Misplaced Pages

#929070

78-717: Highlands Air Force Station was a military installation in Middletown Township near the borough of Highlands, New Jersey . The station provided ground-controlled interception radar coverage as part of the Lashup Radar Network and the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment network, as well as providing radar coverage for the Highlands Army Air Defense Site . The site's 240 acres (97 ha)

156-560: A Main Operating Base ). Other examples of non- or semi-permanent military bases include a Forward Operating Base (FOB), a Logistics Base (Log base) and a Fire Base (FB). A military base may also contain large concentrations of military supplies in order to support military logistics . Most military bases are restricted to the public and usually only authorized personnel may enter them (be it military personnel or their relatives and authorized civilian personnel). In addition to

234-596: A hospital or clinic (dental or health clinics, as well as veterinarian clinics), lodging , movie theaters, and, in some countries, retail stores (usually a supermarket such as Commissary and a Department Store , such as AAFES ). On American military installations, Family, Morale, Welfare and Recreation (FMWR) provides facilities such as fitness centers, libraries, golf courses, travel centers, community service centers, campgrounds, child development centers, youth centers, automotive workshops, hobby/arts and crafts centers, bowling centers, and community centers. Bases used by

312-564: A "Means of Radio Detection of Aircraft" to the US Army's Chief Signal Officer (CSig.), bypassing normal channels of command. The SCR-268 was not really suited to this need, and after its demonstration in May they again received a request for a long-range unit, this time from "Hap" Arnold who wrote to them 3 June 1937. Shortly thereafter the Signal Corps became alarmed that their radar work

390-468: A bomber at night. This demonstration turned out to be particularly convincing by mistake; the Martin B-10 bomber had originally been instructed to fly to a known point for the radar to find it, but could not be located at the agreed upon time. The radar operators then searched for the bomber and located it about ten miles (16 km) from its intended position. It was later learned that winds had blown

468-418: A branch of service. A military base may go by any of a number of names, such as the following: Depending on the context, the term "military base" may refer to any establishment (usually permanent) that houses a nation's armed forces , or even organized paramilitary forces such as the police , constabulary , militia , or national guards . Alternatively, the term may refer solely to an establishment which

546-850: A coastal defense battery of two 6-inch M1903 guns on the hill to the south of the Twin Lights Lighthouse. The batteries were garrisoned by the United States Army Coast Artillery Corps as part of the Harbor Defenses of New York . Battery Lewis was one of the primary batteries guarding Greater New York in World War II , along with another 16-inch battery at Fort Tilden in Queens and two 12-inch long-range batteries at Fort Hancock on Sandy Hook. These rendered all previous heavy guns in

624-468: A distance of 130 miles (210 km) and Lockard telephoned the information center at Fort Shafter and reported "Large number of planes coming in from the north, three points east". The operator taking his report passed on the information repeating that the operator emphasized he had never seen anything like it, and it was "an awful big flight." The report was passed on to an inexperienced and incompletely trained officer, Kermit Tyler , who had arrived only

702-570: A faint grasp of the weapons and tactics that Army technologists (led by Hap Arnold ) were aggressively pushing them to adopt. Except in rare cases, there was little interest in assisting or even cooperating with the goal of setting up the air defense system. On his own initiative, Bergquist along with some other motivated junior officers built a makeshift control center without authorization, and only by scrounging. The first SR-270s became functional in July 1941 and, by November, Bergquist had only assembled

780-436: A few ANG-operated bases, such as Selfridge ANGB , Michigan. Support facilities on Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve installations tend to not be as extensive as active bases (i.e., they usually do not have on-base lodging (though Kingsley Field ANGB , Oregon, is an exception), clinics (except for drill days), or retail stores (although some have small convenience stores)). In Russian usage "military base" or "naval base"

858-913: A major concern of the United States was a possible attack by Soviet long-range bombers. In 1948, the United States Air Force (USAF) directed its Air Defense Command (ADC) to take radar sets out of storage for operation in the Northeastern United States. In June 1948, Air Defense Command activated the 646th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron at the Twin Light Lashup Site L-12 with the Watson Laboratories General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar and an AN/TPS-1B radar providing radar data to

SECTION 10

#1732780259930

936-487: A positive report. Gaining the support of James B. Allison, the Chief Signal Officer, they managed to gather a small amount of funding and diverted some from other projects. A research team was organized under the direction of civilian engineer Paul E. Watson . By December 1936 Watson's group had a working prototype, which they continued to improve. By May 1937 they were able to demonstrate the set, detecting

1014-691: A pulse width from 10 to 25 microseconds, and a pulse repetition frequency of 621 Hz. With a wavelength of about 3 meters (nine feet), the SRC-270 was comparable to the contemporary Chain Home system being developed in Great Britain, but not to the more advanced UHF Würzburg radars being developed in Germany. This wavelength did turn out to be useful, as it is roughly the size of an airplane's propeller, and provided strong returns from them depending on

