Since 1915, Robert Watt[lower-alpha 2] had been working for the Met Office in a lab that was colocated at the National Physical Laboratory's (NPL) Radio Research Section (RRS) at Ditton Park in Slough. Watt became interested in using the fleeting radio signals given off by lightning as a way to track thunderstorms. However, existing RDF techniques were too slow to allow the direction to be determined before the signal disappeared.