Last updated: 22 May 2024
The Web Index is a personal collection of web sites which I have found, from time to time, to be useful. Please note - the contents of external sites may change and I am therefore not responsible for them. Similarly, I am not personally affiliated with any of these web sites or the people who maintain them.
The index is split into different categories of site, each under a specific heading. You may click the blue link text to be transported to the web site. If you do, this web site will stay open in the background for your convenience.
The archive is an ever expanding list of sites, so do keep returning to see what is new.
mb21 - Perhaps one of the best sites for those interested in British Terrestrial broadcasting (both radio and television). There are detailed write-ups and extensive photographs of thousands of BBC and IBA broadcasting sites. Perhaps consider bookmarking the interactive map page on a mobile phone so that if you are out and about and come across a site you’d like to identify, you can do so swiftly.
Ringway Manchester (on YouTube) - An excellent, and growing, collection of highly researched videos on everything radio. From the pirates of the 1980s, to tracking down specific microwave fixed links, Ringway Manchester is never short of an entertaining topic.
dgsys - An unbelievably useful resource charting the history, remains, and story of the BT Microwave network in Britain. Similar to mb21, there is a map of all the sites which the web site has collected information on.
BT Digital archive - Finding a link to this site which worked was a huge challenge! It appears almost entirely untouched for years but the information it provides gives insight into every element of the development of BT as an organisation and the technology it pioneered. This link may at some point switch to an archived link as I feel that now the site is so difficult to access its days may be numbered.
Update April 2024: Indeed, it seems my suspicions were
correct, and the site has been taken offline. The link was replaced with
a Web Archive locator instead. Whilst it seems that this was a
temporary outage, the link will remain as the archive version, as there
seems to be little new material being added and it is possible to
navigate to the hosted site via the archive URL.
Ofcom Spectrum Information Portal - Sticking with the theme of SHF microwave links, this site will help you answer the burning question of “where does that microwave dish point?”. Simply find the relevant dish on the map, click on it, and you should be able to trace the line to the next site in the chain. You can also find information about who owns certain dishes, which might help you identify their purpose. The site also shows BR Tech Assigned licenses (private radio networks used by the like of shop security and event management teams).
Wireless World Magazine archive - How long this must’ve taken I dread to think - but this web site has collated the thousands of monthly issues of Wireless World magazine. They are all available for free download, and provide an invaluable insight into how the landscape of the industry, as well as the hobbyist side of radio, has changed over the past century. There are also millions of other publications to be found on the site.
Google Earth (the actual version - not the new web version) - Google Earth is a mapping tool which I would say is still the only mapping tool to correctly achieve the balance between ease of use and still having an impressive amount of functionality available. Despite this, the newer web version of the tools is pretty dismal in terms of its functionality, missing almost all of the tools which made the desktop version so useful. I’m working on a full write-up of how to use all of the tools (especially for radio infrastructure nerds such as myself) so keep an eye out for that.
National Library of Scotland’s geo-referenced historical maps - The NLS’ amazing historical collection scanned at such a high resolution is a useful tool by itself, but the user interface is what makes this web site a gold-mine. There is a slider which allows you to change the opacity of the historical map, and overlay it over a modern satellite image. It is incredibly easy to see what has become of historic buildings, and to trace out those few which may still exist.
OS Maps on Bing (FREE!) - Enjoy the OS Maps on-line experience whilst Microsoft foots the bill! In all honesty the actual OS Maps premium subscription isn’t too expensive, and nothing beats the paper version, but if you just use it every now and again and don’t need any of the fancy route planning features of the OS Maps app, then Bing’s online OS maps are brilliant. It is worth noting also that some of the sheets appear to be out of date, so be mindful when using them.
OpenStreetMap - If you’re looking for a truly free map, and a surprisingly good one at that, look no further than the OpenStreetMap. Fully open source and highly detailed, the data is yours to do what you want with, or you can contribute your own additions.
Britain From Above - A surprisingly vast and geotagged collection of photographs of the UK from aerial surveys etc. Many an old building which appears to be lost to time will in fact be documented on this web site.
GridReferenceFinder - An incredibly useful tool for users of OS maps, allowing conversion between multiple co-ordinate systems. The Batch convertor has been the tool which has saved many of my slightly wilder geographical projects - it allows uploading an entire document containing lists of grid references, and will export them to different formats, including Google Earth KML.
Geograph - Photographs taken within every OS Maps grid square. Extremely useful for looking for transmitter sites and historic buildings. Images are also licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0 so can be re-used in other projects or other places on the Web. Especially useful for sites where Google Street View is restricted to roads only, or where something like a signboard needs to be read.
Tagged as: web