Towards the end of 1944 there was great reorganisation of E. K. Cole who were keen to get back into the forthcoming boom of television where our Chief Engineer A. W. Martin (who had been carefully watching developments) was not slow to notice on his visits to America how they were using British wartime technology in the advancement of their Television industry which continued to develop regardless of the war effort in the US using items such as UK developed high frequency valves.
By 1944 I was told to prepare for the return to the Southend complex and with my return to Southend I was divorced from any work on Radar as all priority now was on post war development of domestic Radio and TV related products as government contracts had started being terminated.
War work continued in the four EKCO factories although the equipment as often as not went straight into the redundant stock of the Ministry of Supply, which was then sold of a great loss to the various ex-government buyers.
E. K. Cole like many other UK contractors did their best to sell off the military equipment to overseas countries. We at Southend modified T1154 transmitters for the world amateur market but the world was flooded with ex-military equipment, which meant that equipment such as R1155, T1154 and other radio stock were dumped into old quarries and filled in.
The original weather radar was developed at Southend because of the nearby civil airfield.
The Ministry of Defence, we were told, refused E. K. Cole the use of Hullavington airfield (Editors note: near the EKCO Malmesbury factory) to base the EKCO AVRO Anson aircraft that was used for airborne testing of the weather radar because of the Empire Training School being stationed there.
The AVRO Anson and its later version were for many years stationed at Southend Airport from where the company carried out the tests. It was also used to fly EKCO personal from Bristol Airport (Filton, owned by Bristol Aviation) to Southend. I remember the Pilot's name was John (other name forgotten) who I believe was an ex-RAF transport command pilot from RAF Lyneham.
As I recall, the first large contract for weather radar was placed by Bristol Aviation for the Bristol Britannia 'Turbo Prop' airliner following the demise of the ill fated Bristol Brabazon which was eventually scrapped for the lack of engine power.
In 1960, all the radar work was transferred from Malmesbury to Southend.
In the 1960's EKCO Electronics became a separate division later changing its name to EKCO Avionics. At about the same time EKCO Nucleonic became a separate entity.
