle" type receivers. That with you mobile android phone or tablet would allow you to see a large area of spectrum and see any transmissions or relays. Won't help with what they monitor but would let you know about any transmissions. Might help isolate rx from tx antenna systems. Good stuff. Keep up the explorations.
@@RingwayManchester Forget those dongles - they're pure garbage. A fellow ham like you should be in possession of a USRP... recommend a B210 for someone as mobile as you are.
@@notsure9355 some of them are garbage ;) but even then their junky status can sometimes be used to your advantage! And there is a interesting £80-£200 bracket of SDR appearing that are actually rather good, and a lot of them are open sourced if that's your gig, the open source ones are a bit more of a bet, but the payoffs can be huge.... I think limeSDR (could be wrong, working from memory here!) had a multi-transceiver unit for 200, with good components, just you might end up rewriting drivers yourself 👀 if you're used to github and stuff like that it's not a problem, but its obviously not a turnkey solution for people just wanting something that works 🙃
One of the direction finding antennas is used by the police for tracking vehicles fitted with trackers if they are stolen. There’s an identical one on our local police station.
Back in 2012 when the Olympics was coming up I did some work on the Olypmic Park in London that needed licensed frequencies from OFCOM. They told us the usual frequencies we wanted could not be used and that they had recently installed a new triangulating monitoring system in London that would find out if we did try and use them.
Much of the telecommunications infrastructure is backed up by generator or battery banks, unlike your 7300 which is dead as a dodo when the grid goes down.
Baldock do lots of stuff. One of them is to monitor spectrum occupancy. They also liaise with the CAA to identify interference. They do the same for the MOD. Twenty years ago I helped them identify a station on a marine search and rescue frequency in the Bay of Biscay. On that occasion it was Basque fishermen using frequencies they shouldn't have been using. No doubt Baldock now spend much more time tracking interference to paying users of the VHF/UHF/microwave spectrum!
I love your work. You are very descriptive so even a blind person can join in. Just a point of clarity though, when you see the word corps, you don't say the P or the S. It should just sound like the word "core".
Baldock is a Broadcast monitoring station, it listens into domestic and foreign broadcast transmissions. Being Ofcom it's also responsible for Policing the airwaves in the UK, so I'm sure your direction finding station is part of a network, so they can triangulate between stations and pinpoint the position of any illegal transmitters. Replaces the old yellow Busby direction-finding vans from the Eighties.
great video.. At 6:37 the antennas on the right are part of the ubiquiti products one looks like an airfiber 24. supplies long distance internet. Some of the small dishes look like repeater dishers.
Theres a secret listening base near Bedford it's by a public foot path...when u go walking past we got followed by a helicopter lol all that for going for a walk
As of recent there have been strange self sufficient (on grid with backup solar powered) masts popping up only in and around HOA communities and upper scale neighborhoods. N These are monopole masts but they are no where near as big as the monopole cellyular towers as these little masts are only about 50 feet high and usually consisting of wooden telcom poles or metal masts with some PVC parts. They look a lot like someones science project creation base off the hamfisted non professional designs and at first I thought they were part of some joint weather monitoring for the airports here that involved local high schools, NOAA and the airports ATC but a check with some friends who work for NOAA and in ATC at the airports confirmed that these little masts were not theirs. No one seems to notice them until you point them out and no one even the locals who work in RF here along with myself know anything about them. So the hunt is now on to figure out what they are..
Maybe some university project? One that I’ve seen is detecting where lightening strikes occur through triangulation. Each lightening strike emits a burst of interference on a certain freq.
Fantastic to hear Mike, did you see the video on youtube that someone did where they got a teletalk system working on a phone line? Amazing stuff. I'd love one of those units
my post is on facebook 36 Post Abernyte , and our control bunker is also on at 28 Group Observed SCIO, we are working on getting the original PYE 494's working there too 😊
Hi Mike, is that an ROC post you own or just one you have access to ? I saw one on the internet for sale recently and it was up for 20 grand. There's one near me that I would like to restore but I could never afford to buy one. It would be interesting to find out who owns the one near me and do a basic restoration/clean up on it and use it as a "drop in" radio shack on an access only basis.
