Thirty years ago I visited friends in Annapolis, Maryland USA to set up a big hi-fi audio system and especially to go fishing. Annapolis is home to the US Naval Academy and many naval operations. My friends, all native to the area, gave me a driving tour of the city. I saw antennas like I've never seen before or since. The strangest antenna system, so they told me, was for communicating with submarines. After seeing all the antennas that day, it occurred to me that it must take a huge amount of electricity to keep all that equipment running.
I was actually in Annapolis yesterday (3/19/23). The submarine communication antennas are still standing but are now used as navigation aids and as a base for smaller, local antennas.
The Annapolis array is Navy radio station NSS, or what remains of it. Most of the towers have been taken down. The remaining towers stand due to nesting protected birds. I think Ospreys. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NSS_Annapolis
I was a CTM from 1970-1976. Worked on the FLR-11 in Keflavik (Rockville), Iceland from 72-74 and I'm pretty sure we had a FRA-54 hooked up to a Wullenwever over in Grindavik. I was also in Rota, Spain from 75-76 and it was cool to see the old and new photos.
I was a CTM from 1973-1979 assigned to the NESSEC Installation Team from 1974-1977 and visited most of these sites during that time. I spent my last 2 years at NSGA Homestead. This video brought back lots of memories!
I was in the U.S. Navy special warfare group stationed in Coronado, California in the late 1960s to the 1990s. I lived in Imperial Beach--called "IB" by locals--and passed the site there daily in both directions. After leaving NSWG, one of my shipboard assignments was in radio intelligence on a naval vessel; part of our coordination was with the radio site in IB. I gained access only once, and my memory is pretty fuzzy. That site is now a training site; the only reminder that an antenna site existed are the ground circular scars.
I remember that site near IB. I was but a kid then and used to ride up and down the length of the strand from time to time. That site stands out in my memory!
My late wife was stationed at NSGA Guam; Sabana Seca; and Homestead. Very strange to drive to the operations building inside the antenna! Will never forget the sight of those antennas.
I was fortunate enough to work out of the Imperial Beach site after its decommissioning but before demolition. I was attached to the US Navy's Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit Seven, which had taken over the building in the middle of the complex. It was surreal to be standing in the middle of the array, then walk into the building which still had all the cabling but none of the equipment. It was a big deal for all of San Diego when it was demolished.
I was stationed in imperial beach quite the awe inspiring antenna array unfortunately none of the equipment or the narrf ( naval radio receiving facility antennas are left I was one of the “O” branches assigned there in the late 70’s-80’S
I saw the Chesapeake, VA one back in 1994 when I was in the Marines and I was there for Security Forces training. I always wondered what that array was for. There was a lot of different dishes and arrays on that base.
This is just worsening an already bad case of antenna envy, Lewis. Thanks. (It really *warmed my heart* to learn that the Newfoundland site is still active)
I was stationed at Galeta Island Panama. '83-'84. After Navy left in '95, NSA took it over until '99 when it shutdown completely. I was at Homestead, left just prior to hurricane Andrew. The damage was the impetus to close it down. Abandoned now, property sold off to some telecomm company. I enjoyed both duty stations a lot. Good times.
Living and working with the US Navy in San Diego I remember driving near the elephant cage many times. Now eventhough it torn down many old timers still refer to the complex as such. Now the Navy has a much large circular antenna array there now. A Lot of people call it the "Monster Cage"
San Diegan here.. no more antenna array today, SpecWar has entirely redeveloped the area for Special Forces Warfare training and operations. Nothing on the land resembles anything which used to be. The building in the center of the former CDAA remains but nothing else.
VERY interesting about these receiving stations and their history! Sad to see such amazing technology just abandoned and left to rot, or just destroyed. Thank you for the great detail and history.
While watching, it occurred to me that these massive antennas must contain tons of steel, thus substantial recycling value. I would hope that someone took advantage of this. If nothing else, it would provide money and materiel to build new and better antennas.
