[QCWA] USN Corpus Christi VLF Transmitter

[Norm Gertz]

There was also an installation out west where the antennas were strung 
between two mountain tops.....my memory fails me as to the exact location 
but I remember that the antenna installation was an engineering feat.  They 
had very similar transmitters also.

73  Norm  K1AA


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Peters" <rwpeters at swbell.net>
To: "'Discussion of QCWA'" <qcwa at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 11:21 AM
Subject: RE: [QCWA] USN Corpus Christi VLF Transmitter


This is the site were the Corpus Christi Armadillo Group had there Field
day back in the early 80's. Remember it well and how about the Cutler
Station up in Maine. It ran Mega Watts to the subs in the 60's. I think
that the towers were just taken down due to the paint that had lead in
it. That station was built by Continental in Dallas.  Huge final amp
tubes. I believe that there are still  photo's of it around and Wit N5SU
in Dallas was one of the engineers that designed all these VLF Stations
and has hundreds of slides of all of them and Thank God he is still with
us...

Bob W1PE


-----Original Message-----
From: qcwa-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:qcwa-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Sitting Bulls Uncle
Sent: Tuesday, May 22, 2007 10:11 AM
To: qcwa at mailman.qth.net
Subject: [QCWA] USN Corpus Christi VLF Transmitter


Did you ever see the Corpus Christi U.S.Navy VLF comms site on Lexington
Blvd [now SPID] where it crosses Cayo del Oso? When I was a kid they had
an open house for us Boy Scouts and I saw the station.  They told us
it was
used to communicate with naval ships and submarines around the earth and

that
the radio waves impressively even went underwater.

The station remained in operation by the navy until the late 1960's
maybe. The Navy removed and abandoned the station in the 1970's and gave
the property and empty building to the City of Corpus Christi to be used

as a
recreational site. Today I believe it is a soccer field.

CCARC held field day there about 1963 or 1964 and used the station
ground system for a counterpoise. There were large copper cables that
ran off into the Cayo del Oso, a salt water bay connected between Corpus
Christi Bay and Oso Creek. So somewhere under that dirt is one huge
copper grid, no doubt still in place under where the phased vertical
array towers stood.  [Oso means bear in Spanish and in the 1800's it was
not uncommon to come across black bear on the bay and along the creek.]

It would be interesting to try to locate some photos of that facility.
After abandoned and late into the 1970's I went out there to have a
look. The far back room must have had a false floor at one time, since
removed. I believe that had been the power supply room with
motor-generator sets supplying the power mains. There was a wall of
windows in that room overlooking the water on the east. Without any
floor remaining it was more like a concrete open top basement and there
was seepage water and a few snakes in it. I left. There was nothing in
the building. It was just a huge empty shell and I did not understand
why the city had not utilized the brick building for some public
benefit.

Below is a wonderful discourse on these VLF transmitters and the link at
the bottom of the post will take you to a dozen photos of this
impressive boat-anchor. As best as I can recall the Corpus Christi VLF
station used the same transmitter as the one in the photos in the link
below at the CT station. When I worked for Mobil Oil Corp in 1969 I
lived right across the freeway from the site and had occasion to wander
about a bit over there. The residential area surrounding the transmitter

site was
called Admiral Perry's Place and there was a neighborhood of civilian
housing built by the Navy for dependents of enlisted personnel.

73 de k5sbu
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