Abandoned WW2 RAF Swingate Radar Station near Dover 

I love how large the area is, perfect for a long explore! That last bunker was pretty eerie looking through those openings!

Just come across your channel. Why can't I stop watching! I love what your doing! Super interesting! Looking forward to more vids! Xx

Back in 1989, early for a Calais to Dover ferry..... I parked out on a headland and could clearly see the three Chain home towers on the top of Dover..... reminded me of wartime footage of the same view..... And, my Motorola phone rang..... doesn’t sound very special, unless you realise that it was an early analogue phone and the nearest aerial was in the UK ! 22+ miles across the water.... we used to joke that the battery was big enough to jump start Concorde..... 🙂🇬🇧

Watched two videos so far and subbed absolutely brilliant

Great video ! I really enjoyed watching this one on a cold rainy Saturday across the pond in Ontario Canada 🇨🇦

These are great history lessons and thank you for sharing!

This is like the 5th video I've watched. Great channel got my subscription keep up the good work mate

Great video, good to see people still taking an interest in documenting these relics before they sadly all go...Good one!!

I truly thank you for sharing all of this truly awesome history with us. I would love to see it in person. Keep it up mate, your the dogs bollocks

great video mate

I been urbxing since a teen with my brother.... Just found your channel and love it! Will be recommending to friends :) keep up the good work m8

Nice explore! Some great history there!

Another good adventure. You would love the bunker complex now opened up again in Oban on a campsite. It was a control room for sea mines that if they had seen anything it was like battleships blow B4 etc.

Just found your channel from another treasure hunter and I'm enjoying your vids, keep up the informative work well done...

keep up the good work people like you what keep history alive love ur vids

I had three similar towers near me, they were built toward the end of the war for AM radio transmission, 1170 WWVA. A severe storm knocked them down in 2010 and took my tower as well.

Awesome video mate :) Interesting history :)

Good channel bro very intresting

I hope the M.O.D is not just slowly destroying parts of the Home Chain, this played a huge part in defence of the country and we where the first to use radar in ww2 so it should be kept as it's a important part of England's history. great videos again guys.

Loving the channel mate!!

Subscribed to your channel,excellent work

Awesome film... like always. Greetings from Poland

Great entertainer, great content, great locations.

Non-ionising radiation is just Radio signals and microwaves. Nothing to worry about unless you plan to spend loads of time there.

Those big radio towers are likely used these days for relaying telephone traffic and such, judging by the dishes.

Was down in the Folkstone dover area today looking at WWII instalations & with another family that was there walking their dog found a bunkern that was open & accessable, was pretty suprised. Went down what was the emergency exit & got some nice photos. Not sure if it was a radar station, ming have been communications as there woere some old AA gun placements near by.

The signs are for microwave radiation. That is a RADAR transmitter block. The fact it says 'Non Ionizing' gives it away. The early RADAR stations always had two sets of masts - the low ones were transmitters and the high ones were receivers. The most interesting RADAR site in Kent was the one at Coldblow, which looked very much like a high-tech site from 'Doctor Who'.

Leuke video weer wouw dat er nog zo veel Bunkers zijn in de wereld

Great location you found there!

Love the vids

Cool video !

I AM LOVING THIS VID nice to see a bunker with original fittings still intact and no graffiti .and i agree with you about the destruction of buildings from the war era being wrong there were some lovely old buildings from the war at Southend airport demolished to make way for the new train station i did manage to get some photos before they went. there was also a pitt hamilton fort removed during the (improvements) as far as i know someone has it in their back garden.

amazing!

you need a usb fibre optic camera, i bought one off youtube to look inside parts of a decommissioned navy ship that has several areas locked/ welded shut. ive got a 10 metre long and it jsut plugs into an android phone or pc. really handy for getting into cracks and crevices.

very cool guys!

Very interesting.. The "Masts" are very similar to the ones used by AT&T in The States during WWII on into the Cold War. Primary purpose being Microwave Relay for civilian telephone traffic, broadcast TV, and live stock exchange info. It also played a big role in the Civil Defense network (Autovan). Many of the American sites run long distance telephone traffic until the 1980s. The roll out of fiber optic cable and Digital multiplexing rendered many of the sites unnecessary.