1092-595: A second unit to the National Research Council in Ottawa ), who, unaware of its history, used it to image aurora for the first time in 1949. The technique was published in 1950 in Nature , and was a field of active research for some time. In 1990, after the radar had sat derelict for years, they received a phone call informing them of the historical nature of the radar, and requesting it be sent back to

1170-444: A second, The 621 Hz frequency is derived either from an internal oscillator or an external source, typically the oscilloscope. The keyed output stages consisted of two 450TH power triodes in series, with the final stage configured as a cathode follower . The receiver is a superheterodyne design, with a high-power 832 dual tetrode as its first RF amplifier and a RCA 1630 orbital-beam hexode electron-multiplier amplifier tube as

1248-577: A sector repetitively. Still later systems added additional controls to rotate the antenna at 5 RPM for use with a plan position indicator , like modern radars. The generator was driven by a LeRoi gasoline engine and could produce 15 KVA of electric power. After its use by the military, the Pearl Harbor unit (s/n 012) was loaned to the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon (along with

1326-416: A small team, but they were able to build a ring of four SCR-270-Bs around Oahu, with one unit in reserve. The radars were placed on the central north shore ( Haleiwa ), Opana Point (northern tip), in the northwest at the highest point- Mount Kaala , and one in the southeast corner at Koko Head. However, initially no real communications system or reporting chain was set up. At one point the operators of one of

1404-464: A spark, short circuiting the line and creating a resonant stub that prevented most of the pulse energy from reaching the receiver. The oscilloscope ( A-scope ) display employed a five-inch diameter 5BP4 cathode-ray tube , the same type used in the first commercial RCA television set, the TRK-5, introduced in 1939. The sweep was normally generated from an internal 621 Hz oscillator that also drove

1482-448: A unified command. This had been one of the primary problems identified by Robert Watson-Watt prior to the war, when a demonstration of an early radar system had gone comically wrong even though the radar system itself had worked perfectly. Dowding was well aware of the importance of a unified command, but this knowledge did not result in changes within the U.S. Army structure. Army Major Kenneth Bergquist returned to Hawaii after attending

1560-609: A week earlier. He thought they had detected a flight of B-17s arriving that morning from the US. There were only six B-17s in the group, so this could not account for the large size of the radar echo. The officer had little grasp of the technology, the radar operators were unaware of the B-17 flight (nor its size), and the B-17s had no IFF ( Identification friend or foe ) system, nor any alternative procedure for identifying distant friendlies such as

1638-418: A well-drilling derrick, and was mounted on the trailer for movement. When opened it was 55 feet (17 m) tall, mounted on an 8-foot (2.4 m) wide base containing motors for rotating the antenna. The antenna itself consisted of a series of 36 half wave dipoles backed with reflectors, arranged in three bays, each bay with twelve dipoles arranged in a three-high four-wide stack. (Later production versions of

SECTION 20

#1732780259930

1716-507: Is not limited to denoting a specific fence described facility and usually encompasses a broad territory within which a number of discrete facilities may be located. As examples, 1) the Russian Sevastopol Naval Base comprises individual facilities located within the city of Sevastopol proper (waterfront moorings, weapons stores, a headquarters compound, and a naval infantry base) as well as an airfield at Kacha north of

1794-516: Is now Hartshorne Woods Park . In January 2017 a retired US Navy 16"/50 caliber Mark 7 gun , formerly a spare for the Iowa -class battleships , was placed on display in one of the gun positions of Battery Lewis. Military installation Military bases within the United States are considered federal property and are subject to federal law . Civilians (such as family members of military officers ) living on military bases are generally subject to

1872-877: Is now the Rocky Point section in Hartshorne Woods Park of the Monmouth County Parks System . The Navesink Military Reservation (also called the Highlands Military Reservation ) was added as a historic district to the National Register of Historic Places on 13 October 2015. The Navesink Highlands had a sea navigation beacon in 1746, and the first Navesink Twin Lights lighthouse was built in 1828. The current Navesink Twin Lights lighthouse

1950-773: Is used only by an army (or possibly other land fighting related forces, such as marines ) to the exclusion of a base used by either an air force or a navy . This is consistent with the different meanings of the word ' military '. Some examples of permanent military bases used by the navies and air forces of the world are the HMNB Portsmouth in Portsmouth, UK, the Naval Air Station Whidbey Island , Washington State, US, or Ramstein Air Base , Germany (the last two are each designated as

2028-540: The Far East Air Force did not fare much better than the defending air force at Pearl Harbor. Though FEAF had five SR-270Bs, only two were functioning on 8 December 1941, one was a Marine Corps Air Warning detachment of the 4th Marine Regiment based at Cavite Naval Base . On 29 November, in response to the war warning sent to all overseas commands, the radar detachment went on continuous watch in three shifts. Even with correct detection of enemy flights from

2106-671: The SCR-289 , was also produced, but saw little use. The -270 versions were eventually replaced by newer microwave units based on cavity magnetron that was introduced to the US during the Tizard Mission . The only early warning system of the sort to see action in World War II was the AN/CPS-1 , which was available in mid-1944, in time for D-Day . The Signal Corps had been experimenting with some radar concepts as early as

