Introduction

Although Marconi Radar concentrated on military and civil aviation systems its expertise was used in other areas for observational and communication purposes.

Other Radar Systems

Prowler

Surface movement

EVA - Electronic Velocity Analyser Type S360/1 - for calibration of artillery pieces

PETA - Portable Electronic Traffic Analyser - Type S350

Weather Radar

An early mention of weather and radar

The Radar Development Group looked into a weather radar/weather-balloon tracker in 1956 - an article in the "Marconi Companies and their People" magazine for September of this year explores the possibilities.

This is an interesting paper on the use of radar in weather mapping.

The writer [Robin Webb] recalls that in the late 1960's Marconi explored ways of entering the weather radar market. One type considered was to use a naval antenna and a 3cm marine radar transmitter/receiver. The picture here shows the antenna mounted on one of the Rivenhall plinths. This particular venture was not a success as the antenna was not suited to weather detection.

In the picture, Doug Brown, Robin Prentice, one not recognised and Dennis Hird. (Picture, R.A. Webb)

Later, a revised design came about that used a dish type antenna. This also operated at 3cm and was named "Rainbow". For a while it was mounted on the roof of the Baddow Laboratories. This too was not commercially successful and no sales resulted

A comment by Bernard de Neumann

Did you see the reports about the swarms of butterflies detected over Colorado by weather radars  I wonder whether such reports would have prompted Doc E to widen his Radar Ornithology, to include Radar Lepidopterology.

Other Military/Naval Systems

Excerpt from JS/RS paper

When the ex-AEI elements joined in in 1969, the marketplace was further extended to include other missile systems, electronic control for guns and missiles, degaussing for warships etc.

By the early 1980s most British warships carried a preponderance of Marconi Radar equipment, including Tracking and Surveillance radar and SEADART and SEAWOLF missile equipment, degaussing, cathodic protection, static converters, steering control, gun control and other electronic control systems, together with `SCOT', a satellite communication system and `ICS3' an integrated communication system, both from other parts of Marconi.

Input from Roy Simons

BAe are to close Vickers Yard, which is just a short distance down the Tyne from our site at Bill Quay.  Leicester provided the fire control equipment for several of the tanks made there, including the Centurion, the Chieftain and the PV Vickers Main Battle Tank, which was aimed at a market replacement for the Centurion, for countries that that could not afford the Chieftain

Other Civil Systems

Instrumented Visual Range

Marconi Environmental Transmissometer

Space Communications

Because of the expertise built up around large moving antennas the Division became involved with large-scale communications systems for use in space applications. Following several successful military systems the opportunity came to move into civil applications with the contract from Cable and Wireless to construct the Ascension Island station for the Apollo moon mission. This resulted in the formation by the company of a new Space Division which went on to equip the BT Goonhilly II and III stations and others for C&W. There is a film of the Apollo build which may be uploaded to the wiki when time permits.