[R-390] The picture that Lester sent

[Flowertime01 at wmconnect.com]

Fellows,

This would be inside the elephant cage on Okinawa. I recognize the concrete 
buildings and the antenna. Roger

Those of you who have seen Wullenweber antennas, what is the black
band that joins the antennas? Thirty six antenna cables?

Bill Hawkins

--------
Bill the towers are just towers. The black band is just cable holding up 
the antenna. Not seen in the photo is a screen of wire. You cannot even stick 
your hand through the wire "mesh" if you walked up to it. Ok maybe you can 
get your hand through it but you cannot crawl through the mesh. There is a 
reason these are called elephant cages. They are in fact very big cages. Some 
of the "skirt" does not reach the ground to make an entrance at one point. 
The black band is not at the towers. The black band ring is larger than the 
tower ring. Each tower has a cantilever arm sticking out that hold up the 
black band ring. There is some "skirt" above the band ring that is free 
standing wire. 

Roger


Looks like these are your options:

a.. Augsburg, Germany 
a.. RAF Chicksands, UK 
a.. Clark AFB, Phillipines 
a.. Elmendorf AFB, AK 
a.. Karamursel, Turkey 
a.. Misawa AB, Japan 
a.. Ramasun, Thailand 
a.. San Vito dei Normanni AS, Italy

a. Imperial City San Diego County on the silver strand.
a. Okinawa Japan

The one on Okinawa was about five miles north of and at right angles to the 
main runway on Kadena Field. It sat on the high ridge of the island. I do 
not remember it being visible from the roof top restaurant in Kadena City 
(Okinawa City today). It may have been but at five miles it may have just 
looked like a fence. The antenna field at Torri Station did not look impressive 
from the roof top. You could not even see the SR 71's all that well and they 
were only a couple miles away on the air field.

The runway is East / West. The west end is on the China Sea. The terminal 
is on the south side of the runway. The Antenna would have been five miles 
across the run way to the North. The antenna was not visible from any where on 
the ground until you got up on the ridge and almost on top of the site. It 
was all mask by vegetation.

Some of you pilots may have seen the antenna landing or taking off from 
Okinawa. Mostly flights come over the island and over the antenna then did a 
loop over the China sea and landed on the runway. This keep planes from 
breaking glass in Kadena City at the East end of the runway.

Roger



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