Hi Louis. All the DF kit is standard Rohde & Schwarz DF and monitoring kit that is used by Ofcom to remotely monitor VHF, UHF and quite a bit above (that's the domed structure above the array). There are quite a few of these installations which provide real time DF's of sources of interference to licensed users. It is typical of standard equipment bought by national communications regulators globally. Receive only of course!!!! The second smaller DF antenna array on the HO site... probably better off not talking about this one!! :)
A lot of the R&S domes were sold off at the auction at Baldock last year, the replacement system is much sexier :-) But I do tend to agree with your last comment.
We had em in 2Sigs at various sites on PSA (Crown Estates) that we maintained.. even SBA Aki' has one. R&S make a scaled down version that fits on a Landrover towed folding mast.
Rohde und Schwarz launches R&S ADD597 integrated high-performance antenna system for single-channel direction finders. (early version thereof and probably for suspect pirates etc. ) GCHQ designed them as part of an integrated monitoring system for OFCOM and others to acccess. Mainly defunct now.
As has been said mate it's for locational information, and those ones in particular are tied into the 999 network. When interrogating signal those can get the transmitter co-ordinates down to an accuracy of
Nothing concrete, but a suggestion.... There was a network of monitoring stations that Ofcom were using for monitring band occupancy, DFing interference reported etc. The equipment I saw didn't look quite like this, all the antennas were in a raydome. Though this may just be an early version?
Really cool see local info on something I know very little of ha, but this was really interesting, that Cold War one was so cool, next time I’m up there and see it I can say what it is 😁
A great informative video Lewis and untill the next video and to get view's like that I have to drive for a 100miles mind it's high 2000+feet take care not to close to the big antennas
The second, smaller array on top of the tower is part of the nationwide "Tracker anit theft" system. They have a number of fixed sites all over the UK as well as systems fitted to police vehicles (you can spot a tracker equiped police car by the 4 antennas in a square on the roof).
if you can date it approximately, try the local council planning department website, use keywords 'communication' or 'antenna' . It had to have planning permission from what it looks like
@@RingwayManchester I went over this with some 5G death ray complainers, who pointed out a couple of masts which had mysteriously popped up during lockdown. So I went to the relevant planning department and found the applications, which had been made over 6 months previously, and asked the death ray supporters why they hadn't objected to the death ray being built when they have had ample opportunity to do so. And then they stopped talking to me ;) De GM4UCD
National Air Traffic Service (NATS) have DF antennas such as this for the 121.5 frequency Distress and Diversion (D&D). As soon as you TX on 121.5 these would plot your position for the D&D cell in Swanwick.
I have a little bit of info about Baldock Radio monitoring station, I grew up nearby, they definitely track broadcast band pirates from there, London is still active for pirates, and they do monitor all kinds of transmissions. I knew an employee there, he had nothing to do with radio as such but he spoke languages. They were picking up radio chatter from tribal regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan, he could tell from the dialects spoken, around 2008. I've got a feeling there is only technical staff/ radio operators at Baldock and the signals received just get fed elsewhere for analysis as there is only a handful of people employed in Baldock. Also there are fewer aerials on that site now, used to be a lot back in the 80s/90s.
Can't really tell if they are HF or VHF or UHF. If they are HF, one possibility is this part of the Shortwave High Frequency Trading Network linking stock information between Europe and North America. If you Google "Shortwave high-frequency trading" you should come up with the number of hits. Most of the information is fairly secretive (private, corporate rather than government).
hi mate nice interesting vid cant help with the antennas sorry but the brick building near the big towers is a powerhouse with a backup genny inside so power is never interrupted I dunno much more sorry I just climb antennas and break in places
I went there some years ago with OFCOM when they were putting this tower up with a MEWP to help them set it up. 7th March 2006 and I was in a 17m Aerial platform on an Iveco truck. Looking at the photos they initially had an antenna set up on a trailer at the back of a brick building but I was there when they put up a permanent tower. It's odd as the company did have a depot in Manchester but I was sent up from the Coventry depot!!! I can send photos, but PM me and I'll send them back.
Hey Elwyn! Great stuff. I don't think you can message on here now, they've removed the feature. Are you on facebook? I'm Lewis HHY on there. If not let me know we'll figure something out.
Its more than a year old this one but what are the measurements of the antenne. You can find the frequenties they are monitoring. It can help you in your search. Maybe you already did.\ 73 PD0FSH
Ofcom remote site..they use them to get location for spectrum abuse or spectrum usage..they dotted alm over they uk and cover hf upwards..gets a fix with data from other sites...thry will be able to work out from signal readinging location and relative power by unlicenced stations..its very effective...big brother is out there.
