Racal Decca Hyperfix
Hyperfix receiver and lane XY converter (by NeSA)
Text largely copied and adapted from Alan Cordwell's website
"HyperFix is a third generation small range-range, hyperbolic or combined position-fixing system developed to operate in the frequency band 1.6-3.4 MHz. HyperFix supercedes the earlier Hi-Fix system, development of which began in 1960. The operating range over sea in full daylight conditions is approximately 700 km and during the night approximately 250 km, depending on the antennas used and prevailing propagation conditions. Over land and inland water, and during difficult atmospheric conditions, the range is correspondingly less. The accuracy obtainable depends on a number of factors, but under ideal conditions it is around 0.5 metres for a system operating at 3.4 MHz and 1 metre for a system operating at 1.6 MHz. HyperFix was designed to be a highly flexible system, meeting the needs of a wide variety of users. It is capable of being used with both temporary and permanent shore-based chains, and microprocessor control is used to enable the main system features to be programmable. It also enables a high level of flexibility automation of functions such as line identification and ambiguity resolution. Although single frequency operation is possible, normally two frequencies are always used, and this does not require any additional equipment. Frequency synthesis is used to generate the transmitter drive signal and phase comparison and control is carried out by digital signal processing."
Shown are are a receiver / controller as well as a custom NeSA build Lane to XY receiver. All were once part of Nederlandse Survey Apparaten (NeSA) from Rotterdam which later became Racal and then Thales Survey before the instrument division became Reson and then Teledyne Reson. When no longer usefull with the NeSA they arrived in the collection of Rob Berlijn (together with a number of other instruments also in my collection). When Rob passed away to early his widow donated the objects to CT-Systems who in turn, after many years of custody donated them to my collection with the exception of a few land survey instruments which are now in the collection of Nicolas de Hilster as they are more fitting in that collection. I am very happy to be able to show these as I was afraid that they had become lost to history. Thank you Rob for your foresight!
More information:
Hyperfix
Data sheet
- Serialnumber
- Lane XY converter: 005
Receiver: 1168 - Type of use
- Survey
- Size instrument (l x w x h) in m
- Receiver: 0.37 x 0.24 x 0.16
- weight instrument in kg
- Receiver: 10.0
- country obtained from
- Netherlands
Reviews
That is a long time ago...
I remember I have helped building these converters.
They were based on the DEC PDP11 system
8 other products in the same category:
Hyperfix receiver and lane XY converter (by NeSA)
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Thanks Henk for the info
Great to hear there are still some around who actually remember these!