All posts by Tim

USAF Alconbury – Building 210

Bunkers, Cold War, UK

Building 210 was the Avionics Building for the TR-1 spy planes (the successor of the U-2 spy plane) on USAF Alconbury Airfield, it was also known as Magic Mountain or Dragon Mountain depending who you talk to.

In the late 1980s this hardened bunker was built for processing the photos and information collected by the TR-1 Spy planes, the TR-1 was nicknamed “Dragon Lady” which is where the bunkers “Dragon Mountain” name came from.

Most of the bunker is on the ground floor with plant and generators on the basement level it has a large concrete blast cap on top designed to take the impact of an attack.

The building is apparently one of the last bunkers that the US built and is now listed, it opens once a year for tours. These pictures are from 2023, I first visited in 2006 and since then little has changed except now the bunker is much cleaner and better maintained.

The following pictures show the Exterior, Covered entrance tunnel, the decontamination suites for personnel and equipment as well as the rooms where the data would have been processed however no equipment remains except the switchgear giving us a glimpse of the amount of hardware that needed power.

Cambridgeshire County Council Emergency HQ Bunker with virtual tour

Bunkers, Cold War, UK

The Cambridgeshire County Council Cold War Emergency Headquarters Bunker was situated under the council offices in Cambridge city centre, it is a single story structure at the basement level built alongside the carpark in 1987. It has a soil mound on top and was a replacement to the original emergency centre which was in the basement of nearby Shire Hall.


After it was decommissioned as a “Nuclear Bunker” it became a generic Emergency Centre used for various large incident in the 90s and now it is used as a store for the Natural & Historic Environment department.

Council staff would have entered the bunker using the internal stairways from the offices down through the carpark and from there through the blast doors.

Once in the lobby they would be signed in at the reception desk before proceeding to their designated rooms, The generator and plant rooms are on the left as you enter, the generator itself is noticeably small and I’m told it wasn’t actually powerful enough to run the entire bunker.

There is one corridor that runs the length of the bunker and all the other rooms come off this, as usual the operations room is the largest and at the far end are the toilets and showers.

Beyond the toilets is an Exit lobby, this would also have served as an entrance for people entering after the bunker was “activated”, there would have been a small decontamination shower located here.

I have made a 360 Degree virtual tour of the bunker https://iamanerd.org.uk/360/cambridgeshire-county-council-emergency-hq/ and below are a few photos from my visit.

Thankyou to the Cambridgeshire County Council Natural & Historic Environment department for facilitating my visit.

Classic Blaupunkt Radio Bluetooth Conversion.

1966 VW Beetle, 3D Printing, Cars

I made this conversion for my Blaupunkt Manheim Radio (but it may work for others) using 3D printed parts I designed and a Bluetooth Amplifier PCB.

Do not attempt this if you are not good with electronics or don’t want to damage your radio. I take no responsibility for any damage you cause, Ensure you use the correct gauge wires and add an external fuse.

I used this Bluetooth Amplifier PCB https://amzn.to/444DJby but any similar one should work, be sure to check reviews as the first version I bought wasn’t as good quality as this one.

The STLs are available here for free https://www.printables.com/model/1319195-classic-blaupunkt-radio-conversion these are NOT FOR COMMERCIAL USE.

To convert the radio is pretty simple:

  1. Strip the radio, removing the old PCB and controls. leave the buttons and display in place.
  2. Move the Volume pot into the Tuning pot position.
  3. Mount the PCB Bracket using the original Tuner collar and nut.
  4. Heat the end of the shaft adapter for a few seconds and push onto the shaft of the new volume pot, when cool thread the shaft through the hole.
  5. Screw PCB into the adapter.
  6. Finally wire up the new PCB, I didn’t use the supplied cable, I soldered 12v and Gnd feeds to the PCB.
  7. Ensure you fuse it externally, I cannot stress this enough.

You can wire the original bulb up to the 12v feed or replace it with some LED strip as I did, be sure to only give the radio a switched 12v supply and don’t leave unattended when in use.

I am really pleased with mine and have used it for thousands of miles now, I would thoroughly recommend good quality speakers (I used these JBLs in kick panels https://amzn.to/4ksJANA ) as this makes a world of difference, I also fitted an sub under the rear seat (this one https://amzn.to/3T97d1B ) wired into the speaker outputs, I recommend taking a feed from the coil to the remote power input as the auto detect power isn’t great.