As for Ofcomm with only one F it should be pronounced like the word "of" :-) It ought to be offcomm like the word "off" :-) kind of like the Welsh f and ff hahahaha. Just having fun :-) Happy saint Davids Day March 1 :-) KØOJ
Omg thanks! I found one of the Roc things and didn't know wat it was I found it in the UK in my village it was in a field next to a dirt bike track😂 it looks exactly like the one u shown were u can see inside it's green.😂😂
![PURPEECH - นี่ฉันเองคนที่... (It's me) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NuhHd0hOOg8/mqdefault.jpg)
unplug it and see who comes to mend it
Top answer
Brilliant
What you have there is a Dual DF antenna setup. The 6 dipole array is a VHF/UHF array and the dome is an enclosed UHF/SHF array. The two antennas together can DF from as low as 20MHz to upwards of 3GHz. The white box is either a connection box or a combiner. The DDF processor would be in the green container. Because these systems can DF on many sources of RF and across a massive spectrum, it's impossible to say who is using it for what, however, the satellite view of the site shows the dome to be a definite green colour which likely indicates a military DF use. BUT... ..look at the site, it is very poorly maintained. Whoever runs the site has no interest in site maintenance. It doesn't look like it's had an Ofcom inspection in years. Also, that container may not be locked. You can clearly see the locking arms hanging down. (maybe there's a lock under that lock cover, but maybe not) My guess is that the site is abandoned. Next time you're up there, if the container is unlocked, have a look inside. No harm in that.
Interesting
Used to work at BT and we looked after the comms to these old ROC. Interesting fact was the telex/telephone cables ran on poles to many of the bunkers. So if there had been a nuclear blast...all the cables running to them would have been gone. They had almost no facilities.
Mostly 4 wire PW connected to a WB 1400
You're right it's a monitoring station for Ofcom. The antenna is wide and and covers a large spectrum. At the bottom is usually a comms receiver controlled remotely over mobile network. They can use it to listen to anything record and gather audio data for any investigations. They have a mobile version too you might see appearing in places
The ROC posts make up a fascinating part of the cold war history. The aircraft monitoring role was given to the ROC shortly after WWII. They used small concrete platforms called Orlits for this. The nuclear monitoring posts were usually built in close proximity to the Orlit because they already had the land and the volunteers in that area.
I imagine one could take some detailed photos of the tower and then do some math with the angles, to determine the exact length of those antenna dipoles, which can then reveal what frequency they're tuned to operate on. The determined frequency band, if unrecognized, could probably then be correlated with the government's spectrum database (which should be in the public domain) in order to get a better idea of the tower's purpose, unless it's an undocumented frequency or some kind of obscure radar or something, lol
Great video as usual mate, glad its not just me that parks up at radio masts and films :-) apart from the Drone video you posted have you ever been stopped and asked why you are filming? whilst doing our long range wifi tests a few years back the police stopped me twice and came to my house a 3rd time and this was before all the terror incidents.
They must be even more sensitive about it now, even though what I was doing was legal I have to admit, me stood next to my car with a satellite dish on a tripod, a laptop open on the roof of the car and me on my 2m HT flashing a large 2,000 candle power torch in to the distance might have looked odd to some people LOL, we managed to get off the shelf wifi routers to transmit and receive 18 miles line of sight!! amazing stuff, all with home made LNBS , bit of copper wire and some circuit board, just amazing how many wifi points we picked up along the trip with no security, for fun i logged on to someones wireless printer who was a few miles away and printed "your networks not secure" on the printer! ha ha great fun we had.
You should put your footage up mate would love to see that! I've never been asked about filming yet but it's always in the back of my mind.
The dish on a tripod experiments sound amazing too! I'd love to see pics/vid of that or hear more stories! Do you still do it now? My idea of fun.
Add me here if you're on: facebook.com/M3HHY
Cheers as always
Ringway Manchester yes got lots of pictures and some video yes I'm going to do a video of it shortly, we also had a permanent setup as well which was real cool, should make for an interesting video.
Ahh yes I can't wait to see that!!
