ATLAS F Silos

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KD2DXF

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I have been doing some research on the old ATLAS F Missile Silo Installations in Upstate new York. On several Web Pages, I see reference to "Antenna Silo" as well as UHF, VHF and HF. From the photos (attached) These all seem to be underground antenna systems. I am curious as to what frequencies they would have used back in those days, as well as how well underground antennas worked. Thanks in advance for any information.

UHF Antenna
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VHF Antenna
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Antenna Silo
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Hardened Antenna?
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Tech792

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Cool photos! There are some old abandon nike missile sites by me in New Jersey that were turned over to local and county gov't. Then eventually turned into parks. Lots of the structures were torn down but some underground bunkers still exist but are off limits. Back in the 60's and 70's, they used low band military frequencies for these site. I remember seeing them listed in old frequency directories. Like 36 and 38 mhz.
 

autovon

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If they're anything like Titan and Minuteman, HF 2-30 MHz, VHF around 137-144 or 148-151, and UHF 225-400.
 

ecps92

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556th SMS - Plattsburg AFB - Plattsburgh, New York

I have been doing some research on the old ATLAS F Missile Silo Installations in Upstate new York. On several Web Pages, I see reference to "Antenna Silo" as well as UHF, VHF and HF. From the photos (attached) These all seem to be underground antenna systems. I am curious as to what frequencies they would have used back in those days, as well as how well underground antennas worked. Thanks in advance for any information.
 

haleve

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WTH: ICBM Fields In Noo Yawk?????

I remember NYC having a Nike ABM site at Fort Totten (For sure, I remember seeing the missile launchers off the Cross Island Pkwy) and possibly at Fort Tilden in Rockaway according to some missile buffs, can't confirm that one though, I never knew about this, WOW!!!!!! I mean, just WOW!!!!!!!

@Spec, this one of your many USAF secrets you couldn't share with me while I was in Hopeless Jungle, all dressed up with nowhere to go? LOL.
 

Mojaveflyer

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Atlas Missile Facility

West of Cheyenne, WY, are some above the ground missile launch facilities south of I-80. West of Otto Road on Sherman Hill are some low buildings I'm told were horizontal structures for Atlas "D" or "E" models... According to what I learned, there were used prior to missiles being placed in silos. By the way, if you get out to Tucson, AZ, there's a Titan missile silo that has been converted to a museum and is part of the Pima Air & Space Museum.

Attached is a photo of the Atlas facility west of Cheyenne.
 

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KD2DXF

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Bodfish

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From what I understand, the antennas are hydraulically raised out of the ground. Check out this site to see the lifts, among other cool things. An Epic Journey through Vandenberg ICBM Sites - Bearings

I have been doing some research on the old ATLAS F Missile Silo Installations in Upstate new York. On several Web Pages, I see reference to "Antenna Silo" as well as UHF, VHF and HF. From the photos (attached) These all seem to be underground antenna systems. I am curious as to what frequencies they would have used back in those days, as well as how well underground antennas worked. Thanks in advance for any information.
 

Hooligan

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Your first two photos are of the hardened UHF antenna which in the Atlas era would have been used to communicate with the helicopters transporting crews/security forces as well as for receiving force direction messages from SAC & emergency action messages from JCS, via airborne command post. Minuteman sites had a similar antenna for the same purposes, but it would also be used to communicate on GIANT STAR -- SAC's UHF SATCOM network (244MHz downlinks).

The VHF tower would have been to communicate with all the personnel at the site, & in some cases they also used VHF radio as a redundant means to communicate with other nearby sites & the main base (Plattsburgh AFB) as well as ground transport vehicles in the area.

The Atlas sites were only in operation for about 5 years, all being deactivated by the end of 1965, so the comms were fairly low-tech, and HF/SSB was one of the most important systems for command & control.
Seems like with *some* Atlas Wings, all of the sites had soft HF antennas in addition to the hardened, tx & rx antenna systems. With others, they just had two hardened HF tx antennas in one 'can' underground & then deliberately located further away in the compound there'd be a separate 'can' storing I think 5 HF rx antennas. Receiving was much more important than transmitting at the sites. Depending on the readiness condition protocols, they may just use a soft HF antenna to receive traffic, or if on a higher state of alert they may raise one telescoping HF rx antenna out of the hardened pod, with or without also raising one hardened tx antenna up. If those antennas got destroyed by enemy attack, they had the one other HF tx antenna they could raise, & several other HF rx antennas they could raise (one at a time).

