3 ms·

US Navy Radio Communications – 1950s and 1960s

43 points by fortran77 4y ago

remarkEon 4y ago
Awesome stuff here. Is there a companion site for the US Army? A quick google suggests not, but my Google Fu has been quite poor as of late.
- dylan604 4y ago
  No need to blame yourself for Google's decision to ruin search
- Animats 4y ago
  Overview: [1] Army training film for a truck-mounted Teletype message center.[2] Also available in an armored version, on a M113 chassis. This is 1960s technology. Army communications in Vietnam.[3] [1] https://www.smecc.org/military_teleprinters.htm https://www.smecc.org/military_teleprinters.htm [2] https://youtu.be/xOo5dk35Mz0 https://youtu.be/xOo5dk35Mz0 [3] https://youtu.be/zreruf3s8R0 https://youtu.be/zreruf3s8R0
defrost 4y ago
Nice to see details on the U.S. Naval Communication Station North West Cape | Harold Holt (unironic rename) Station. https://www.navy-radio.com/commsta/holt.htm https://www.navy-radio.com/commsta/holt.htm I ended up owning some of those cabinets after they were sold via salvage auction and grew up learning Ham radio from operators in NW Australia that spent time tapping the VLF (Very Low Frequency) comms to nuclear subs for traffic analysis. > Covering 1000 acres, the VLF antenna array is the largest in the world. > The antennas themselves are large spider-webs of wire, supported like a tophat on thirteen steel towers. The towers serve no other purpose than to support this tophat arrangement. The center tower, Tower Zero, is the highest manmade structure in the Southern Hemisphere. It rises to an awesome height of 1,271 feet. The other towers spread out in two concentric rings around Tower Zero. The inner ring of towers is 1 195 feet high and the outer ring is 996 feet high. > Buried in the ground beneath the antenna is 240 miles of bare copper wire which comprises the "ground mat". > The power plant located in area "A" is one of the largest presently operated by the U. S. Navy. > It is made up of six diesel engine driven generators each possessing the capability to produce 3,000,000 watts of power. This creates a total plant capacity of 18,000,000 watts, enough to supply the electric needs for a city of 12,000 people. At present this plant is committed to provide the total power for areas "A" and "B".
- bb88 4y ago
  Interesting, what's the typical bit rate of VLF?
  - defrost 4y ago
    IIRC (from the mid 70s, as a kid) either ~60 bits/s 'standard' OR some 300 bits/s using two frequencies and some harmonic trickery.
  - fortran77 4y ago
    It was much slower than that when I worked on submarine receivers in the early / mid 80s. 1 5-bit baudot character every 5 seconds.
    - defrost 4y ago
      There are levels to how much you can push given atenna sizes and amount of gear at either end - the submarine rates are the basic most reliable with least equipment type of transfer rates (as I recall - I was literally barely a teenager at best at the time and learning radio | electronics | etc for the fist time, after which I went more into a theory direction). It would seem I was recalling frequency-shift keying modulation rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_frequency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_frequency which may not have been used to communicate to submarines.
- elchief 4y ago
  damn, that's ~24,000 horsepower
- bobowzki 4y ago
  That was very interesting!
JackFr 4y ago
My Dad was in a radar picket ship in the Pacific in 1960 and one of his favorite stories was not being able to raise Treasure Island in SF about 100 miles out, but having no problem conversing with Bremerhaven, and ultimately using USN facility in Bremerhaven to relay messages back and forth with Treasure Island. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Treasure_Island https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Treasure_Islan... Turns out Bremerhaven was a Navy SIGINT station. https://stationhypo.com/2020/12/31/nsga-bremerhaven-disestablished-and-closed-december-31-1972-2/ https://stationhypo.com/2020/12/31/nsga-bremerhaven-disestab...
- amatecha 4y ago
  Oh interesting, was this over HF radio or such? 100 miles probably inside the skip zone, depending on frequency and angle of radiation.
teeray 4y ago
I remember reading somewhere that HF is starting to make a bit of a comeback in the Navy as a backup if satellites are destroyed.