"Terror incidents" are you serious?? The controllers responsible for the current, viral boogie man (hysteria) hoax have brought you every single, "terrorist" boogie man ever to appear in mainstream media and on the cult of personality, phony, high ranking, (never been elected) "public officials '' lips
I used to live uphill from a KFC. You can barely see it from my house. I made a coffee can antenna and stuck it in a bush outside. I could pick up the KFC’s Wi-Fi from about a mile away. Used it for years. It was free Wi-Fi and I did shop there so I paid them for some of it. LOL.
You were right in your assumption. That actually is a remote monitoring station that looks for interference from pirate radio, jammers, or any other sorts of interference. Typically they are not monitored on site. If there is someone there on site it will be a rare occurrence. They actually built a bunch of mobile units that look very similar to what you have there. Mounted to land Rover’s And other types of vehicles with enough room for the computer equipment inside, they would have an antenna similar that would extend upwards and they could take them out to an area where they thought somebody was messing around.
Greetings from Dublin. Love these videos.
I was thinking possibly differential GPS ? I have seen similar antennas used on base sites for this , it is also used by the military as well.
Back in the late 1990s and early 2000s the main antenna site was used as a repeater station for the police at Stalybridge and Ashton, another repeater station was located at Tameside hospital on the maternity block roof, they transmitted on 452.350 and 452.550, hope this info helps.
Thanks for the info mate :)
452.550 was also the main Police frequency for Thames valley police in Banbury Oxfordshire. 466.450 was the repeater input. any transmission on 452.550 FM could also be heard on 154.100 AM.
I don’t know why I watch this but I love it. 👍
Thanks!
This is a TCI antenna old model 641 from 20 MHz up to 3 GHz. The new model 641 didn't use the VHF dipoles anymore. There is a dome only which contains 9 antenna elements for direction finding and an omnidirectional antenna on the middle. Actually we extended the coverage up to 8.5 GHz for dual polarisation.
Here in the US we can submit FOIA requests (Freedom Of Information Act) and get most information. I recently submitted a request for information on a strange radio tower in my city with some cellular crowns on it, I was correct and it came back with some cellular site information and some law enforcement information with most of the information about the law enforcement redacted leaving me to presume it is a StingRay site as we call it here in the US.. Upon requesting more detailed information regarding the law enforcement portion of the tower (which I said most was redacted) they came back with an exemption saying that it would reveal law enforcement tactics, so basically that leaves me to believe it is in fact a StingRay site.. Do y’all have anything similar to a FOIA request in the UK? If so, that may be the way to go.
73s! -K5DUR
I might do that! Cheers
Durake I also found a StingRay site in my town. Same process....FOIA said it "would jeporadize law enforcement operations"....
As if it doesn't jeopardize our freedom...
I used to have a number plate K275 DUR cool.
Haha, that's cool lol.
There monitoring EVERYONE.
..specially those who cannot spell
John C especially you mean.
adverb
1.
used to single out one person or thing over all others.
"he despised them all, especially Sylvester"
So next time John. Don’t be so fast to take the piss
@@johnc3403 Yeah, they're the 'Illiterate Incarcerators', and their mission is The01t.
The 4 on the scaffold type tower look a lot like the tracker receiver for stolen cars. They have a smaller unit on the roofs of police cars.
The security services read my mind and I'm not even a Jihadist!
You would say that, wouldn't you ahmed
@@johnc3403 cau dy geg cont gwirion
Probably a little late to comment, but my first thought on the dome antenna was firstly DGPS, with an array of airband antennas This would be for triangulation of distress calls on 121.500 mhz. My reasoning behind this is when you call on 121.500 it is picked up by West Drayton. When flying you can do test calls, and considering you can be anywhere in the country and using only 5 to 10 watts of power, West Drayton pick you up clearly. I may be talking rubbish but hey it is always worth a go.
Have it on good That's a Rhode and Schwartz direction finding receiver head. Ofcom have them all over the UK and can use them to pinpoint transmissions on any freq from about 30MHz to over 1GHz! I had a demo once when Ofcom used to have am office in Bristol. It's amazing!
Cheers Peter! I'd love to find more sites. I wonder if I contact Ofcom they'll divulge some locations? Demo sounds awesome, very jealous!
I have also been told The system is able to consult the license database if it detects activity on a channel that's not licensed in the location it flags it up! This begs the question why it cannot be used to alert bogus transmissions causing QRM to some repeaters??