Great video, it's nice to have a clear and concise history of these stations. My grandfather worked for ITT in the 60's and was a project manager overseeing the installation of the equipment rooms at Edzell station. I believe he also did the same in Spain and likely some other stations. He spent a lot of time in Guam, Japan and Okinawa. Apparently goniometers were his specialty and he had the nickname "Captain Gonio" - of course none of the family knew any of this growing up, it was all highly secretive and all we knew was he worked on secret government stuff and was traveling all over the world doing who knows what... was grandpa a real life James Bond? We could only guess. What we did know was that government agents would visit the neighborhood and ask the neighbors questions, and some of our phones were tapped. Now that all this stuff is decommissioned and de-classified I'm able to piece together what he actually did and its fascinating.
Excellent information, Lewis! I had no idea about these sites, but it's truly fasinating to see just how extensively these kinds of systems were created during the Cold War. I would love to have seen these facilities in operation. Cheers!
I live only a couple miles away from NSGA Marietta and I never even knew it existed - and I've lived here pretty much all my life! I might have to take a bicycle ride out there and take a look.
fwiw "Mahlon Loomis was an American dentist and inventor known for proposing a wireless communication and electric power generating system based on his idea that there were electrically charged layers in the Earth's atmosphere."@@trob11731826-1886
Another interesting video. I have watched your channel since stumbling on it while searching for info on the 1960's pirate stations Radio Caroline and Radio 270. As a kid growing up in North East England I well remember listening to those stations. I currently live in WA State and did not know of the antenna array located at Alderwood. However ironically I live immediately below Naval Radio Station Jim Creek the VLF station which is as old as I am and still functioning. Could be a good subject for an episode.
I had the fortunate experience of being the OPS Tech Section Supervisor from 74 to 78 in Gander. Every so often, during an emergency and the inability to find the civilian antenna maintenance individual, I had to climb those poles to attach the guy cables. It was cold on those fingers, and extremely frustrating if you dropped any of your tools from up there. 😎
Great video, thanks for sharing. I was stationed at NSGA Adak (Company I Marine Support Battalion) several times. It was, by far, my favorite duty station. The worksite with the RFD was called the Dinosaur Cage or Shotgun. The Zeto Point site had White Alice. Those who've been to Adak will know what I'm talking about. Maybe I missed it in the video, but there was also Diego Garcia & Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
You answered a question I had. After moving to Norfolk, Virginia, last year I was looking on Google Earth at the surrounding region including the Great Dismal Swamp between here and North Carolina and came across that structure. It's mostly in North Carolina but the access is from Virginia
1:00 I am a student at the University of Wisconsin, currently on university property right now. I am additionally a member of our amateur radio group---the Badger Amateur Radio Society (W9YT). Words cannot describe how exciting it is to hear my future alma matter's name said in the same breadth as anything to do with radio. Fantastic, just fantastic!
@Ringway Manchester. I'm enjoying your video's, and am binge watching at the moment. When I was a kid, we all had crappy AM FM radio's. They sold em everywhere, even as toy car shaped ones. My dad even had a radio with SW1 and SW2 switches, which I messed with a lot LOL. Anyway, I remember being able to regularly tune in to a morse code numbers station broadcast. Would that have to be a SW radio? Or could that be any old crappy toy car radio for listening to chart music. This was Midlands UK possibly around '78 - '81when I was around 10 yrs old. I could recite that morse code sequence cos it repeated so often. I listened to a Russian numbers station broadcast which sounded very similar to my memory, (Russian M12 CW on Curt Rowlett's channel). Probably could have been any one of hundreds maybe.
We have a smaller version that appears to be active in Lake County Florida located on private property in the middle of a cow pasture on an isolated dirt road that does have power lines. The government paid the land owner a very large sum of money for the permanent rights to keep the antenna there. No one knows who is using it nor for what purpose.
Very insightful again. Worked two years inside RAF Edzell but not on the DF side of the house. Have been inside the facilities at Rota and Imperial Beach but I was doing other more interesting things and was there for coordination meetings only thank goodness. 😂. Did you forget to add NSGA Diego Garcia and NCTS Guam?
@@RingwayManchester I was At Winter Harbor and Edzell, both with frd 10s. And Diego Garcia in the middle, which correct, did not have the frd 10. 1974-1977
Here again excellent memories. I started in HAM Radio in 1961, joined the Navy in 1964 and worked at three of these sites during that enlistment. What's interesting is the fact that I have been in radio from 1961 to present 2023. I presently own a commercial tower being use for 5G broadband. Still get on 20 meters with my keyer and do the old stuff. KE6QK !
