How Kettering school children exposed Soviet secret.
We have mentioned this Kettering Group before but the BBC has added a new and more comprehensive story about the group that located a secret Soviet satellite launch site in the 60's.
Do you remember when the Cuban Missile Crisis had pushed the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon and no footprint had yet been left on the Moon? Yet one of the more peculiar twists of the Cold War involved a physics lesson at a Kettering grammar school.
Teacher Geoff Perry was fascinated by space satellites following the launch of Sputnik 1 by the Russians on October 4, 1957.
An ex-Army World War Two receiver was bought for about £25, a signal generator was borrowed and a length of wire was stretched out between two school buildings to act as an aerial.
The research by the school group identified the launches of satellites from different sites in the Soviet Union and on the 18th of April 1966 a TV crew were in the school when the teacher and students broke international news.
This event beat the Americans and turned the events at the Kettering School into a worldwide story.
For more information from the BBC on this local story just click on this satellite news link now.
