{"id":725,"date":"2015-02-23T21:34:24","date_gmt":"2015-02-23T21:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/?p=725"},"modified":"2015-02-23T21:59:53","modified_gmt":"2015-02-23T21:59:53","slug":"bletchley-park-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tsgarc.uk\/?p=725","title":{"rendered":"Bletchley Park"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Bletchley<\/a>

Bletchley Park<\/p><\/div>\n

WOW\u00a0sums up my day at Bletchley Park<\/a> (BP). \u00a0What a place. \u00a0I can highly recommend a visit to anyone who has not been. \u00a0Well, actually even if you have been!<\/p>\n

We arrived just as the doors opened and stayed until they shut and still we felt we could have spent another day or two looking around at the various exhibitions. \u00a0Bletchley Park<\/a> actually consists of several museums. \u00a0One is dedicated to WWII codebreaking, Enigma<\/a>, the Bombe<\/a> etc another to the National Radio Centre<\/a> and\u00a0there is also the National Museum of Computing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The wartime museum tells the story of Bletchley Park<\/a> exceedingly well. \u00a0Not only where the exhibits excellent but the staff were very knowledgable, keen to talk and to show exhibits\u00a0working. \u00a0How cool was it to see a genuine working three-rotor Enigma<\/a> \ud83d\ude42 \u00a0One of the major creations of BP was the Bombe<\/a> and to see it working is amazing. \u00a0Just its\u00a0sound and smell are\u00a0truly memorable.<\/p>\n

The National Radio Centre<\/a> was good and it told the story of radio well. But with the station, GB3RS<\/a>, I was very disappointed. \u00a0In fact I’d say it was the most disappointing element of my\u00a0day, probably as I had high expectations. \u00a0It did not have that welcoming feel and in looking through the door-way I didn’t see much\u00a0that I felt would draw non radio amateurs in to discover more. \u00a0The station was capable of V\/UHF and HF operations, however, the V\/UHF was unattended and did not appear to be doing much apart from tracking a cube-sat\u00a0and the\u00a0HF radio was being used by the RSGB representative initially for Morse then SSB phone. \u00a0An area of technology\u00a0that seemed almost totally unrepresented was data. \u00a0This seemed strange as data is the dominant form of communications and is core to the IT and software world that we live in nowadays. \u00a0Data modes are great for attracting the inquisitive; its easy to erect some big displays showing waterfall diagrams and real-time contact mapping (e.g. psk reporter, wsprnet), add some computers running ROS, JT65 etc and I’ll bet GB3RS looks more interesting to visitors.<\/p>\n

\"Colossus<\/a>

Colossus Bletchley Park<\/p><\/div>\n

The National Museum of Computing<\/a> is full of that stuff we all threw out years ago believing it was nothing more than\u00a0junk.<\/em>\u00a0It has the earliest computers, Colossus<\/a>, through to the latest and everything in between! \u00a0I was fascinated, as they seemed to have each\u00a0pivotal piece of equipment ever made! \u00a0It goes without saying that\u00a0Colossus<\/a> was amazing, but imagine my surprise to find an early magnetic disk which must have been 4 foot in diameter! \u00a0Everything that I’ve grown-up with was there: the Research Machines RM-380z<\/a>, Sharp MZ80K<\/a>, Sinclair ZX81<\/a>, PDP-11<\/a>, MicroVAX<\/a>, Commodore PET<\/a>, VIC-20<\/a> and 64<\/a>. \u00a0Dragon 32<\/a>, IBM PC<\/a>,\u00a0BBC Micro<\/a> (In fact they had a whole room of working BBC micros!). \u00a0The list goes on and on. \u00a0I even found a genuine and working Space Invaders<\/a> arcade machine. \u00a0Now that is COOL!<\/p>\n

The afternoon weather was foul. \u00a0Cold, wet and windy which made moving between the huts that house the exhibitions unpleasant. \u00a0It would be so much nicer in the summer when the weather is more conducive to loitering outside looking at the lovely old house or duck pond.<\/p>\n

OK, so you get the message. \u00a0I had a great time \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

So, thanks to my co-conspiriters for a great\u00a0day: Paul, JohnL, Andy and David.<\/p>\n

Till next time,
\nAndrew
\nG0RVM<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WOW\u00a0sums up my day at Bletchley Park (BP). \u00a0What a place. \u00a0I can highly recommend a visit to anyone who has not been. \u00a0Well, actually even if you have been! We arrived just as the doors opened and stayed until … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[66,71,70,17,72,68,69,36,27],"class_list":["post-725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bletchley-park","tag-bombe","tag-enigma","tag-g0rvm","tag-gb3rs","tag-national-museum-of-computing","tag-national-radio-centre","tag-rsgb","tag-tsgarc"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t