The key concern was & still-is redundancy. Many sites had a soft or hard microwave radio link that'd link all the missile sites plus their main base -- as long as orders were received in the proper format and authenticated, it didn't matter if the orders were received via telephone, or HF/SSB, though the reality is operational orders would have been sent & received by multiple links.

As far as truly "underground" antennas, the more modern missile alert facilities had one for the survivable low frequency communications system, and then a select number of sites had the Sylvania Ground Electronics System which utilized a buried mediumwave antenna to establish a link with the launch facilities.

By the late 1980s, improved technology & redundancy caused SAC to phase-out the HF/SSB use at most Minuteman missile alert facilities. Soft antennas were mostly removed but the hardened tx & rx antennas were retired in-place. I believe the missile alert facilities that operated as Squadron Command Posts retained the soft HF & at least the hardened tx antennas for a while longer.

I used to hear at least one SAC Strategic Missile Wing -- I think Minuteman, not Titan II -- on 11494USB back in the early & mid-1980s doing what to me at the time, sounded like routine training with the hardened tx & rx antennas.

There are plenty of old US Army Corps of Engineers blueprints available which will show the exact layouts of the old Atlas & Titan sites (Minuteman sites were a lot more standardized).
 

PJH

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Atlas and I believe Titan had hard, soft and an actual underground/silo based antenna if needed. The theory was that if a nearby hit landed debris and wiped out the above ground antenna, the underground antenna would be raised by an explosive charge.

Minuteman has/had the hardened UHF antennas and still exist, and in the current missile fields they use the USAF P25 system, as well as tactical comms on other established networks (simplex or otherwise) for day to day base operations.

Alert/launch comms are based by Milstar, HF, dedicated datalinks and the such. Years back they installed the Minimum Essential Emergency Communications Network - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Out here in the missile fields, almost anything is used.
 

PJH

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Forgot to add, if you haven't seen this site already, take a look: SiloWorld

Good information there. I have a link on some random computer with much better information, but until then, google works.

Also some good videos on youtube. This video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlPEBROvR9w was used in scenes for a made for TV movie The Day after Tomorrow that at the time was pretty scary in the 80's. The USAF scenes are all actual USAF memebers, equipment and the such on alert. Somewhere I ran across another USAF video that was similar which was pretty neat. Again, search is your friend.
 

nr2d

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When I was in the Air Force between 1974 and 1980 I was stationed at 2 Radar Bomb Scoring (RBS) sites. At the time all we had was UHF and HF. On UHF we had the GRR/GRT combinations. We also had a Collins KWM-2A for HF. If an aircraft departed or was out of range of the UHF we would pass the aircraft's scores via HF. At least once every shift we would have to conduct a HF radio check. This was great since I was a ham and had fun with these radio checks.
 

PACNWDude

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Not to sound like I am spreading dis-information, but in the mid 1990's when I worked on Minuteman III's, the POS Motorola Micor radios in the trucks could barely talk across site some days.

Then they were upgraded.

My handheld was an Astro Saber.

After I left, the comms were more standardized Air Force wide.
 

PJH

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Atlas F's are the most desired sites to get if they are in somewhat decent shape due to square footage of the underground facility. The original ICBM sites in Wyoming were also good for the fact that they came usually with 20+ acres of land for that value, but the launch sites were mostly above ground, with a not so deep underground that was usually a decent size. However you are talking about 1950's facilities and most have reverted back to the land owners and are in "farm" shape/storage buildings these days. There are some other smaller versions of these (can't think of the missile off hand) around that are in pretty decent shape but the owners haven't done anything with them. I found one that a trust owns that on the exterior looks in perfect shape with the original 1950's/60's style USAF sign still out front.

Other than those, if you could afford an AT&T underground main station (MW or Coax site) those are pretty substantial. Again, both types of sites are 1960's era and need work to take out the industrial look, but the AT&T sites are typically in much better shape.

I've floated the idea of trying to pick up a peacekeeper LCC, but I think they are filling in the underground - and with the pumps turned off for years, wouldn't be worth the rust and moat that I am sure is down there. Just neat and cool, but most of those sites were on the smaller size. I think Minot has the newer undergrounds that have the much larger capsules that were built by another contractor.
 

haleve

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KD2DXF

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Spec, these are for you my friend.

The Missile Forums | The Mercenary Missileer - Association of Air Force Missileers

www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-V6MZlyCqE

No one need point out the discrepancies in this depiction, we all know what they are, just enjoy the video.

LiveLeak.com - ICBM launch and detonation

The quality of this video is extremely poor but the music is sobering nonetheless, again of course we all know the detonation was actually of the Russian Tsar bomb.

Interesting videos, thanks for sharing.
 
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