UK’s Nuclear Attack Warning System
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- Опубліковано 4 тра 2021
- It’s been 30 years since the entire HANDEL Nuclear Warning Network was dismantled in the UK.
Thanks to some ingenuity by a good friend of mine, my own little piece of the system is now 100% working again.
Keep a look out for a video showing the system connected up to my nuclear bunker in the next few weeks.
Thanks very much for demonstrating this kit that NO ONE wanted to see operating in a real situation .
A friend of a friend used to work for the G.P.O then BT on "Private lines" installing all these systems. He promised me some of this equipment he had and the operating / service manuals . I lost touch with him a few years back .
I still find GPO stuff so fascinating, being a govt dept is how they got all these contracts... (as they would be now), back then it was just obvious, pre thatcher... (sorry for swearing)
Absolutely brilliant. We had one of these in the basement of our hospital
Hi from the USA. I knew the sirens were activated through the phone system in the UK, but never knew how. Thanks for the demo!
They also used the speaking clock circuits to carry the signal, so any failure would have been noticed very fast...(twin circuits for redundancy to every exchange)
That is great. All this would be lost in time forever if you hadn't got all this. Explains how it all works perfectly. Thanks
Only just found this channel today and my mind is blown 🤯 this is SO cool 😱
Greetings from Norfolk, U.K.
Bet those sounds were the things of nightmares to to ROC chaps back in the day.
Great video. Thanks
Really excellent electrical work. Brings it to life!
yes his friend Mike is a genius for sourcing the connectors and wiring diagrams.... i have a few GPO bits from ww2... including a switchbox to divert the attack signal to another post if this one was unattended (I am guessing ww2 as it's mahogany with the old style lever key)
This is so cool!
Being a yank, I love Learning about stuff like this from across the pond. Thank you for the upload!
This is superb David I need to get across and see your ROC point because I have always been interested in the HANDEL system
Visitors are always welcome. P.S. My name is Al.
We had one at Dunfermline police station. Remember during exercises very few could operate it properly. Training was minimal. Then it was gone by early to mid 90s
That’s an awesome bit of kit good demo.
I'd love it if they had this set up in a museum somewhere
Funnily enough I have done just that. I have one at the Ulster Aviation Society.
I really like your stuff, It's really interesting! Keep it up!
Absolutely brilliant !
Impressive and highly instructive.
I love you for preserving this equipment, there's a derelict police station near me, I am hoping to save the system when it gets demolished/remodeled (i know it has one of these in it, or had...)
Pretty cool stuff!
Great video
Great to see one of these in action, only read up on them before, thank you.
May I ask what the grey box on the wall behind Mike's terminating unit is, the one with the British Telecom logo on?
It’s a Case200 for the PW Circuit into an ROC Post - it splits the incoming phone line so both the Teletalk and the WB1400 get their relevant connection. That one is hooked up to a Teletalk I also have in the shed.
Awesome video this, super interesting (and rare!) to see a visual run down and demonstration of how each feature operates on these Carrier Control Points!
Thanks for the informative video, all you need now is an authentic power siren to activate from it! 😉
I do own one but I got in trouble the last time I set it off lol.
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse oh really haha! Was it an unamused neighbour or police that gave you a slap on the wrist?
It was nothing major, its just very very very very very loud!
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse Set it off again.... not illegal, LOL
"Attack Warning is it for real?"
This is 100% an original unit that would have given the alert in the UK.
Im assuming that's for the Carter Sirens from WWII.
Believe it or not the Carter Sirens from WWII were replaced in a phased program from the early 1970’s until the mid 1980’s. Very few (if any) of the WWII sirens remained in use with this system.
Most sirens in the UK still in situ are Castle Castings or Secomak.
was there a thing based on WB 400? i remember having to swap out "GPO" batteries in pubs occasionally.
The WB400 system was the precursor to the WB1400 system. The piece of equipment that you had to change the batteries on was the WB400 warning broadcast speaker which was eventually replaced by a plastic speaker for residential use and a hardened metal speaker for use in areas susceptible to damp.
Man I want this sort of tech, though you've probably got the last one
I doubt there is any out there just lying in abandoned buildings anymore but they do come up for sale now and again. I paid very little for this one considering they usually go for around £1000.
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse I'd think eBay isn't the place for stuff like this though. However it does seem that when I have money, not much shows up and when I dont I see some really cool stuff get bought by others. Well they should still exist in someone's hands, unless there's a mad vintage tech destroyer on the loose
Did you know that you can turn on the siren without the Controls? Cool right?
Are you sure that the sirens were to be activated before the policeman phoned out the warning red?
No, the siren was actually supposed to be sounded after the AWR message. I was so excited to get this all working correctly that I got them mixed up. I have an original operations manual and have it sorted now - in fact I did a follow up video with it connected to my bunker and did the procedure correctly.
What is the "confidence tick" you mention?
The metronome electronic ticking (beeping) noise you can hear in the background is what is known as the ‘confidence tick’. It’s to let the user know the system is working correctly.
@SurvivingTheApocalypse and if you don't hear it, either it's time to check the wiring, or time to start triggering the alert, because if it isn't the wiring then that means the alert centers are already ash drifting on a atomic breeze and you probably only have 10 minutes yourself before you get to play "all hail the newborn sun's!" ?
How could I get my hands on one of those.
Apparently they are really rare. Your best hope is to go round snooping around police stations and see if they still have them.
Living as I do about 40 miles from Fylingdales, I wonder what the point of that site now is, (other than consuming vast amounts of money) if the HANDEL system hasn't been in operation for 3 decades? Unless of course the people who brought us to that point would get to know about the impending event, but we wouldn't? I'd not be at all surprised if that was the intent.
This is like saying just because you can't get leaded petrol at a forecourt that you can't run a car anymore. Did you not get a government text message about COVID in the last two years?
@@skepticalbadger Do you not think that if we were on the brink of a full-scale nuclear war, that we wouldn't be subject to massive cyber attacks or the EMP weapons the Russians are known to have?
Still operates early warning radar site for NATO to warn of incoming ballistic missile attacks against Europe and North America.
can you post the schematics?
Of which piece of equipment?
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse the interface and the phone box, if you can.
I think I have a schematic for the CCP somewhere in the cloud, will take a look. The interface box was not made by me so I will ask the person who did make it if they wrote anything down.
Would be great to see a run down of that interface and some more tech info behind it, schematics or such. Great video demonstration ! Thanks for sharing
@@SurvivingTheApocalypse did you find the CCP schematics?
3:45 gives me crippling anxiety
I would not even imagine the moment of having to sound the sirens when the bombs were coming