Apologies if the post gave the wrong impression but it was not me who had the demo but a good friend of mine who gave me this information, he says he will try to get me more information i will forward.
The license checker sounds insteresting for sure! Keep the info coming Pete :)
Looks good Pete. But I thinks its a Valisala lightning and thunderstorm system. Met Office ATDNet system.
www.vaisala.com/en/products/instruments-sensors-and-other-measurement-devices/weather-stations-and-sensors/tls200
Great video Lewis.. What they are monitoring on that antenna is intriguing I wonder what....
I have visited around 60 of there bunkers
I think what needs to be made clear is what actually constitutes monitoring? For many it means listening to their personal tx. It can also mean just "watching the flow", how busy is a band, where does most traffic originate from, etc, just like "monitoring" a road. Monitoring can also be something that is merely done until something becomes a big enough problem it has to be acted upon, and there it is, the infrastructure in place.
As regards pirate radio, just because it is not in Manchester now, does not mean it was not monitored or d/f'd previously of course, and once the gear is installed, usually as cheap to leave it there. Especially as Im guessing as well as Manchester it could take in signals from Liverpool, Cheshire, North Wales.
The d/f array on the Airwaves tower could be almost anything. D/f is used to back up the GPS signals from Airwave sets, but, off the top of my head, the one thing police related that uses a four-pole d/f setup that could benefit from such a location is Trakker. For mobile use the range of trakker is rather limited, but one mast like that, one helo, easy to get close quickly, especially with a fast moving target.
Baldock is in Hertfordshire.To get to it from where you are, take the A1 South and come off it at Stevenage, get onto the A505 and it will take you straight there. Not far from Baldock, again on the A505, you can see a Home office sight with various masts and also the sight for the repeaters GB3PI (2m) and GB3PY (70cms).I worked for a company a while back installing security radio telemetry equipment on reservoir sites for Three Valleys Water. Maybe some of the aerials you are seeing are part of some similar system?
I'll take my sdr next time I'm up there and see if throws up any clues.
You should purchase on of the very inexpensive SDR "dongle" type receivers. That with you mobile android phone or tablet would allow you to see a large area of spectrum and see any transmissions or relays. Won't help with what they monitor but would let you know about any transmissions. Might help isolate rx from tx antenna systems. Good stuff. Keep up the explorations.
I have one of those dongles Sean, I'm working on a portable use :) Cheers
Ringway Manchester Why not use an android smartphone with OTG?
the SDR being so close to a repeater tower would probably overload i live close to a tower and cannot use my SDR
@@RingwayManchester Forget those dongles - they're pure garbage.
A fellow ham like you should be in possession of a USRP... recommend a B210 for someone as mobile as you are.
@@notsure9355 some of them are garbage ;) but even then their junky status can sometimes be used to your advantage!
And there is a interesting £80-£200 bracket of SDR appearing that are actually rather good, and a lot of them are open sourced if that's your gig, the open source ones are a bit more of a bet, but the payoffs can be huge.... I think limeSDR (could be wrong, working from memory here!) had a multi-transceiver unit for 200, with good components, just you might end up rewriting drivers yourself 👀 if you're used to github and stuff like that it's not a problem, but its obviously not a turnkey solution for people just wanting something that works 🙃
One of the direction finding antennas is used by the police for tracking vehicles fitted with trackers if they are stolen.
There’s an identical one on our local police station.
It's not for that but they're the same principle, the police ones are always mobile.
one good thing about the FCC over here in the states, each tower has to have an ASR and all the license holders with equipment on there are listed
Everybody. And if they are not, then NSA is. Like this is unknown?
Back in 2012 when the Olympics was coming up I did some work on the Olypmic Park in London that needed licensed frequencies from OFCOM. They told us the usual frequencies we wanted could not be used and that they had recently installed a new triangulating monitoring system in London that would find out if we did try and use them.
I've seen them, when I lived in that area I've moved since ALSO got a new radio
if your on channel 8 at anytime just happen to be driving in Shrewsbury give me a shout
Is that why you moved? 😆
Amateur Radio is much more desirable now, especially HF, as so much of the telecommunications infrastructure is so dependent on the power grid.
Much of the telecommunications infrastructure is backed up by generator or battery banks, unlike your 7300 which is dead as a dodo when the grid goes down.
