POW Camp - South - August 2011

There isn't very much history on this place except to say it was once a POW camp. Most of the buildings are empty except for some which are basically full of old farm junk. But dig a bit deeper and a few of them are full of rich rewards, old radios, valve gear, telephony gear, tons of old communications junk mainly dating from the 1960's by the looks of things. I was a bit dubious about hanging around this site; if your caught in a derelict building at most you will get a lecture of the security or Police. If it's a live site, then at worst perhaps a night in the cells. When it comes to private property owned by a farmer, well who knows how irate he would get if found me there...Rock salt?

Mmm, some moderately interesting junk.

In the background, Barrows, Drum WD Mk4. Wireless aerial isolators on the floor.

First signs of telecoms. Headsets.

Strowger switch gear, I think.

Boxes and boxes of microphones.

Handsets by the dozen.

Some still in their original packaging.

Valves, thousands of 'em

Canvas holders for field telephone cable.

Type 706 telephone, sans dial.

More phones.

Old school radios and TV's.

on 35mm Superia.

on 35mm Superia.

A Murphy U506.

Another radio.

Battery charger, radio direction finder volt meters and god knows what else. The "film reel" is for field wiring, for use with the canvas holder above...

Volt meter. CV 1385 is a type of valve.

A lot of the military radios are from the Larkspur range, used up until the 1980's.

CRT Tubes.

The only intact phone on site.

CRT from an oscilloscope, I guess, behind is an EMT Rectifier.

Restful decay.

Radios hiding in the farm detritus.

Beryllium oxide is used in many high-performance semiconductor parts for applications such as radio equipment because it has good thermal conductivity while also being a good electrical insulator. BeO is carcinogenic.