5.25 possibly a buried reserve,the mast bases nearby would be for this (note the capped?square hole in the background) 3.10 ammunition locker

Brilliant

Do you video anywhere else, I went into the nothe fort at Weymouth and the old battery on Portland, they are amazing places to visit, the nothe forte you have to pay but the battery on Portland is free and if you haven't visited these places then you will love them

very amazing video!! greeting Matze

Having spent 5 years at the Duke of Yorks Royal Military School which was right opposite, I can assure you that there were originally 4 masts, not 3, each with 3 sets of wings on each side. They dominated my life for too long and provided a horrible circuit for our cross country runs. The mast bases with the metal uprights held smaller wooden masts. You can see the holes where the timbers were bolted through. This area was our Sunday afternoon playground.

hey there are some concrete seashell type acustic warning things from WW2 in that area, pls make video from them as well.....

When I used to visit my grandparents in Dover as a child I can remember there being 4 masts .

if you want to fix the lens fogging up, just fold up some small peaces of paper towel, and put them around the gopro inside its case, it should prevent it from fogging up, great video!

The RAF Swingate building was the transmitter building for the old RAF Ash site, I read online on another forum , who uses it now I'm not sure but it is still in use.

I live around here. The towers are quite the site and the bunkers and tunnels are situated over quite a large area of ground.

Nice channel, would be great to give the approx. location and or layout of the bunker.

Some of these radar sites are now used for CAA navigation aids like VOR/DME and localizer beacons. Some still have RAF identifications, even though many are no longer owned or managed by the MOD/RAF

BBC South East is now transmitted from this site.

At 3:05 there is an original WW2 Barbed wire holder on the fence (the curly iron thing) very odd

when U see some "dots" in aerial footage of the fields around radar stations or old airfields... -jup these where the craters of bombs that expolded there.

Go To 'East Weare Battery' On Portland,Dorset it's an old naval base.

it looks like they are still being used as cell towers I see a few GSM antennas on the masts plus a lot of Microwave directional antennas

My uncles farm is an old airfield, it has at least 5 bunkers.

Hi folks binging and got this far we had a radar station near Tetney the only thing thats lefyt is a circle of trees where the masts once was

There used to be four towers mate. nice vidio

@ 03:16 looks more like an old Privy, than a bunker. lol

That's amazing, you should open a patreon so people can fund you to go into mainland Europe and look at bigger ww2 locations

hi mate could you do wild camping in them I love woodland camping but it would be ace to sleep in one over night ... I just sub to your channel

you are right about the cold war bunker it would of bin used in the event of war for the engineers to live in while thay keep the site running that why it has a faraday cage on top to protect them

The radiation warning involves the antennas, when they operate you don't want to be under them or on the same height. Not the same as nuclear, so you are safe by observing the warnings and acting accordingly.

Wonder if it was used to transmit the Numbers Station back in the days of the Cold War..

if you gents bring a sdr and a smart phone or a laptop or even a something like a frequency counter you might be able to tell if anything is still transmitting from those towers or masts..... I'm sure those small coverd dishes are telecommunication or link systems or repeaters....

at 3:15 these are identical to those that have been infilled at RAF ventnor on the isle of Wight. they were emergency exits from the underground ROTOR bunker that is now capped. I always think what's below my feet that I can't see when visiting these sorts of places. ROTOR bunker pics are here www.derelictplaces.co.uk/main/military-sites/7747-raf-ventnor-r1-cew-rotor-bunker-isle-wight-june-08-a.html

Interesting video...... The circular structure on top of the pill box is, I think, for a triangulation device. It sat on a rotary bezel and was used to determine height and distance of aircraft. One friendly request - as you cross fields, please keep to the tramlines and not walk on drilled crops!

I believe the site still active for training use only but there an army base not sure if it's still there but when they Did Dover tattoo I was in the air cadets and the base was no longer in use I hope that helps :)

Im in dover area. love your content, if i could join you on your adventures, id love too

You have some balls IKS, I wouldn't get my camera out anywhere near a military installation :-D

Looks like it's still being used, by the BBC (possibly amongst others): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swingate_transmitting_station

