Tuesday, July 08, 2008

More Google Earth Fun

We haven't done this in a while.

34.571709,33.005896
This is yet another candidate for the Lincolnshire Poacher site on Cyprus. Thanks to Simon Mason for these coordinates. They put you inside a fenced compound with radomes to the southwest and apparent antenna towers everywhere else. As always, antennas don't really show up well, but their shadows do.

Most interesting is the building at the northeast which appears connected to an amazing log periodic farm. I found seven huge beam antennas, and an eighth might be dimly visible. One feeder obviously goes under the fence and continues to two of these towers.


26.982789,-80.107938
Simon Mason's numbers radio site provided these coordinates too. They are bang in the middle of the Jonathan-Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex, an Eastern Test Range activity using a number of high-gain dishes to pick up telemetry from birds leaving Cape Canaveral. More interesting are the two antenna towers next to the largest building, and a number of other masts around the facility. Some of these are undoubtedly for lightning protection.

Most interesting of all, though, is the large feeder that comes out of the ground due east of this building. It leads eastward for a good distance across a swampy area, crosses SE Pinegrove St., and finally ends up at a fenced-off triangular area right next to the main highway. Here, there's a tall tower, again visible mostly from its shadow, though obstruction paint can also be made out. This is most likely the infamous Jupiter Inlet site that was suggested by the late Havana Moon and others as one source of the now defunct E5 "Cynthia" numbers broadcasts in 4-number groups with the test count at the beginning. These haven't been heard since 2003.


32.593841,-117.127399
Look quick, it's the giant AN/FRD-10 US Navy Wullenweber CDAA antenna at the Imperial Beach site. You can see this thing for miles up and down the Coronado Strand. It was decommissioned in 1999, and it may not be up for very much longer.

The antenna was used for direction finding in the cold war. Judging from the current photo taken in 2003, it's now used mostly for a parking lot. These huge arrays were built all over the world. Many have been taken down, leaving huge circles in the ground. These are now mistaken by Google Earth users for crop circles, weird Pagan religious sites, and ?????. I wonder what archaeologists will think when they stumble upon them 1000 years hence.


46°31'48.97"N,30°33'39.07"E
Russia's version of the CDAA is the Krug, also for direction finding. Here's a nice one outside Odessa.


40°40'41.48"N,105° 2'46.93"W
WWV, north of Ft. Collins, CO, in between several small lakes. The building to the southwest is for WWVB's two transmitters, each feeding a separate diamond-shaped antenna held up by four tall towers each, supporting two large, top-loaded, wire top-hat verticals for 60 kHz. The radiating elements to this aren't visible, but the two matching-coil doghouses with the loopy roads leading out from the building are. I'll bet the residential areas around here don't have any trouble getting their "atomic" clocks to acquire a signal!

The building to the northeast with two satellite dishes in front is for WWV. Feeders lead out to various towers supporting omnidirectional counterpoised verticals for 2.5, 5, 10, 15, and 20 MHz. Yes, there are more than 5 antennas visible. ??????