Ham Radio - The giant Collins HF discone antenna at the Titan Missile Museum. 

I had the pleasure of transmitting from that antenna in June of 2022 . What a thrill, It was a beautiful crisp day and stations were coming in from Europe and I spoke to stations across the US that antenna seems to be a great receiving antenna With all that steel up in the air. Thank you Green Valley for taking care of that fantastic antenna.

My mother worked at Collins here in Cedar Rapids in the late 60's right out of high school till she retired around 88-90..She showed me how to solder and what not..So you could say Collins taught me how to work on my radios 🤣

I was a Titan II Launch Crew Member at Little Rock, AR 76-81. I can remember using the HF Radio in the wee hours of the night to listen to all sorts of stations from all over the world as we had no requirement to actively monitor a specific freq most of the time. Thanks for the memories...

In Sept 2021 in 106 degree heat I set my IC-7610 up attached to my running mustang so the battery wouldn't die and talked to my buddy in Washington state for about an hour and 20 minutes. 20 and 40 meters worked great!

Thanks for the video. I was wondering what an HF discone antenna would be like. Looks very cool!

We had one on the bow of my first ship (Collins HF discone antenna), the USS Newport News CA-148. Our only problem was our T1 and T2 guns had a lockout to keep us from shooting it off, that came to bear when we were being attacked by torpedo boats in Vietnam. I had a lot of experience with Collins equipment as an Electronics tech in the Navy, great stuff🖐🏻73's🎙🎧KD9OAM📻

Nice video. Yes, best to avoid contest days. I liked the info on Zephram Cochrane's warp ship :)

Great video Kevin! I loved it and thanks for taking the time to make it. Very nicely made and edited. I really wish I could visit it... if I ever get to back to the US, I know where I'm going!

Great video! I had the opportunity to visit the museum in 2012.

I worked in that very hole in the the 1970s. Oh the stories I could tell. Fast forward and I am now w0vet. Might be fun to return and operate radio from there.

KB9RLW de KY4R , great visit & video Kevin , glad to be in the log, 73

Fascinating information, thanks for the tour.

I was out there on vacation in Sept. We toured that museum, and everything there is colossal, even that antenna.

I've operated on the antenna many times with the 4x4 Ham club as W7AZO. Thanks for the in depth view of the antenna history.

I visited the Titan Missile museum back in 2006 - it was fantastic! But that was before I became a ham, so I don't recall seeing the discone. Good thing the Air Force did not have to contend with contesters when they used those HF antennas. ; )

Chuck WA7ZZE also has a wonderful series of books on Heathkits.

Thanks for the Star Trek reference. I did not know that. Your video was interesting up to that point, but you really got my attention with that movie factoid!

Thank you for the interesting video. The principle of the antenna was very common for goverment use. Our clubstation have a little version of those system used on the CIA Headquarter in Nürnberg, Germany. They put it to a junkyard, when they leave the areas and we buyed it in the late 90's. Still a nice system👍🏻

Id be more than happy to store that discone in my back yard for ya!

Thanks for posting this video I am adding operating on this antenna to my bucket list.

It would be great to work you out West. I'm a rag chewer and have worked a bunch of the bands QRP and 100 watts. Thanks for all the info over the years and this interesting RU-vid. I use a dipole for 75 meters and anything it will tune plus a flagpole with a bunch of radials and work all directions (just not all states or countries). Thanks again, Greg KA8ZAF in Southern Ohio.

One of your best videos ever Kevin!

Thank you Kevin

I love that antenna...I have had the opportunity to try it out...

We did have a TV on the main level of the Control Center and then there were lots of card games as well.

I had salivated over using the sterba curtain at the RCI site in Sackville NB as / when they shut it down, but no go.

The backup radios for my Pershing missile battery were Collins KWM2’s which had to be “tested “ routinely on the ham bands to make sure the were functioning properly and I had a very understanding signal corps officer who allowed my to “help”😊. Loved those radios but couldn’t afford one for myself.

A well played blend of Ham radio at the site - and nice presentation of the site/museum overall.

Cool antenna. From the sweeps it definitely looks like it could use a tear down and cleaning of all the connections, but considering is has been up that long with no maintenance it looks really good. What a cool antenna, thanks so much for sharing it with us.

Thanks for the good video! My wife and I are snow birds and have been to Green Valley a lot. Plugging my radio into the historic antenna is always a thrilling experience!

