[R-390] Wulleweber/Boresight personal experience

Mon Mar 7 10:34:51 EST 2011

I was stationed at two of the Navy's Wullenweber sites.  Guam and Panama.
I was a section supervisor for wideband for a while in Panama.  This is what I can
recall from 40 + years ago:   On either end of the bank of receivers was a large 
reel to reel 24 track tape recorder.  Each reel would record 30 minutes.  When 
a new reel was put on the recorder, it would run 2 minutes worth of tape into
a bin on the lower half of the recorder.  When the tape on one reel came to the 
end it would trigger the other one to start recording.  There was still two minutes of
tape in the first recorder bin.  So for two minutes both recorders woud be recording
the same information.  If I remember correctly, tapes were reused every 24 hours.

 When we would receive a request from the NSA,  we would pull the tape for the 
specified time and play it on a work station that was set up to display just like the regular 
HF DF  ones.  The recorders were fed the goniometer information along with
the RF signals.  That's what allowed us to get a bearing reading from the burst
signal.  The bearing info was sent by encrypted teletype to NSA. And they did the fixes. 
Regular HF DF fixes would have been done at a station that was designated as a Net Control or 
alternate Net Control.

Gary L Webb NI9V  Ex CTR2

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Wullenwebber information  Project Boresight (Lester Veenstra)
   2. Help needed! (Paul Galpin)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 15:01:26 -0000
From: "Lester Veenstra" <lester at veenstras.com>
Subject: Re: [R-390] Wullenwebber information  Project Boresight
To: <R-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID: <000001cbdc0f$5e884480$1b98cd80$@com>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

This is the first time I have seen a discussion of TH in the clear.

Lester B Veenstra  M?YCM K1YCM
lester at veenstras.com
m0ycm at veenstras.com
k1ycm at veenstras.com
?

-----Original Message-----
From: r-390-bounces at mailman.qth.net [mailto:r-390-bounces at mailman.qth.net]
On Behalf Of Curt Nixon
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2011 2:39 PM
To: Dave or Debbie Metz
Cc: R-390 at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [R-390] Wullenwebber information Project Boresight

Dave:

Thanks..

That was a very interesting article.  As a High School Extra Class, I was recruited for work in Gander and Greenland in the mid-sixties.  
Probably some of that equipment.  It would be very interesting to see some technical docs/photos of the receiver banks and antenna arrays but I suppose cameras were a capitol offense!

Curt
KU8L

Dave or Debbie Metz wrote:
>   Forgive me for crossposting but this R390 crowd has always talked 
> about the problem with the phase shift of the mechanical filters.  
> After reading this article, I think its very clear why the 
> Wullenwebbers were developed, and why NSA developed the R725 with the 
> earlier 390 IF strip, and the DC to the PTO filaments. (And the 
> R1230's among other Security group equipment) Not sure I have this 
> exactly correct but in any case, it sure discusses something that is 
> news to me.  I have seen the wullenwebbers in photos but had no idea 
> as to the real purpose in life other than a real expensive HFDF 
> system.  Sounds like we owe a big debt to some real geeky guys at NSA and Canada.
>
> 73's
> dave
>
> Here's the link:
>
>
> http://jproc.ca/rrp/boresight.html
>
>
>   

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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 6 Mar 2011 17:06:58 +0200
From: "Paul Galpin" <galpinp at absamail.co.za>
Subject: [R-390] Help needed!
To: <r-390 at mailman.qth.net>
Message-ID:
	<!&!AAAAAAAAAAAYAAAAAAAAAOFuVuIqUmxJkws/b/[email protected]>

Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"

Hi all!

I have an R390A with the International meters (Square with semi-circular windows).

One has the little female cable screw missing, I dropped it ;>(

Can anyone help with a replacement?

On the same thread, how would you get these meters open, if you needed to?

Paul GALPIN
ZS2PG

------------------------------

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