In the spring the lad and I had the delight (along with Dad) of going to the Secrets of Radar Museum. We arrived a touch late due the museum moving but it ended up working out okay.
I am not going to put all the pictures in this post of what we saw there, as there were a good variety of exhibits and points of interest.
I’ll just point out some highlights.
The tour guide took the time to point out the number of different uniforms for the radar division and those attached to it. The hand with with the charges was a specific badge of the corps. She explained the whole making of it but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten in the meantime.
I do recall her explaining how when the radar division was shut down a lot of the records were destroyed, particularly that of the women that were part of the unit. This makes it very hard for them to get an accurate history of the numbers involved and what positions they all held.
While the tour guide was showing the children around I took the time to read the various plaques they had up explaining different points.
There was so much there of interest to me, from learning the role of women, to learning about the planes they used, to seeing the equipment that was put into use.
One of the things my son liked was learning about the equipment they used and learning how the radar messages worked. The word RADAR is an acronym for RAdio Detection And Ranging, and in its simplest form it consists of a transmitted radio signal aimed by an antenna in a particular direction, and a receiver that detects the echoes off any objects in the path of the signal.
He was unimpressed by some of the misleading information given, when they talked about only the women files being destroyed when in actuality all the reserves and temporary staff information was also destroyed.
The final part of our tour had the students divide up into two groups. One to have a paper airplane contest and the other to learn about the Shortwave and Radar in Canada today. The students were able to view the various aircraft flying into London and the importance of using shortwave, being introduced to some of the rules surrounding it’s use and more. The students seemed most intrigued by the number of flights they could see.
It was a good visit to this small museum, we learned a lot. I would recommend you take your children or homeschool group there as well. Learn our history eh?
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