[R-390] FLR 9 Vs, Rhombic

[Perry Sandeen]

Todd Roberts asked: FLR 9 Vs other antennas

I was stationed at Karamursel Air Station in mid 1965 during the construction and change over to
the FLR 9.  This was a radio intercept base run by USAFSS about 60 miles SE of Istanbul.  We had
two functions; intercept primarily of Russian HF traffic and the maintenance of a 24X7 IDSB radio
link that started out at IIRC, base at Izmir Turkey near the Turkey - Russian border.  I believe
this is where Gary Powers took off.

One sideband signal carried 16 channels of multiplexed teletype.  The other was a reserved phone
line.  After starting at Izmir, we received the signal, relayed it to Croughten, England who
relayed it to Ft. George Meade and re-transmitted it to Ent AFB in the middle of Colorado Springs
(Now the US Olympic Training center) which was the USAFSS headquarters. If the phone was picked up
anywhere along the line it was immediately answered at Ent.  We ran two high power and one low
power frequencies at one time which we switched depending on the time of day.  About 15 miles away
was the base transmitter site where they used 30KW linear amps for our high power transmit.

Assigned to the base receiver site I had the opportunity to use the R390A’s (I never knew at that
time there  Non A’s existed) on both the rhombics and the FLR 9.  We had around 16 A’s in our
shop.  About a dozen sat on single frequencies all the time.  We had a RTTY setup with a printer
which we used to "read the mail" of AP, UPI & others.  On 2nd shift we really chewed through the
paper. IDR the converter we used.

Our AFRTS local station was a 1400KC or so peanut whistle.  We tech supported them and provided a
AFRTS relay for sports events, usually baseball.

We’d ask the FLR 9 controllers to provide their best match for the frequency and general location.
 The FLR 9 was better, but nothing to write home about.  Even our receive from England wasn’t on a
3 bay Hughs(sp) receiver didn’t seem any more reliable.

But this was the cold war and Viet Nam was going full bore.  Since the Russians were supporting
the VC any improvement of signal strength was worth the money.  If you look on a globe you will
see that Istanbul is roughly south of Moscow.  The base location was dictated by politics of the
Turkish government. [Read: employment of locals in a poor area]

Since all political decisions originated in Moscow it was a great target.  We also had smaller
intercept stations along the Black Sea.

This is a very long post.  I’ll post more later about if people are interested.  Regards Perrier



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