I could smell that phonebox lol
Baldock do lots of stuff. One of them is to monitor spectrum occupancy. They also liaise with the CAA to identify interference. They do the same for the MOD.
Twenty years ago I helped them identify a station on a marine search and rescue frequency in the Bay of Biscay. On that occasion it was Basque fishermen using frequencies they shouldn't have been using.
No doubt Baldock now spend much more time tracking interference to paying users of the VHF/UHF/microwave spectrum!
Thanks for the info! :)
I love your work. You are very descriptive so even a blind person can join in. Just a point of clarity though, when you see the word corps, you don't say the P or the S. It should just sound like the word "core".
Baldock is a Broadcast monitoring station, it listens into domestic and foreign broadcast transmissions. Being Ofcom it's also responsible for Policing the airwaves in the UK, so I'm sure your direction finding station is part of a network, so they can triangulate between stations and pinpoint the position of any illegal transmitters. Replaces the old yellow Busby direction-finding vans from the Eighties.
Fantastic ! What on earth did that mean on a Phone box near Hyde ????
Thanks mate! Christ knows! nothing in Google
great video.. At 6:37 the antennas on the right are part of the ubiquiti products one looks like an airfiber 24. supplies long distance internet. Some of the small dishes look like repeater dishers.
Cheers for the info :)
Theres a secret listening base near Bedford it's by a public foot path...when u go walking past we got followed by a helicopter lol all that for going for a walk
Whereabouts?
Ringway Manchester RAF Chicksands very secure place
Nice vid Lewis, Great spot Werneth Low.
Cheers Paddy, love it up there mate
The Mast with the 4 Verticles , same array Police have on there Roofs that can Recieve Tracker Signals fir stolen Vehicles / Macinery
Brilliant pal
As of recent there have been strange self sufficient (on grid with backup solar powered) masts popping up only in and around HOA communities and upper scale neighborhoods. N These are monopole masts but they are no where near as big as the monopole cellyular towers as these little masts are only about 50 feet high and usually consisting of wooden telcom poles or metal masts with some PVC parts. They look a lot like someones science project creation base off the hamfisted non professional designs and at first I thought they were part of some joint weather monitoring for the airports here that involved local high schools, NOAA and the airports ATC but a check with some friends who work for NOAA and in ATC at the airports confirmed that these little masts were not theirs. No one seems to notice them until you point them out and no one even the locals who work in RF here along with myself know anything about them. So the hunt is now on to figure out what they are..
5G?
Maybe some university project? One that I’ve seen is detecting where lightening strikes occur through triangulation. Each lightening strike emits a burst of interference on a certain freq.
Very interesting, and the ROC post is a great bonus.
I will have to get footage of an interesting mast here in Mansfield.
Would love to see that Paul!
@@RingwayManchester Thanks. I'll get that sorted.
Werneth Low looks great, I might venture up there but for photography rather than amateur radio. 73 Mike GW8IJT.
Great video , I sometimes transmit from the ROC post I restored, using an original burndept roc radio converted to 2m
Fantastic to hear Mike, did you see the video on youtube that someone did where they got a teletalk system working on a phone line? Amazing stuff. I'd love one of those units
yeah , that was me who developed the system for running them and designed the simple modulator to operate the WB warning receivers 😊
my post is on facebook 36 Post Abernyte , and our control bunker is also on at 28 Group Observed SCIO, we are working on getting the original PYE 494's working there too 😊
Cheers mike I'll check it out
Hi Mike, is that an ROC post you own or just one you have access to ? I saw one on the internet for sale recently and it was up for 20 grand. There's one near me that I would like to restore but I could never afford to buy one. It would be interesting to find out who owns the one near me and do a basic restoration/clean up on it and use it as a "drop in" radio shack on an access only basis.
I know what it is .a rotary dryer I got a small version in the garden.
The dome style antenna's look like the smaller clover antennas used for cameras
Probably Home office or Spooks..........................
Definitely!
As usual, a very interesting video.
Hi Louis. All the DF kit is standard Rohde & Schwarz DF and monitoring kit that is used by Ofcom to remotely monitor VHF, UHF and quite a bit above (that's the domed structure above the array). There are quite a few of these installations which provide real time DF's of sources of interference to licensed users. It is typical of standard equipment bought by national communications regulators globally. Receive only of course!!!! The second smaller DF antenna array on the HO site... probably better off not talking about this one!! :)
A lot of the R&S domes were sold off at the auction at Baldock last year, the replacement system is much sexier :-) But I do tend to agree with your last comment.