Dangit, my friend and I were just there on Sunday. Too bad we did not catch you then as we where checking out the antenna.

THANK YOU ! That was a very interesting video coverage of not only the antennas but the entire site. ESPECIALLY want to thank you for pointing out the book _Titan II Handbook_. It will be added to my library soon. My first job in electronics was for "Rockwell International Collins Radio Group" in Richardson, Tx, the first year after RI purchased Collins Radio. I was straight out of USAF microwave technician school. As an Air National Guard troop, I came back to my home station 254 Combat Comm in the Dallas area after graduating tech school (1978). It was a long road, and I was a contractor from 1996 until I retired in 04/2020... 42 years of wearing many hats from RF tech to Sr Eng Tech to PCB layout to Sig Integ Eng to Sr EE when I retired. It was mostly in aerospace and military engineering & engineering support. I worked in different capacities for Rockwell Collins 4 different times, 4 times for Ball Aerospace, General Dynamics, MIT Lincoln Laboratory (one of our national labs),TI, Raytheon, etc. A contractor gets around. It was (mostly) a fun and interesting ride. Best regards, KE5VOC Michael

👍 Excellent video Kevin, thanks.

Nice effort! XYL and I toured that facility several years ago, and that discovered caught my eye. We were in a rental car, so, I didn't have a radio with me. We had been checking out Atlas-F sites in New Mexico, hoping to buy one and converting it into a home, and we stopped here on the way back to W6 land. Thanks for the video. Ed, KI6DCB

Aerial photos of the former Titan II sites show the area where the discone antenna was located. I'm guessing there was or maybe still is a buried ground plane.

In 1967, when I was in summer training after my junior year of college in US Air Force ROTC, my Captain discussed career fields in the USAF, after training was over, as a Missle Launch Officer, which was not what I did between 1969 and 1973 duty.

That was cool - educational - thanks much for bringing that to us.

Thanks, Kevin. Great video. I visited the silo years ago, but did not learn about the hf antennas there. The whole place is an amazing thing to witness. Excellent video. 73, Steve AE6SS

Fasinating! Thanks for the tour.

WOW! Awesome video Kevin! Thank you so much for sharing!

Nice find! The interview made it extra special!

de WB2ZDB, WOW, JUST PLAIN WOW!!! GREAT video Kevin, and TY for putting it up, wish I had one of those for my toy box!!! 😁😁😁 Oh well, I'll hit you up for the print and construction details if I ever hit the lottery!!! LOL 😁 L8R, 73

Loved this. Thanks for putting it together. I have always wanted to go there.

Thanks for bringing us along.

I worked in Titan maintenance. We referred to this antenna as the "Christmas tree".

Thanks Kevin. Good job and very interesting.

Excellent video! Thanks.

Cool tour. Thanks.

Very cool! Thank you!

Awesome job with the video Kevin. So glad you had a 'blast' making it. Collins really outdid themselves with that design being that it's 60 years old and still in working condition. The taxpayers truly got their money's worth from that project. 73 John

I had some extremely good times building various discone antenna's, the real versions right out of the ARRL The one you diagram is very interesting because it can be used as a "fat" vertical ! Antenna manual. I kick myself now as we had a HF Coast Guard station with a quite unusual antenna (Humboldt Bay) and I haven't been able to find anything showing where they documented that design. I believe it was vertical but I'm not sure. I also believe it was broad banded. We now work with the KFS system which generally uses Log Periodic s The have either re-commisioned some of the old antenna's or added them somehow, and have not only the web sdr system, but the kiwi system for their antennas. I use the SE one, its amazing !

Really interesting video Kevin! Thanks so much for putting it together and including the anecdote re Star Trek! It just amazes me that preparations were underway for the worlds end well before I was born!

Great video. very informative and enjoyable.

Glad you got to go there. I would LOVE to operate at that antenna. Maybe some day.

This was really a great video ! i really enjoyed it, nice job. 😀

I was there in 1975 as a fac elect for that site.

Kevin-wonderful video. Thank you for all that you do in promoting Ham Radio. David, K7CI

Fascinating !

Very interesting video, Kevin! Thank you. Titan was one of a few projects I got to work on when starting my electronics career at the assembly level many years ago.

Cool video and place. Had a great contact with someone about 6 months ago from there. Learned about The Silo at that time been wanting to go there ever since.

Thanks Kevin for showing us. This is something to put on my bucket list. Really interesting. 73 PA3GTL

Saw this antenna on a visit to the site a few years back. The antenna received the LF signals from the GWEN relay system.