43 points by fortran77 4y ago

Awesome stuff here. Is there a companion site for the US Army? A quick google suggests not, but my Google Fu has been quite poor as of late.

dylan604 4y ago
No need to blame yourself for Google's decision to ruin search
Animats 4y ago
Overview: [1] Army training film for a truck-mounted Teletype message center.[2] Also available in an armored version, on a M113 chassis. This is 1960s technology. Army communications in Vietnam.[3] [1] https://www.smecc.org/military_teleprinters.htm https://www.smecc.org/military_teleprinters.htm [2] https://youtu.be/xOo5dk35Mz0 https://youtu.be/xOo5dk35Mz0 [3] https://youtu.be/zreruf3s8R0 https://youtu.be/zreruf3s8R0

defrost 4y ago

Nice to see details on the U.S. Naval Communication Station North West Cape | Harold Holt (unironic rename) Station. https://www.navy-radio.com/commsta/holt.htm https://www.navy-radio.com/commsta/holt.htm I ended up owning some of those cabinets after they were sold via salvage auction and grew up learning Ham radio from operators in NW Australia that spent time tapping the VLF (Very Low Frequency) comms to nuclear subs for traffic analysis. > Covering 1000 acres, the VLF antenna array is the largest in the world. > The antennas themselves are large spider-webs of wire, supported like a tophat on thirteen steel towers. The towers serve no other purpose than to support this tophat arrangement. The center tower, Tower Zero, is the highest manmade structure in the Southern Hemisphere. It rises to an awesome height of 1,271 feet. The other towers spread out in two concentric rings around Tower Zero. The inner ring of towers is 1 195 feet high and the outer ring is 996 feet high. > Buried in the ground beneath the antenna is 240 miles of bare copper wire which comprises the "ground mat". > The power plant located in area "A" is one of the largest presently operated by the U. S. Navy. > It is made up of six diesel engine driven generators each possessing the capability to produce 3,000,000 watts of power. This creates a total plant capacity of 18,000,000 watts, enough to supply the electric needs for a city of 12,000 people. At present this plant is committed to provide the total power for areas "A" and "B".

bb88 4y ago
Interesting, what's the typical bit rate of VLF?
- defrost 4y ago
  IIRC (from the mid 70s, as a kid) either ~60 bits/s 'standard' OR some 300 bits/s using two frequencies and some harmonic trickery.
- fortran77 4y ago
  It was much slower than that when I worked on submarine receivers in the early / mid 80s. 1 5-bit baudot character every 5 seconds.
  - defrost 4y ago
    There are levels to how much you can push given atenna sizes and amount of gear at either end - the submarine rates are the basic most reliable with least equipment type of transfer rates (as I recall - I was literally barely a teenager at best at the time and learning radio | electronics | etc for the fist time, after which I went more into a theory direction). It would seem I was recalling frequency-shift keying modulation rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_frequency https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_low_frequency which may not have been used to communicate to submarines.
elchief 4y ago
damn, that's ~24,000 horsepower
bobowzki 4y ago
That was very interesting!

JackFr 4y ago

My Dad was in a radar picket ship in the Pacific in 1960 and one of his favorite stories was not being able to raise Treasure Island in SF about 100 miles out, but having no problem conversing with Bremerhaven, and ultimately using USN facility in Bremerhaven to relay messages back and forth with Treasure Island. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Treasure_Island https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Station_Treasure_Islan... Turns out Bremerhaven was a Navy SIGINT station. https://stationhypo.com/2020/12/31/nsga-bremerhaven-disestablished-and-closed-december-31-1972-2/ https://stationhypo.com/2020/12/31/nsga-bremerhaven-disestab...

amatecha 4y ago
Oh interesting, was this over HF radio or such? 100 miles probably inside the skip zone, depending on frequency and angle of radiation.

teeray 4y ago

I remember reading somewhere that HF is starting to make a bit of a comeback in the Navy as a backup if satellites are destroyed.