PROJECT X ON THE PARK

What PROJECT X does for the Park on a voluntary basis ....

At the moment all concentration is on the betterment of the WWII codebreaking centre Bletchley Park as a museum.

 Projects already on the go are as follows :

PROJECT  PX0006 : MUSEUM LENDING SERVICE. Lending PROJECT X artefacts to the various museum sections on the park. Valued at about £41000 as of Jan 2005. We currently have items in the German section including my own Enigma machine and most of my German weapons and other items. The Naval section has one of my Seacat missiles.

PROJECT No. PX0004 : LIBRARY MAINTENANCE. There are only book sets at the moment but as soon as the go ahead is given this will extend to single books on the relevant subjects.

PROJECT  PX0017 : THE WEBSITE. The groups website has now been established for a number of years. It has links to the other Bletchley Park sites as well. This site gives all groups on the park an unlimited amount of webspace.

Projects which are or were in the pipeline are as follows :

PROJECT  PX0001 : VEHICLE RIDES. SUSPENDED. To provide one or more PROJECT X vehicles to give rides to customers of The Park with 100% of the takings going to Bletchley Park coffers. Project X has only two vehicles left suitable for this.

PROJECT  PX0009 : SUSPENDED. PYROTECHNIC SERVICE. Certificates have been obtained by several PROJECT X members for the safe use of theatrical pyrotechnics and fireworks. Certain undesirables have to be removed from the park before Project X will resume firework displays or pyrotechnics for re-enactments. Meanwhile other organizations are benefiting from our experience. I wish to add that it was Bletchley Park that prompted me to obtain certificates in this field and I am thankful as it has opened many doors for me. Project X personnel would have been involved in 100s of firework displays letting off what amounts to tons of fireworks since. All firework displays by Philip have always made a profit for the Park.

    The above project has now become nationwide.  

PROJECT PX0007 : MODERN WARFARE MUSEUM. SUSPENDED. Since the park opened PROJECT X has spent thousands on obtaining a large collection of military artefacts which were stored in the mansion. All WWII items in this collection can be seen somewhere on the park and everything post-war is now on display at other PROJECT X sites. We have tried to keep this a "hands on" experience at the park but the general movement is towards volunteers putting everything behind glass.

PROJECT  PX0008 : MULTIMEDIA CENTRE . SUSPENDED. This has now been set up at our own site. It houses the most up to date computer hardware but in a perspex case so that one can see what is inside. It currently holds 3 PCs and a laptop outside the case for our mobile work. Theres a 4 way KVM switch which also switches the USB peripherals. The display is a Samsung 240T 24" LCD unit which doubles as a video / TV display. A Dolby Digital 5.1 speaker system provides the sounds. On the docking station bench is 3 digital cameras, 2 firewire DV digital Video cameras, MP3 "Walkman", USB Epson high resolution scanner and an A3 Epson printer. The perspex case also holds DVD RAM, 2 CD writers, 52 speed CD ROMs etc. The biggest triumph of the Multimedia centre was when Philip was nominated to test a Beta 2 copy of Windows XP professional edition. Photoshop 6.6 is used most. Then theres Coreldraw 10 for posters, leaflets and tickets. With archives the DVD RAM units can store 9.4 GIGABYTES on one CD !!!!!  Also the Bletchley Park groups website, the Abbot Register, Project X, The Video Service and The Design Service will also be run from here thus saving space at the park. The Project X main computers specification stands at twin 1800 mhz processors with 1gb RDRAM and a 36gb SCSI hard disk for high speed work and 4 x 61gb EIDE hard disks for storage and backup. The main disk is partitioned into 12 sections using Partition magic and each partition loaded with a different version of Windows. 95, 98, 5 partitions have 98SE, ME, 2000 and XP. For this we have used HyperOs 2002. Click on button to visit ...