Kevin. Beautiful video my old friend. Top notch. Good job!

Very cool!!!!

That's only about 2 hours from me. I should go check it out in the near future. Thanks for sharing. KJ7JJY

Very Good! Thank you, Kevin...🇺🇸 😎👍☕

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety Great book About a silo accident and the dilemma of keeping thermonuclear capability safe and at the same time relibly available in the next few minutes and the real history of our doing that.

Great video

The huge metal hoop in the cone presumably isn't required electrically, since the RF voltage all around the hoop would be the same (including phase) due to symmetry, so the huge hoop must be purely structural (a more battle-resistant design). Therefore Amateur versions of this design could presumably use non-conductive ropes to continue the tension path for each cone wire straight down to a circle of stakes in the ground, with the cone wires taking the bend towards the base (I trust that most people can easily follow what I saying here). If anyone wishes to include the hoop (electrically), then horizontal connections could be added from each cone wire bend point to the adjacent ones. Height-wise, 22m isn't all that tall, plenty of hams have towers that tall, so reproducing an electrically-equivalent version of this design isn't all that far fetched. I'm not sure it's worth the effort, but it should be do-able for those interested.

Great video, many thanks!! Robert K5TPC

I am hoping to build a discone antenna besides my house soon, but I need to clear some trees and brush first!

Cool antenna. I think you mean Radial field.

They typically bury one 1/4 wave radial every 3° - for about 120, 66' radials or 1.5 MILES of ground radials.

A discone/cage monopole combo. Awesome. Someone ought to create a kit to build something like that then sell it to the hard-core hams with money to burn.

Thanks for the Tour Kevin, I'll add the museum to our places to visit list the next time we get back to Arizona (usually fly to Phoenix from the UK). The book looks amazing, I've downloaded the sample from the website....it's good... and will now see if I can find a seller here. Stay safe 73

Very good interesting video, thanks Kevin. 73's Andy M6APJ.

Cool vid, thanks for sharing. I visited the the Titan II museum back in the early 2000s, & saw the antennas but they never really went into how the radio stuff worked. Was it using an encrypted digital mode? They wouldn't have been transceiving straight phone or CW with such a high security installation right?

Good stuff. If you are ever in the area I sure would like a techie tour of the VLA in NM. (hint hint)

would be cool to load it up on hf with a tuner ....ill have to give it a try

Winner.

I have used this discone several times. My results were the same as yours in that the signals were week but useable. I am wondering about the condition of the feed line. Does it degrade in the extreme heat? Greg N7GCR

We need a kit of parts with dimensions to build new ones .. perhaps not nuc blast hardened. how big is the screen for example?

I wonder if they had access to both feedpoints to set it up for either mode. I have been to This museum .. you want to have a friend take a picture of you scaling the chain link fence near the sign that says "deadly force authorized"

If a Ham wins the big lottery tonight ...........................

Greetings,a xe2 ham can use it?

👍

Hi Kev, Great and interesting video! As one self confessed nerd to another, what would Putin give for that book and a Dr Who time machine! Imagine, Putin buys the book and then sends it back 60 years to his old KGB chums! Seriously, if time travel is ever practical, just what would the dictators of the world do with the technology? If ever there was a reason to ban the investigation of time travel that must be it!!

Comment on the sentences right after your question at about 7:00 he said 3 to 6 mhz, and 6 to "3" mhz. was that supposed to be "30" mhz ?

Are they going to rebuild the transceivers in the Nuclear Bunker where you are.

Wow. Interesting stuff. I might need to make another trip to AZ to have a look. And yeah, I wouldn't mind hooking up to that antenna! DE K7RLN

in the low frequency mode it needs the ground because it's operating as a monopole, it's pretty simple stuff. Yes Collins do know rudimentary antenna design principles 🤣

Those antenna mess up the free TV antenna. Called Base station you talk over sea with those high antenna the FCC will Tell you take it down back in 1980s folks had tall antenna like 50 feet in Air big no no nope too much power messed are TV up talking over are TV crap nope those too much power no !

it's working with transmission line phenomenon. It's not resonant 😆

Well done. Great video Kevin.👍🏻

Did you notice that Interstate 19 is marked in Kilometers instead of Miles? It’s the only Interstate using Kilometers. The signs and exits are in Kilometers. Every time I go to Green Valley I get a LOL when I see that. de N5USS

Super interesting ! Thanks a lot