Sunday, December 11, 2011

Wullenweber Antennas

Sobe, Japan

These are very large arrays for high-frequency reception and direction-finding, mostly by governments. Here is the Wikipedia article.

All of the installations were originally super-secret, but most have been dismantled and only a few are left, all of them inactive.

In addition to RAF Credenhill in the previous post, these Wullenweber sites remain:

Chicksands, UK

Elmendorf AFB, Alaska

Misawa, Japan

Imperial Beach, California

This one has an interesting history. Built in Karamursel, Turkey, it was dismantled by the Turkish government in 1977 in retaliation for a U.S. arms embargo. That was 34 years ago and it's still easy to spot.

They're anachronisms now, but as this 1955 snapshot shows, security at Misawa was serious.

11 comments:

  1. Used to work on the FLR-9 in Augsburg in the early 80s. CDAA's were fun technology at the time.

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  2. Antenna? What antenna? It's an elephant cage!

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  3. There was one down in Chesapeake, VA, on the VA/NC border: NSGA Northwest, Va. I remember visiting it once while I was on active duty in the Navy, 1980-1984.

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  4. Been to Misawa and Elmendorf, seen both of those from the air. I think there was also one in Iceland.

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  5. I guess I should mention the one in Rota, Spain, too, since I lived there for three years. *laughs* I think there was one in Edzell, Scotland, as well.

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  6. I remember seeing an antenna farm near Tulso Oklahoma, it reminded me of the farms I saw at FS Berlin and FS Augsburg.

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  7. Thanks for the Cold War memories: CTM2 Walker stationed in Okinawa, D.G. and a few other places I probably should not mention.

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  8. I was stationed at the Naval Communications Station Northwest in Chesapeake VA in 1968-69.Our operations were conducted within the "Wullenweber" antenna in a highly secure facility guarded by Marines.Those were the days of teletype communications and synchronized encryption.

    Apparently this antenna array was taken out of service in 2001 when satellites eliminated the need for the "Wullenweber" antennas

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