DALHAM — Cobra

On a remote gravel-covered spit of land on the east coast lie the abandoned buildings of a government facility for weapons testing and experiments with radar. In the mid 1960s this site witnessed the construction of an over-the-horizon radar, a technological marvel bouncing signals off the ionosphere, built to covertly monitor the activities of other nations. The reflectivity of the ionosphere is a function of frequency, time of day, time of year and of the solar cycle. In essence, a sympathy for the celestial was required to fully exploit this man made construction. Plagued by noise that created false returns on the monitors, the intended performance was never achieved, and despite several investigations the system was shut down and eventually dismantled in the early 1970s. The long dormant Cobra is now a nature reserve.