@@RingwayManchester No problem. You have some great shots of the Arrays. It was good to see them again. The original goniometer was mechanically spun. Fascinating to watch. nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/jres/65d/jresv65dn3p237_a1b.pdf
@@thefrustratedtheologian6238 Didn't the RCA corporation build a full one? Yes, near La Jas AFB on Terceira Is. Hmm, I could be wrong. I never got to that one. Thank you.
While I was stationed in Coronado, California, I lived in Imperial Beach. Never knew there was a radar site there, it was already Silver Strand when I arrived. My time in Hawaii, however, was different. The dinosaur cage was still there even if not in operation, at least not for it's original purpose, I attended a CPR class in the central building. A lot of the civilian staff here remember and miss the old cage. We even have a photo on the wall of our building with it.
Great to see Canada, maintaining a couple of these and using them still. I wonder why they are doing that? I’m pleased that they are though. I wish some FLR-9’s were still maintained.
Yes - I’m Canadian and it does strike me as odd that we are the only country that still finds these useful? One would think that either they are useful, or they are no longer useful: not both.
Excellent video, thanks. Challenge. Can you find any info on the smaller variant, the AN/FRD-13 also known as ‘Plessey Pusher’ ? At least two of these were in operation in Denmark during the cold war. B.t.w. The first Wullenweber examined by the allied forces were at ‘Skibsted Camp’ in Denmark - currently home to a Danish SIGINT reception station - but originally build by Germany during the occupation.
that a great video. I was not Sure if any were in use today. maybe when you got more information on upgrades at the 2 caranda cites. with the US and Canada being close I sure we share info between us received at the 2 stations . This is a great part of radio history .73's Boston NY,USA
Fun to see aerial and satellite views of the Imperial Beach, California USA station. Drove past it many times. Thank you for your dilligence and research.
One of my coworkers found me some info on this site. It was called "Collins HF Comm-central". It was capable of linking HF radios anywhere on the planet. It operated under various callsigns, including "Liberty" and "Rasputin" and was a central hub for US strategic and tactical communications.
Thanks for another great video! I'd love to see a video on the VLF transmitter antenna array in Cutler, Maine. It is similar is some respects, and I think your viewers would like it. I've heard that between the Cutler installation and its sister facility in Australia, they cover somewhere around 70% of the world's oceans for the purpose of communicating with submarines. I've also heard that, as impressive as the aerial antenna array is, the main antenna is actually underwater just offshore. I'd like to learn more about this site, but researching it myself probably wouldn't yield as much information as your video would provide, and it certainly wouldn't be as entertaining!
I had the distinct privilege of being stationed at all four of the Navy's different CDAA sites within my 11 years of active duty between 1972 and 1983. My first duty station was Misawa Japan. We used a three-band AN/FLR-9 array maintained by the US Air Force Security Service. My next duty station was NSGA Azores where it still used the AN/GRD-6 small diameter array. This unit had a motorized goniometer but was originally configured with a manually operated gonio. NTTC Pensacola also had a GRD-6 for training purposes. My next duty station was NSGA Northwest which had an FRD-10 array. I was in charge of the shop that maintained the two goniometers and all of the distribution equipment. The goniometers were really a great piece of engineering! My final tour on active duty was back to NSGA Azores where the GRD-6 had been replaced with the AN/AX-16 Pusher array (made by Plessy in the UK.) It was an interesting time to be involved with Classic Bullseye and I am curious if any other CT had worked with all four CDAAs.
This video has great engagement, 12 hours since release and as many views as 15% of subscribers. Highly interested following, for highly interesting content
I was posted there in the mid nineties, can confirm it was a two story building, although the first floor had quite a ceiling. The Gonio room was very high, so the building is pretty tall for only two floors.
@@dakohli that makes sense. On average, one story is 10-12 ft, depending on the type of structure. However, commercial buildings could be two story's with 20ft ceilings, depending on what they're used for. Using "story" as unit of measurement would not be a standardized measurement.
Very interesting. I did not know these existed. I only know the vdf antennas at airports tuned to the vhf airband so the controllers see a bearing of the speaking airplane on their screen.