Hey Brian, cheers for the info on the kit. I'm intrigued about the smaller array now!! Feel free to inbox me Brian haha.
Interesting stuff- def seen something like this wonder if it was when I visited bletchley...
We had em in 2Sigs at various sites on PSA (Crown Estates) that we maintained.. even SBA Aki' has one.
R&S make a scaled down version that fits on a Landrover towed folding mast.
Cheers for the info Alan, some interesting stuff there!
Nice that the big red old mobile phone is still working
Rohde und Schwarz launches R&S ADD597 integrated high-performance antenna system for single-channel direction finders.
(early version thereof and probably for suspect pirates etc. ) GCHQ designed them as part of an integrated monitoring system for OFCOM and others to acccess. Mainly defunct now.
Anyone they see as a threat.
I couldn't help wondering if the phone box smelled of piss like most of them do.
Really interesting content, I subscribed and I look forward to watching more, thanks for the info ✝️🇺🇸🤙🏻🅰️
I just saw cobwebs in the phone booth.
You could ask Ofcom what it's for. I'm sure you can put in a freedom of information request on it.
Wow - the Royal Observer Corps Post! Will be looking for that will the dog this weekend!
Omg mate you're a native haha thought you'd had seen that before? It's in the Hare and Hounds car park
Ringway Manchester Had no idea it was there or what lied beneath it, despite being a native 😹
The four little antennas at the top are police tetra arrays.
As has been said mate it's for locational information, and those ones in particular are tied into the 999 network. When interrogating signal those can get the transmitter co-ordinates down to an accuracy of
Nothing concrete, but a suggestion....
There was a network of monitoring stations that Ofcom were using for monitring band occupancy, DFing interference reported etc.
The equipment I saw didn't look quite like this, all the antennas were in a raydome. Though this may just be an early version?
I surmise it for military training. No proper idea however.
Really cool see local info on something I know very little of ha, but this was really interesting, that Cold War one was so cool, next time I’m up there and see it I can say what it is 😁
Haha cheers mate
Some can be used for weather monitoring purposes
that ofcom site, you drive past it and there is a sign by the road saying 'radio station' which is a bit odd.
Deffo aliens ! :-)
Hi barney 🙂
Lovely video. I find it very interesting
A great informative video Lewis and untill the next video and to get view's like that I have to drive for a 100miles mind it's high 2000+feet take care not to close to the big antennas
The second, smaller array on top of the tower is part of the nationwide "Tracker anit theft" system. They have a number of fixed sites all over the UK as well as systems fitted to police vehicles (you can spot a tracker equiped police car by the 4 antennas in a square on the roof).
Ahh I see cheers matthew!
Ringway Manchester No problem. I used to fit them for a living!
Interesting stuff Matthew!
I wouldnt mind a bedsit like that..
interesting video Lewis,I need to get up there again when i get a me Day.
Give us a shout mate I'll join you!
if you can date it approximately, try the local council planning department website, use keywords 'communication' or 'antenna' . It had to have planning permission from what it looks like
It’s actually amazing timing this comment. Stay tuned in the next hour for my new video on this ;)
@@RingwayManchester I went over this with some 5G death ray complainers, who pointed out a couple of masts which had mysteriously popped up during lockdown. So I went to the relevant planning department and found the applications, which had been made over 6 months previously, and asked the death ray supporters why they hadn't objected to the death ray being built when they have had ample opportunity to do so. And then they stopped talking to me ;) De GM4UCD
Middle dish is most likely a GPS device you see them. On people doing surveys on road ect civil engineering teams.
National Air Traffic Service (NATS) have DF antennas such as this for the 121.5 frequency Distress and Diversion (D&D). As soon as you TX on 121.5 these would plot your position for the D&D cell in Swanwick.
Cheers for the info Liam
Ringway Manchester not a problem. There’s a topic on this when doing your pilot licence. I will look through my books.
There is a large modern telecom bunker near the ROC bunker, you even seen the road in to it on your video. Right the opposite the cricker club!
