Who Tried To Blow Up This Radio Tower? And Why? 

How was the temperature on top of those things? That’s a mean stretch of the earth.

I spent a lot of time in SystemX exchanges and in some, near "important" sites there was always a set of markers on the frame for "private circuits". When I asked what they were for, I was told in no uncertain terms that I shouldn't ask too many questions. One exchange was near a nuclear research facility and had a large number of these circuits.

@@edwardbyard6540 I worked mainly on commisioning TXE 2 and TXE 4 "PENTEX" systems at the Plessey factory in Nottingham. System X was just coming in when I changed jobs.

Ex system X programer here. The X phone overlay allowed hook bypass to be enacted from exchange office to several hundred important desks in central London. No need to run a bug, they could hear you anyway.

​@@philreeves7361 and they Still can. system x equipment is still used.

@@philreeves7361your right my mate worked in a telephone exchange and he said they could listen into any conversation 1974

There was an actual attack on one of the offshore broadcasters in the early '70s, Radio North Sea got firebombed off the Dutch coast, but that was down to a feud between rival Dutch broadcasters.

I have foggy memories of listening to a radio station in East Anglia in the mid '80s, "Laser, 558"? If I recall correctly, it was one broadcaster that wasn't squeamish about playing Frankie's "Relax".

@@Dunbar0740 I heard Rosko play Max Romeo's "Wet Dream" on Radio Caroline just last year which is arguable even more risque.

@@Dunbar0740 you recall correctly, use to record them on tape, yep that old

It's interesting that Ted Albeury (prolific, top spy story author ) started off in counter-intelligence in the cold war, and moved on to man a pirate radio station ship in the English Channel.

Thanks so much!

Yes, I agree and came here to make the same comment. A huge amount of your time must go into them, and I'm sure all viewers are very grateful even though a lot of us can't afford to show our appreciation financially! Just waiting for my big lottery win!

Exactly what I was thinking!

I remember visiting Perkins Memorial Tower in the spring of 2016. I appreciated the markers in the tower for the landmarks and they were difficult to make out due to haze that day

@@DanielleWhite 😊 Thanks. That's correct.

Appreciate you as always my friend

Wow didn’t know about about PA! Interesting

Not just Scotland, had some feeders and waveguide shot up at a site near Daventry. And have lost count of the amount of sites where the lightning tape was nicked....

@RingwayManchester The PA mast at the time also hosted the Police, ambulance and Fire service Coms not just the Taxis, there was even talk it was a local cber who was after the coax.

Duncan Campbells book is called "War Plan UK". "Attack Warning Red" is the history of the Royal Observer Corps. "Beneath The City Streets" is another one worth reading.

@@paulcharlton4788 Ah, sorry, my mistake. I have known and owned both very well and that’s a complete brain fart on my part. 🤬

I’m impressed to find someone who has even heard of either book! :-)

Ha. Cheers Paul. I’m still utterly ashamed at mixing the two up! I must have had the ROC on the brain at the time.. 😅

@@dw7920 I understand perfectly how this happened - they are two 'must have' books on the topic of Cold War infrastructure and organisations. That's why I have them both (I'm on my second copy of War Plan UK!). You are forgiven buddy.

Most likely I would have thought.

That was my first inkling.

I can see Gwaenysgor from my radio room window in Abergele.

There is a fellow on YT that went to the tower site for the supposedly stolen tower, and it looks like it has been abandoned for many years. Rumor (and I stress just rumours) has it that it's some kind of scam. We'll see how it plays out.

Wouldn't put it past nafarious players for some faraway land.

I also wouldn't put it passed out own homegrown idiots... 😔 As I could _easily_ see this being folks still hellbent on the notion of 5G causing cancer, and deciding _"while we're at it, let's take all the wire make a few bucks";_ Occam's Razor, after all. (the simplest idea/answer likely being the correct one) But, since I don't know what said tower was used for, *_and_* given the current state of world affairs... we certainly can't discount that outside parties being involved as a possible answer, either.

The Texas thieves were apparently caught when selling the copper/ Another tower in Alabama was felled for scrap in February.

Where at in texas?

​@@trespireits more likely local people who did it. When my ex mother in laws trailer burnt down, someone broke in and tried to steal all the copper wiring from the sockets.

Thanks so much! I started a video on the British gas ones about 5 years ago and never finished it! I did altrincham, collyhurst, Partington and Stockport.

Could you drop me an email I’d like to ask you a couple of bits. RingwayManchester@mail.com

@@RingwayManchester Have you done anything on the NTL Microwave network (now Arqiva) There is a mast on Winter Hill from memory, But the part of the network I knew about is the tower at Great Offley in Hitchin (literally at the end of my dads back garden!), which linked into another tower on Dunstable Downs in Bedfordshire, which is on a back lane from the near the National Trust shop/Cafe to the village of Whipsnade (not far from the zoo). The network isn't easy to track as from the east of Great Offley the nearest NTL tower is near Haverhill in Suffolk. I do know that it was connected to the old Gas powered power station in Letchworth which was built by the CEGB and became part of N Power before it was demolished. A lot of people used to think the NTL mast carried phone signals and that it was linked to the BT tower at Zouches Farm on Blows Down near Luton but this was not the case. Although up until the late 80's NTL towers did have microwave horn antennas they were replaced like the BT Towers by drums made by the Andrew Microwave Corparation

​ @RingwayManchester national grid also have a network of towers i believe for a similar purpose. there is one in sheffield 53.406231, -1.430777. although i believe they are removing a lot of their microwaves now. the one in sheffield i believe only has telco but is still owned by national grid

@@RingwayManchester I did reply via email but have not heard from you.

