Bakers Mtn. State Park

[mike_gain]

A friend was recently hiking at Bakers Mtn. S.P. south of Hickory. He said that he saw several posted areas. He asked a ranger about it and was told that "Homeland Security" was expanding or taking over quite a few acres on top of the mountain. I have not been to the park in a year or so. I think that maybe the FBI/SBI/Customs have had stuff up there for sometime. Does anyone have any info?

 

[pboy]

A friend was recently hiking at Bakers Mtn. S.P. south of Hickory. He said that he saw several posted areas. He asked a ranger about it and was told that "Homeland Security" was expanding or taking over quite a few acres on top of the mountain. I have not been to the park in a year or so. I think that maybe the FBI/SBI/Customs have had stuff up there for sometime. Does anyone have any info?

Never heard of any fed stuff up there. County and state.

VIPER just put up a new tower there to replace existing one.

 

[jeffmulter]

"Mike" - I believe you are referring to Baker Mountain County Park (owned by Catawba Co). South Mountains State Park may be the closest state park to that area.

DHS grants were used by Catawba County to survey the property on Bakers Mountain, as well as to rebuild or replace towers at a couple of county locations (Anderson Mountain, Riverbend). Some of the work was related to the county's participation in the Piedmont Area Communications Council's 11-county interoperability plan.

It might be my imagination, but I think I've seen DHS warning signs at some locations were airnav radio equipment is located, and they may be placing similar signage at other radio sites.

Mention of the Bakers Mountain project is made in a 2007 county Information Technology Center goals and objectives report.

I've never heard any FBI or Customs channels that I could determine were transmitting off the Bakers Mountain site.

SBI agents had access to the WRC repeaters. I think I remember that there was a WRC radio site on Bakers Mountain. Audio from the site was fed down to the Newton NCHP tower via 2GHz, then onto the NCHP Pores Knob site via 955 MHz multiplexing, which tied into the state's microwave backbone.

 

[Quantar22]

A friend was recently hiking at Bakers Mtn. S.P. south of Hickory. He said that he saw several posted areas. He asked a ranger about it and was told that "Homeland Security" was expanding or taking over quite a few acres on top of the mountain. I have not been to the park in a year or so. I think that maybe the FBI/SBI/Customs have had stuff up there for sometime. Does anyone have any info?

Someone might email WHKY and inquire with them about all of the happenings up on the mountain. Last I heard they are going to be building a new 300+' broadcast tower for WHKY TV up there..

Shane KI4M

 

[mike_gain]

Thanks guys for the info. I don't know what I was thinking when I said state park, I knew it was Co. Wow, WHKY back on top of Bakers. They used to have something up there years ago. Maybe FM.