[Milsurplus] Navy space radar stn.s

[aGEnuine ham]

Gents:

Well, somewhere I have a nameplate off one of the receive antenna arrays
which was located in Raymondville, TX and removed in the early 60s. 
Receive site hardware all went to the local PBS TV station (KLRN), and
included miles of  6" hardline along with lots and lots of antenna
elements.  Only trouble was the hardline outer conductor was aluminum
instead of the copper used on TV coax, and the then chief engineer
wouldn't touch the stuff, having had his share of problems in another
system with aluminum corrosion.  It all went to the scrap yard in the 70s
IIRC.

Transmitter was located in Laredo, TX, and was a GE channel 12 TV
transmitter.  It was donated to Bexar County Civil Defense, and decorated
the basement of Municipal Auditorium for years.  They had no clue what to
do with it. 

I would check the accuracy of the information you have been given, as
none of those sites still exist.  The ROTHR (HF over the horizon rarar)
sites which went in in the 90s in VA, TX and PR use a mile long linear
array of 16' tall (I think) monopoles, and is the only 'big' system the
Navy still operates.  The system which replaced NAVSPASUR was still in
operation a couple of years ago, but it uses dishes inside radomes, and
was also in danger of being shut down last I heard.  BTW, ther were a
half dozen university based surveillance arrays built back in those days,
often with government money for research and development.  Because of the
funding sources, the operators tended to be very evasive about what they
were and who operated them.  However, most of them were eventually
described in IEEE and other places.  
 
Gerorge W5VPQ

________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today!  For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/web/.