RAF SWINGATE is still as far as I know used as a Link 11 UHF military aircraft communications. The big twin masts are still used. The one above the pyramid glass structure was used by the USAF and later the British Army as a Troposcater Radar facility. There is an underground bunker under the pyramid structure. The other remaining mast is used by BBC radio. The one taken down was originally used by Dover Coastguard before they moved to their current location. So it's possible the unused mast was taken down because of it not being maintained and possibly becoming unmanageable. The area where the link 11 aerials are was named RAF Swingate after RAF Ash closed down as far as I know. The facilities at RAF Ash was used by the RAF in the 1970s and 1980s. Then it was sold to the Civil Aviation authority and used as a radar station by them. Then sometime in the late 1980s the MOD took possession of Ash again and made the underground bunker there much bigger. I believe it never fully went on line because when the extension was built and finally finished in the early 1990s the Cold war with Russia ended. The idea was to monitor Russian nuclear bomber communications. RAF Ash closed and was sold to a computer company who stores computer data for other companies. The company I think was called RS Digital. No idea if they still use it. During the 1940s and 1950s there was an underground bunker called RAF Sandwich which had one of the Guard House bungalows. The bungalow I believe was sold and turned into a private residence. Though I may be wrong on that, so I can't say for sure that the bungalow still exists. When RAF Sandwich closed RAF Ash began operations. Also at Swingate there were two Troposcater Radar dishes. I am sure they were removed sometime in the mid to late 1980s after the British Army moved out. Previous to that the USAF operated the facility as Swingate for many years.

Wow it's just flat for miles that's so cool.

The none-ionising radiation signs do not refer to radiation as in atomic radiation but the hazards of strong radio frequency fields such as can be found around powerful transmitters and radar set. The military tends to have fairly powerful kit. The hazards for people are similar to those of beef burgers in a microwave. Not recommended...

I'm new to you channel 👍

Awesome , shame about those towers that have fallen ,guess the other two are used for mobile phone signal and are maintained .

My bet is you found a old RAF Radar station that has been mothballed. Non-ionizing radiation is a collective term for several types of radiation which are not harmful in low dosages and without long-term exposure. Non-ionizing radiation cannot cause ionization in biological systems (body cells), even at very high intensity levels. This is the major difference with ionizing radiation. Microwaves are non-ionizing electromagnetic radiation. That means MW is a type of electromagnetic radiation which does not carry enough energy for ionization of atoms and molecules under normal conditions and unlike the ionizing radiation this kind of radiation generally has not enough energy for breaking the intermolecular bonds or for breakaway of electrons from atoms or molecules. in military and aviation the most powerful local sources of radiofrequency radiation were and still are radars (RAdio Detection And Ranging).

What's intro music? Cool tune :D

You need to check out the former RAF Westcott rocket and propulsion site it will blow you away I kid you not

I wonder wat the pyramid structure is for?

How do you find these things?

Cool

Hi there IKS i would love to meet up for an explore somtime im in the army and know some good locations!

is it a sea front location? judgeing by the wind sound it seems it :) (not asking for location just curiouse as it seems it via strong winds )

Those radiation signs are nothing more than standards signs for radio transmission, warning those entering the area not to touch any wires.

the four metal towers were transmitters and the wooden towers were recieving because metal towers would interfere with the reception we have the same here in great bromley essex. i did look this up a couple of years ago, the high adameral made these rules for their placementas far as i can remember. 1 the land should slope away and towards the direction of use. 2 the surounding roads were to be good enough to carry the loads to build the station. 3 they should be inland unable to be attacked by sea. 4 best yet they must not interfere with grouse shooting season!!!!

So do you find these places on your own just going out and using bit of history or do you have sources =) ?

Just because it says 'MOD PROPERTY KEEP OFF' etc, it does not mean that the masts are still operational.

The radiation (non-ionizing) warning is for radio frequency radiation, which can give RF burns. I know this because I was in the Signal Corps of the US Army. You were probably thinking of ionizing radiation, like gamma rays, which can really hurt your body.

At 16:01 there looks like an opening to another bunker structure in the scrub

Would love to tag along one day if ever you're in Essex Subbed today

Google Earth historical view shows in the 1960s being 4 towers where those 2 are...also street view google earth shows the 3rd tower still standing....check it out also currently being used by the BBC Wikipedia states ~ Swingate Transmitting Station Originally there were four towers with wires stretched between them to transmit radio waves that were detected by a group of four smaller towers to the east of the surviving ones. The receiver towers were demolished after the war, along with one of the transmitter towers. Subsequently the north mast was demolished and replaced with a similar tower with a different bracing design. During the Cold War the towers sprouted four transmitters at their base which were popularly assumed to be part of the US ACE High communication system but were more likely an RAF link to Germany. The south tower was dismantled in March 2010.

its called progress. you will hate it . tho but it puts people to work.

There's allsorts around Dover isn't there,only spent time there for the channel terminals.

have a look up of R.O.F pembery

Cut the fence lol BT wont mind :P

Are there any of these bunkers up north?

The circular discs appear to be microwave discs. they can date back to about the early 1950s

Haha. My first assignment in the usaf. Spent 76-80 there.

I live right by them

There is so much wind

Are the WWII sites national parks?