VLA trunking?

[Wilrobnson]

The visitor's center was indeed closed; the big sign stated it was of course Covid-related. I stayed in Socorro for a week.

The only 2 restaurants I tried were El Camino (2 enthusiastic thumbs down!) and La Pasadita (1 thumb up).

 

[es93546]

It is a beautiful place, especially on a fall morning. The dishes were moving around. I was too obedient to turn on a radio but loved the pronghorn and the plague of locusts. Bought a great spectrum chart in the visitor center. Can't wait to return.

We had a home with a living room picture window that was facing southwest and the sunsets there were the best I've ever experienced. There was one relatively low ridge between the Plains of San Augustine basin and the ranger station housing compound, which was located about 150 feet higher than U.S. 60. Sometimes I would sit on top of the backyard wall to look at the main ridge of the Magdalena Mountain range at sunset to view the "Sangre de Cristo" (blood of Christ) effect on ridge. It is a special kind of purple I've never seen outside of New Mexico. I've lived next to the eastern Sierra for nearly 60% of my life now. The sunsets can be amazing, but the mountains block that near flat horizon we had in New Mexico. Of course, looking at sunsets 10 miles east of the slopes is spectacular, with incredible granite formations 3,000 feet above where you can stand, complete with a very few glaciers, (smaller and fewer from when I moved here) are things we didn't have in New Mexico.

It does remind me of a phrase that is used by employees of the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "Sunsets don't pay the mortgage." Which is to say it's great living and working in spectacular locations, but then there are the realities of life, which no one can escape.

 

[es93546]

The visitor's center was indeed closed; the big sign stated it was of course Covid-related. I stayed in Socorro for a week.

The only 2 restaurants I tried were El Camino (2 enthusiastic thumbs down!) and La Pasadita (1 thumb up).

Too bad you didn't get a chance to try the Owl Bar and Cafe 11 miles south of Socorro in San Antonio. I remember living in New Mexico when a fairly prestigious travel magazine included it in their "the best 110 places to eat in the world." It looks rather inauspicious from the outside, but if you like to eat green chile, the cheeseburger is outstanding. We didn't stop very often because it was a bar and restaurant all in one room and this was in the late 70's, early 80's without any restrictions on indoor smoking. I'm allergic to nicotine and tobacco so I was usually sick till the next day when getting their food. As for Socorro, it never had an "Alice's Restaurant."

 

[es93546]

One thing, pre visitor's center, that was known by a small number of people, is the spacing of the antenna pods on the 3 legs of the array were arranged logarithmically. The spacing got increasingly closer at the center of the array. The spacing had to do with the frequencies that were being received. When we lived nearby a 162 MHz frequency was assigned to them. I only had a BC-210 with 10 channels at the time and could not give up scanning what I had in there to listen to it much. Occasionally, I got a weak signal that would overwhelm the front end of the 210, with a repeating set of tones that sounded somewhat musical. I knew that the 210 had an I.F. of about 10.1 MHz so I took my trusty FRG-7700 receiver and tuned that frequency in. Sure enough, the signal was stronger when I dialed in that frequency or thereabouts. It was eerie as I had just watched the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" a few weeks prior to moving there. I knew nothing of the facility when we drove east on U.S. 60 through Datil. These dishes appeared and an image of a very tall man with his arms pointing to the sky came to mind as I struggled to figure out what the heck they were. It was just before sunset and that added to the effect.

The diameter of the dishes is 82 feet and each structure weighs 230 tons. I can't find data on how high above the ground they stand, but appear to be up to twice the diameter of the dish. There are a total of 28 of them, 27 out on the array (9 per leg) and one spare. There is a building that would have to be a minimum of 8-10 stories where the "spare" is located. I think the spare is actually the one that is pulled into the shop for maintenance and refurbishing. The "locomotive" that moves them is lifting 230 tons and moves slower than the rocket movers at the Kennedy Space Center. On the side of the locomotive, when I lived nearby, is painted "Hein's Trein." It seem to remember it was named after the engineer in charge of the design and construction of it, which, you guessed it, was built in Germany. Signals as high as 50 GHZ are received. Wow, the wavelength at that frequency would be darn short.