Somethings ringing a feint bell. A circular array based on the east or south coast of England. But the control centre was away from the antenna circle, outside it. Built by the US. Anyone know what I might be remembering?
These antennas were only for HF signals in the 3-30 Mhz range. Now, most military comms are much higher frequencies or satellite based, so there isn't much need for HF direction finding anymore.
Great video. I was stationed at Skaggs (Pacific Net Control) and Northwest (Atlantic Net Control) in the late 70's, early 80's. (I noticed you grabbed an aerial photo of mine of Northwest that is on the NavyCTHistory web site. Glad to see it put to good use.) You left out most of the Mediterranean sites except for Rota (Net Control for Med). I remember there were Bullseye/Bulldog sites in Turkey, Italy, and possibly elsewhere. Also, the reason the Canadian sites are still operational is Canada was very interested in tracking fishing ships encroaching in Canadian fishing waters. The Cold War might be over, but Canada still wants to protect their fishing waters. I imagine the reason the US shutdown the project is there are cheaper and better methods today to track foreign ships and aircraft instead of a couple dozen bases with hundreds of sailors stationed at each. Classic Wizard was more accurate anyway; Bullseye/Bulldog was generally considered to be accurate only to within a 1-mile box.
I vividly recall driving up to the guard shack about 850 m from inner reflector of the NSGA Skaggs Island antenna in the late 1970s where my father who was a Navy vet and a ham asked the guard of the antenna's purpose. The guard replied that he thought "it was some sort of nuclear thing". The family turned around and continued to our picnic and the answer was dismissed as silly, but later I learned the site was to be repurposed in the early 1970s for a phased array RADAR to guard the San Francisco area with Zeus and/or related missiles at remote launchers. An arms treaty which limited the number of interceptor warheads caused plans to shrink to just the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex in North Dakota so the answer was less silly than thought. I drove up to the same spot in 2014 but there was a locked gate and later that year the whole access road was blocked. Side note: the first station to receive Sputnik 1 in America was the Press Wireless, Inc station roughly 5.7 km North-East of the Skaggs antenna. That station continued to track later Sputniks for the Hearst Newspaper chain.
I remember growing up in Michigan in the.'70s, the military (one branch or another, if not all) was wanting to set up an ELF station in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, but the "treehuggers" (Dad's name for them) didn't want it built. Don't recall hearing about it getting approved, and if so, is it still there?? I think it'll be an interesting visit!!!
Yes ELF was active for a few years. Control was on K.I. Sawyer A.F.B.. Transmitter was outside of Republic MI. I has been deactivated since the early 1990's. KI Sawyer AFB closed in 1995.
Most of the newer receivers are SDR and modular, I have been out of that business 20+ years so I am pretty dated as well. Pretty much what we see today, in the civilian world, had its roots in the technological developments funded by DARPA, NRL and the NSA.
Some research dug up a military paper that discussed how the threat from Russia would remain even after the Soviet Union's collapse. And being next-door to them, I could see why we would keep ours going.
i wish they could have just kept these places up as a monument or something instead of demolishing them i also find it odd how canadians still use their stuff compared to america
For a very simple explanation, it simulated a spinning flat antenna array. If you lined up eight or more monopole antennas and spaced them just right, then the reception pattern was a very narrow beam perpendicular to the array's axis. Now, picture that flat array spinning around like a paint mixer on the end of a drill, picking up signals almost like a radar beam in reverse. Mix it with some electronic magic and you could tell from which direction a signal was being transmitted.
I am still not sure how did it work - how accurate was it and why the hell airports cannot have this kind of equipment instead of asking pilots all the time tell me yours speed and attitude :). Were the sites decommisioned due to satellites? Can satellites measure the location of an RF signal?
Your best attempt to understanding these array types is by researching wollenweber antennas. There is technical information out there because I did search for it many years ago for fun. I’m just calling that a walk down memory lane. Please recognize that most, like me, can’t really get too specific about these facilities or what happened inside for security reasons. No kidding, even after all these years.
@@sararevesz8926 Thanks :) - i will try to do a research - just wanted some general knowledge so it is ok to research topic. just not sure if it has a 10% accuracy and how do they take ionosphere reflection into consideration :)