Hey) leave it with me! Have you seen my umist videos?

@@RingwayManchester No! I'll have a look now. Were they about the nuclear power plant?

@@RingwayManchester the ones about the radio society on the roff. I have yes. Great memories.

However langolen wants a word……

@ran…. However langolen wants a word…… It (Llangollen) probably is also wondering where it’s 3rd and 4th letter L’s have gone? 🤔🤔🤔

I will check it out

Just saw! Tell us more :)

Not true - I worked for a structural engineering company in the south of England in the late 80's and we had the contract to inspect the structural integrity of all government towers. Had to pass the amazingly titled 'Aerial Mast Erectors' course run by the RAF to do the job.

Geerling Engineering!

Turns out it's a hoax. The tower, whatever became of it, was brought down at least a year ago.

WJLX tower in Alabama, USA. It was an 101.5 FM/1240 AM broadcast tower. Some one took the whole 200ft tower and most of the equipment in the broadcast building!!

@@luisderivas6005 The tower has been gone at least a year, from Google Earth pictures...

They're rotatable mounts for microwave horns😂

It's still there

Without a doubt, same thing happened with nukes, suddenly every powerful country has them.

Wouldn't surprise me. Although the oringinal ATT sites were quickly constructed and typically only had enough supplies for a couple of weeks. They were temp untill a more robust system could be build, which makes you wonder..... There are some exploration sites on ytube of guys nosing around these old cold war systems/caves/bunkers/tunnels. Amazing how much you can't see!

@@dananorth895I'd like to have seen the bunker that was apparently in my town, except there's now a Lidl, McDonald's and Travelodge built on top of it! I still wonder how much of it is left and how accessible it is...

They did.

The location of these towers was a state secret and did not appear an any Ordinace Survey Maps. This included the famous "Post Office Tower" located in central London!

@@davidcronan4072 They did feature on aviation maps though, of necessity.

@ronan4072 Some , along with earlier HO towers ,were recorded on OS maps but there was a clearing up when the maps went from 1 inch to the mile to metric. There is a tower near me, which is still there for all to see, not on the current map but clear on the old map. It was the same time as the town of Aldermaston and the establishments in the area were sanitised down to a 'village' and empty space. Peter Laurie's "Beneath the City Streets" has a lot of information about the communications for the cold war period. In more recent times, in my role a a radio systems engineer, I came across a 30 metre town angle ground down because the locals thought it was being used to coordinate police operations during the miners strike (it was not) and needles hammered into co-ax cables by residents who blamed a tower for jamming their TV (it was not). Then spending two days investigating residents TV interference "from your mast" which turned out to be an illegal VHF radio remote control device on one of the residents air conditioning controllers.

That tower was "discovered" to be stolen a couple of weeks ago. According to a RU-vidr who filmed on-site, no one had been there for at least a year (based on corrosion of metal components left behind and dead weeds in front of the door).

​@@cdorcey1735There are so many anomalies about the situation that the FCC and the local authorities are clearly obligated to do a thorough investigation.

Had the mains cable nicked from my block of flats when the block was being rewired.

what is likely to have happened is a contractor demolished and removed the wrong tower and wont own up to it. yes it could have been stolen for scrap but the infrastructure needed to demolish it and remove it would be huge

@@cdorcey1735 'according to a RU-vidr who filmed on-site' ....that's got to be right then. Read the news reports. It was operational up to the theft, the station was actually forced off air for two weeks.

Yeah radar feed from multiple sites for atc and mil

Remember the hot air balloon tour of Menwith Hill 😊

If it's what I think you are looking at, suggest emergency generator exhausts and protection/divertor shield. Been on top of quite a few exchanges and other buildings with massive rusty exhausts. waiting...

This is the one ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6cOieO05L-I.htmlsi=aN5gpYhS3eLgg9-1

@@RingwayManchester Thanks! So the mast is still there. Is it the original one that was there when the bunker was there? Is it pure chance or deliberate that it is on the microwave link between Sutton Common and Heaton park?

It opened in I think 1952 so probably coincidental. It was taken out of its intended use by the late 1960’s so probably had no microwave links to anywhere. I’d suspect it had a phone line for comms, possibly VHF radio and the radio tower was probably added later

@@RingwayManchester Thanks for that. Great info!

😂👍🏻

lol :)@@RingwayManchester

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xpmdUx9dM8A.htmlsi=3Bfkkt2Det4QqDDl ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xnNTjelkM4A.htmlsi=eSV7LWAzVUQjY2xo

Ulster Catholics would be riddled with scurvy if oranges were the only citrus fruit to exist.

@@krashd :)

Still ongoing at a smaller scale as of today.

Used to work at Hunters Stones. Only site I knew with a warning to beware of snakes (adders) in the compound. It’s in a forest.

@@Wasdale7 I knew it (locally) as, “Norwood Edge “

They did not want anyone to know what they were doing as they could not trust the PO / BT staff who would make the connections. It is quite possible that NO 10 did not know what they were up to. Additionally they would have required multiple warrants which were probably not available for monitoring a link anyway - warrants are designed for monitoring endpoints.

@@barrieshepherd7694 It was not unknown for security staff to make changes in exchanges, unknown to site staff. It's relatively easy to tap at source, much easier than to intercept on air.

To be fair, Richard Lamont got there before Duncan

Is it not 30 years?

@@eliotmansfieldno they changed it to 20 a few years ago. I thought that and when i checked to see if the records were easy to find the Kew Records website said it has reduced to 20.

Very possibly