[Milsurplus] USN Christmas Cards

[Hubert Miller]

>From: Nick England
Sent: Monday, December 2, 2024 2:41 PM
To: Hubert Miller
>Subject: Re: [Milsurplus] USN Christmas Cards

>I've got some info on the Bainbridge listening post squirreled away somewhere. But I suspect the 800' LF transmitter tower at Battle Point was taller.
https://www.navy-radio.com/commsta/battle.htm

>In case you haven't seen it, this is an interesting history of Seattle area Navy radio
https://www.navy-radio.com/commsta/todd-seattle-01.pdf

>Cheers
Nick England K4NYW
www.navy-radio.com<http://www.navy-radio.com/>

Thanks for the further information, Nick.
I read the Seattle Times article probably in the era 1976 - 1985. I think now the article must have mistaken in some facts. It is not clear now in my memory hether the paper stated Bainbridge was for submarine communications, listening to enemy  radio comms, or both. Maybe someone has the knowledge how to pull up the original article. Oddly, i seem to recall the article was "below the fold" and it was right up front, maybe even front page.

My father worked a few years at the U.S. Army Receiving Station in Lynnwood, WA, now site of Edmonds Community College. One corner of the property, this would be near the Southeast corner, had a large billboard type sign saying "VOICE OF AUTHORITY".  Even back then, i thought, this doesn't make any sense. Big deal, an Army radio station. Not a voice of any kind of "authority". The site had belonged to some commercial marine radio station in the mid 1930s to maybe, WWII. My father said there was an old antenna "a mile and half long" left from then. I never saw any sign of this antenna and now i suppose he meant, past tense. I still well recall many really depressing winter days, Northwest rainsoakded winter days, gray from earth to sky, passing by the site on the school bus, seeing the rhombic antennas and the thick fog, like heavy smoke, up to your knees, on the grounds of the radio site.

When the radio site was closed, you no longer had to pass thru video camera inspection and approval before entering the grounds. I went over to the site and collected up a bunch  of ceramic antenna insulators; these were about a foot long and heavy. I hid a box full of them, but never had a real use for them, way to big for my purposes, and i never went back to get the box.

Wish i could have once twiddled the tuning knobs on the R-390A receivers connected to rhombics aimed at the Pacific. I'm sure that setup could have picked up any whisper from Nibi Nibi Island. ( No one here, i'm sure, will get that reference. ) I wonder if anyone at the station ever tuned the R-390A's off the Army teletype channels to the lower frequency tropical broadcast bands. Probably not, i suppose; not everyone has that curiosity.

I have some photos of the Miraviles USN radio station, Philippines, close before WWII. I should loan these to you, Nick, so if something happens
unexpectedly and i have to exit the scene, those photos will not be lost. I found them being sold each individually, in an antique shop in Lake City area of Seattle, this, many decades ago. One interesting other photo i have is in a Japanese campaign book showing a Japanese radio setup in the same USN buildings at Miraviles.
-Hue Miller
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