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[licquorice]

The ROC bunkers were everywhere, literally hundreds of them. I've been down a couple. See picture. There were also a smaller number of ROTOR sites which were characterised by having a bungalow on top of them such as the one here http://www.subbrit.org.uk/rsg/sites/l/langtoft/

[AArdvark]

Thanks for the pdf, love all this sort of stuff.
Real engineering & real engineers

[aesmith]

We viewed a ROTOR bunker for sale in Aberdeenshire near Inverbervie, complete with bungalow.

[AArdvark]

We viewed a ROTOR bunker for sale in Aberdeenshire near Inverbervie, complete with bungalow.

Out of nosiness, how much ?
(I will be counting my shekels (For Pedants: I know it should be sheqels)  )

Could be an entertaining location.
I like that end of Scotland !!

[tickmike]

They were all part of the civil defence system.  WB400/WB1400 was yet another system I worked on, converting all the local UAX's from WB400 to WB1400 (which was scrapped soon after). The WB400/1400 system was the '4 minute warning' broadcast sytem that was sent to receivers located at post offices, police stations, civil defence personnel's houses etc. It utilised the speaking clock distribution network to operate. There's quite a good description here http://www.ringbell.co.uk/ukwmo/Page212.htm

About 30 years ago when I first bought our local village shop and post office there was a Receiver Speech WB1400 and Loudspeaker Unit WB1400, it was taken out in 1995 and I have them  as the chap was binning them .
Until that time they worked as we had to check them weekly and report if not.
The wiring was still in when we sold the shop 13 years ago.
We still have a underground bunker about 1 mile outside of the village .

[WWWombat]

Bungalows as guard houses! How ... quintessentially British! Isn't it funny the kind of things that can come out from an odd post?

Maybe I'll have to visit Hack Green...

I went hunting through that EMSS site to see what it came up with for more modern comms. A Mitel SX2000 surprised me - I'd have really expected an iSDX.

[licquorice]

Bungalows as guard houses! How ... quintessentially British! Isn't it funny the kind of things that can come out from an odd post?

Maybe I'll have to visit Hack Green...

I went hunting through that EMSS site to see what it came up with for more modern comms. A Mitel SX2000 surprised me - I'd have really expected an iSDX.

Indeed, thanks for the opportunity for a few reminiscences. I was only involved in the transmission side of things, so know nothing of the switching side.

[aesmith]

We viewed a ROTOR bunker for sale in Aberdeenshire near Inverbervie, complete with bungalow.

Out of nosiness, how much ?
(I will be counting my shekels (For Pedants: I know it should be sheqels)  )

Asking price in 2010 was £250K.  We didn't take things further primarily because most of the site had been sold separately, leaving the bunker, bungalow and a couple of acres closely surrounded by security fences.   This is what it was like when we viewed.  You can see one of the owner's 10 alsatians, while we waited for him to lock them all up in a disused bus to make the site safe for us to enter.



Here's a wee write up from when the property was back on the market later ..
http://uniquepropertybulletinarchive.co.uk/unique-property-bulletin-14-july-2013/

[Black Sheep]

Very interesting indeed. Thank you for the picture and link, aesmith. 

[4candles]

They were all part of the civil defence system.  WB400/WB1400 was yet another system I worked on, converting all the local UAX's from WB400 to WB1400 (which was scrapped soon after). The WB400/1400 system was the '4 minute warning' broadcast sytem that was sent to receivers located at post offices, police stations, civil defence personnel's houses etc. It utilised the speaking clock distribution network to operate. There's quite a good description here http://www.ringbell.co.uk/ukwmo/Page212.htm

Yes, it's amazing the research that guy has done - fascinating stuff.

I can relate to a lot of it, being on the Trunk Maintenance Control Centre (TMCC, or 'Trunk Test' as was) from '70'to 72. Not being in regular use, there were always shedloads of faults on the EMSS circuits after a routine test.

Later, as a Pool Technical officer on rural exchanges, it became apparent that the switching guys weren't at all keen on maintaining the WB400 network, what with all that stuff that didn't make a noise, with things called 'levels' measured in dBs, and at 72 kc/s, whatever that meant! So, it was all mine if I wanted it, which of course I did. Being on the other side of the fence now, so to speak, I also got the chance to visit several ROC posts. Probably part of the reason I was subsequently 'poached' onto transmission.

Happy daze days.