That’s the north west water place
Nobody has ever done a video on the company tracker and where those receivers are
I have a little bit of info about Baldock Radio monitoring station, I grew up nearby, they definitely track broadcast band pirates from there, London is still active for pirates, and they do monitor all kinds of transmissions. I knew an employee there, he had nothing to do with radio as such but he spoke languages. They were picking up radio chatter from tribal regions of Afghanistan/Pakistan, he could tell from the dialects spoken, around 2008. I've got a feeling there is only technical staff/ radio operators at Baldock and the signals received just get fed elsewhere for analysis as there is only a handful of people employed in Baldock. Also there are fewer aerials on that site now, used to be a lot back in the 80s/90s.
Rog Fusionkid I lived in Baldock and always used to listening to pirate radio and I remember that site being The ones that used to bust the stations 😡
@@philiboy76 Yes in fact one of the pirate radio TV documentaries show them doing their thing inside the Baldock site. It's on TH-cam
I suspect Tejrjwne means Telephone. As it's written on a telephone box.
It is in fact Ancient Pictish for Urinal.
Can't really tell if they are HF or VHF or UHF. If they are HF, one possibility is this part of the Shortwave High Frequency Trading Network linking stock information between Europe and North America. If you Google "Shortwave high-frequency trading" you should come up with the number of hits. Most of the information is fairly secretive (private, corporate rather than government).
the dome is definatley gunshot triangulation device, not from the uk though
hi mate nice interesting vid cant help with the antennas sorry but the brick building near the big towers is a powerhouse with a backup genny inside so power is never interrupted I dunno much more sorry I just climb antennas and break in places
I went there some years ago with OFCOM when they were putting this tower up with a MEWP to help them set it up. 7th March 2006 and I was in a 17m Aerial platform on an Iveco truck. Looking at the photos they initially had an antenna set up on a trailer at the back of a brick building but I was there when they put up a permanent tower. It's odd as the company did have a depot in Manchester but I was sent up from the Coventry depot!!! I can send photos, but PM me and I'll send them back.
Hey Elwyn! Great stuff. I don't think you can message on here now, they've removed the feature. Are you on facebook? I'm Lewis HHY on there. If not let me know we'll figure something out.
DON’T ASK - DON’T TELL ☠️☠️☠️ lol
Some interesting sites. I wonder if you get much interference up there on your radios?
It's hit and miss mate, nothing today but sometimes it's a wipeout
I have a pdf file called "Baldock Monitoring".
Hey Michael I'd love to hear about that jammer on the Thames you mentioned!
If you want to know what they’re monitoring for just ask them what they’re sell or fining people for, nothing is free they’re protecting revenue
Its more than a year old this one but what are the measurements of the antenne. You can find the frequenties they are monitoring. It can help you in your search. Maybe you already did.\ 73 PD0FSH
A lightning detector??? The 4 pronged one looks like a lightning detector here at my local usda forest service site.
Very interesting video mate👍.
Cheers Michael
I think that thing is a Tesla mind control thing 😂
thingie
Ofcom remote site..they use them to get location for spectrum abuse or spectrum usage..they dotted alm over they uk and cover hf upwards..gets a fix with data from other sites...thry will be able to work out from signal readinging location and relative power by unlicenced stations..its very effective...big brother is out there.
Cheers mate
FCC on ham bands in US has brown shirts in mobiles who monitor and record and send to Government . 24-7
I know there are df antennas for 121.500 mhz for aviation emergency direction finding but not sure if that's one
It's not Callum but it is a direction finding antenna for Ofcom :)
It could be 1090 Mhz ADS B or TACAN/DME for Manchester Airport
It's a direction finding array for Baldock
As for Ofcomm with only one F it should be pronounced like the word "of" :-) It ought to be offcomm like the word "off" :-) kind of like the Welsh f and ff hahahaha. Just having fun :-) Happy saint Davids Day March 1 :-) KØOJ
Haha you're absolutely right! Office of communications. Should definitely be Offcom. Have a good one buddy 73 for now M3HHY
Just found this video. What's the geo coordinates on this site. Would like to look at it on Google Earth.
Omg thanks! I found one of the Roc things and didn't know wat it was I found it in the UK in my village it was in a field next to a dirt bike track😂 it looks exactly like the one u shown were u can see inside it's green.😂😂
Nice, you get about you do..
I sure do!