Thursday 2 October 2014

Penhale Sands Transmitting Station, Cornwall

I have just returned from a holiday to Holywell Bay in Cornwall, and on the cliffs above the valley lies the old MoD training camp "Penhale Sands". I understand it has been sold by the MoD but is still used to train military personnel. But my own interest in the camp is the huge array of aerials up on the cliffs. I read on the UDXF Yahoo Group that Penhale Sands is one of a number of European transmitting sites for the UK DHFCS ALE network. If you scan the freqs with PC-ALE or MultiPSK you get TWS messages with the code "XSS" (there are other codes and some people have heard flights req weather info in digital format). So I was extremely interested to see the antennas and thought I would post one or two of the photos. (I did wonder if I was allowed to do this, it being a military installation, so wouldn't be surprised if the photos get removed, but anyway, here they are:












Flight "Ascot 6986" on 9016 khz

I was scanning around the milair bands this afternoon when I heard some activity on 9016 KHZ. It was ASCOT 6986, a Royal Air Force transport aircraft requesting weather information for Nice and Akrotiri. I didn't even know this was an RAF frequency, but I do now! It is part of the TASCOM network.