PROJECT  PX0002 : PHOTO SERVICE . SUSPENDED. This was to be run from the Multimedia centre and was to involve the public being able to dress in any one of 15 odd uniforms, have his or her photo taken at a location of their choice on the park and watch while the photographer "antiques" the image on the computer and gives it to them for a donation to the park. The uniforms are now off site and in storage.

PROJECT  PX0005 : RIFLE RANGE . SUSPENDED. All rifles acquired for this project were sold at the Beltring military show. It was thought that having a rifle range on the park was a long way off and that rifles for this project could be acquired again at a moments notice. The air machine gun has been kept as this is a rare item. Project X has just acquired an airsoft replica of an Enfield Minimi, Barrett Light Fifty sniping rifle and an H+K G36 smg from Japan if ever we needed a range set up. PX000102 is meeting us in December 2003 in Japan hopefully with more goodies. We also have an airsoft dealer in this country PX000108. Because these are all metal replicas we have been taking them to shows where they attract lots of attention. Update : Project X now has a range set up and sports a Theoben Rapid 7 rifle for the use of PROJECT X personnel.  It has had every form of customization performed on it like a custom stock, silencer, big scope and a bipod. It will fire a half inch group at 40 yards for those who know a bit about rifles ! The range is on a battlefield theme and incorporates night firing using light intensifying night scopes utilizing electric targets. For those who want more extreme shooting we have the Belgian site running with our Belgian contact PX000148 and a range in the U.S. where PROJECT X keeps the .50 cal heavy machine gun, SLR in 7.62mm, Browning Hi-power pistol in 9mm, WWII sten Mk2, WWII Artillery Luger, WWII Mauser pistol, Czeck .32 pistol, SPAS 12 combat shotgun Enfield L.S.W., SA80 and SA80 para and a WWII MP44 assault rifle which we have had to beat the Americans back with a big stick as they keep waving the $50 bills at us. We may have to give in to this as the Belgians are about to tighten their gun laws.

Project PX0003 : P.A. SYSTEM . SUSPENDED. All the items for the P.A. system were on site for a number of years. The original idea was to set up a large system in the C.A.A. hall where anything from a small meeting with a single microphone to a 20 piece orchestra individually miked up could be accommodated. The system comprises : 2x 500w rms bass bins, 2x 300w rms horn units, 4x 300w rms General Use speaker cabinets, 1x 1200w rms amplifier, 1x 600w rms amplifier, 1x 400w rms amplifier, 3 way electric crossover leading to the mixing desk with 24 ( different input sources ) into 8 ( for 8 track tape recorder ) into 2 ( the final stereo signal ). The following signal processors are also in Project X hands : Lexicon multi effects unit MPX 1, Yamaha effects unit REV 5, 2x Tascam dolby noise reduction for tape recorder each handling 4 tracks. The tape recorder is a half inch Tascam 38 8 track unit. Also there are three direct injection units for guitar, bass and vocals. These are the Roland GP 8 for guitar, the Rocktron mAXE for bass and the Roland VP70 for vocals. The submixer is an Alesis studio 32. A Yamaha P100 Clavinova is available as a piano if required. All the items listed above are now set up in our own Multimedia centre.

Project  PX0013 : DESIGN SERVICE. SUSPENDED. If it had been set up on the park it would have been run from the Multimedia centre when the Park is closed. It would have done the design work for the tickets, posters, leaflets, photos, newsletters etc. for the Park and the groups. Many samples of past art work from past Park events are available to get ideas from. This is now creating our own newsletters etc. at our own site. Will now open again to serve the X Troop project No. PX0072.

Project PX0012 : RESTORATION WORKSHOP. SUSPENDED. All items and tools for this were stored on the Park but have been moved to one of our own locations and is now fully operational in its own purpose built unit finished in August 2002. Most museums have a workshop of some kind for the restoration of exhibits but Bletchley Park has done quite well without this so far. I know my kitchen floor has seen many of my restorations. But this is not ideal ! A small room would have done for this.

There are now 156 projects running at PROJECT X.

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