AMES, short Air Ministry Experimental Station, was the name given to the British Air Ministry's radar development team at Bawdsey Manor (afterwards RAF Bawdsey) in the immediate pre-World War II era. The team was forced to move on three occasions, changing names as part of these moves, so the AMES name applies only to the period between 1936 and 1939.
Although used as a name by the team itself only briefly, the AMES acronym became the basis for naming Royal Air Force radar systems through the war. The same numbering sequence was used after the war as well, but often dropped the AMES from the name. A good example is the Type 80, which was officially AMES Type 80, but often appears without that marque. Many post-war systems were also assigned a rainbow code and are better known by that name.
The AMES numbering scheme was often ad hoc, with some entries simply being other sets operating together. For instance, the Type 21 was simply a Type 13 and Type 14 in a single vehicle convoy. In other cases Types differ only in minor details, like the Type 31 through 34, which are the same radars mounted in various ways. They are also often out-of-order; the Type 8 was the prototype for the Type 7.