2184-594: The Texas Tower 4 . In 1960 the Air Force installed an AN/FPS-6 B height-finder radar at Highlands which, along with the AN/FPS-6, had been replaced by 1963 with AN/FPS-26 A and AN/FPS-90 sets. On 31 July 1963 the site was redesignated as NORAD ID Z-9. The United States Secretary of Defense announced on 20 November 1964, that the Air Force operations would be closed. The Highlands Army Air Defense Site (HAADS)

2262-542: The U.S. Army 's primary long-distance radar throughout World War II and was deployed around the world. It is also known as the Pearl Harbor Radar , since it was an SCR-270 set that detected the incoming raid about 45 minutes before the 7 December 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor commenced. Two versions were produced, the mobile SCR-270, and the fixed SCR-271 which used the same electronics but used an antenna with somewhat greater resolution. An upgraded version,

2340-566: The United States Air Force Reserve tend to be active USAF bases. However, there are a few Air Reserve Bases , such as Dobbins ARB , Georgia, and Grissom ARB , Indiana, both of which are former active-duty USAF bases. Facilities of the Air National Guard are often located on civil airports in a secure cantonment area not accessible to the general public, though some units are based on USAF bases, and

2418-409: The civil and criminal laws of the states where the bases are located. Military bases can range from small outposts to military cities containing up to 100,000 people. A military base may belong to a different nation or state than the territory surrounding it. The name used generally refers to the type of military activity that takes place at the base, as well as the traditional nomenclature used by

Highlands Air Force Station - Misplaced Pages Continue

2496-402: The (Specialist Teams Royal Engineers (STRE)) were formed to plan and execute Works projects worldwide. Some British and Commonwealth naval bases are traditionally named, commissioned, and administered as though they were naval ships. For this reason they are sometimes called stone frigates . SCR-270 radar The SCR-270 was one of the first operational early-warning radars . It was

2574-659: The 1840s through the 1860s barracks were constructed under supervision of the Royal Engineers in: The Cardwell Reforms (1872) ushered in another period of intensive Barrack building at Aldershot , Portsmouth , Plymouth , London , Woking , Woolwich , Dublin , Belfast , Malta , Gibraltar and the Cape of Good Hope . In 1959 the Corps' Work Services was transferred to the civilian War Department Works Organization (later renamed Property Services Agency (PSA)) and by 1965

2652-594: The AAF's operational radar at Iba, command disorganization resulted in many of the defending fighters in the Philippines being also caught on the ground and destroyed, as was the largest concentration of B-17s (19) outside of the continental US. The Iba set was destroyed in the initial attack on Iba on 8 December. After the first day, the effective striking power of the Far East Air Force had been destroyed, and

2730-456: The Army's maneuvers that summer. Several improved components followed as the Army offered additional contracts for eventual production. The original -270 consisted of a four-vehicle package including a K-30 operations van for the radio equipment and oscilloscope, a K-31 gasoline-fueled power-generating truck, a K-22B flatbed trailer, and a K-32 prime mover. The antenna folding mount was derived from

2808-725: The British air defense system and transfer the knowledge as quickly as possible to the US military. Air Marshal Dowding , one of the designers of the Ground-controlled interception (GCI) air defense system used during the Battle of Britain , was at the school and discussed with the American generals the design and urgency of establishing the Hawaiian system, in particular emphasizing the need for thorough radar site coverage along

2886-559: The British had developed during the Battle of Britain . The Japanese aircraft they detected attacked Pearl Harbor 55 minutes later, precipitating the United States ' formal entry into World War II . The northerly bearing of the inbound flight was not passed along in time to be of use. The US fleet instead fruitlessly searched to the southwest of Hawaii, believing the attack to have been launched from that direction. In retrospect this may have been fortuitous, since they might have met

2964-691: The Highlands Air Force Station began operating the first Bendix AN/FPS-14 Radar in the nation at the radar Gap Filler site P-9A in Gibbsboro, New Jersey until 1960. In 1958, four General Electric AN/FPS-6 Radar were added to the site along with a General Electric AN/FPS-7 Radar . In 1958, Highlands Air Force Station began providing data to Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) Direction Center DC-01 at McGuire AFB which had Air Defense Command interceptor aircraft and CIM-10 Bomarc surface-to-air missiles. In September 1959,

3042-529: The Highlands Air Force Station was the first site in the nation with a General Electric AN/FPS-7 Radar used for long range surveillance for the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System and the Air Force. (The 1262nd U.S. Army Signal Missile Master Support Detachment provided site maintenance to the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System from 1960 to 1966.) The Missile Master at the Highlands Air Force Station

3120-717: The Manual Control Center at Roslyn Air Warning Station , New York as part of the Lashup Radar Network . In December 1950, 646th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron moved from the Twin Lights Lashup site to the Navesink Military Reservation with a new General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar . In July 1951 the Air Defense Command accepted the new radar and designated the site P-9 as the 9th new Permanent radar site in

3198-513: The Mitchel Field school intending to set up a coordinated system, but when he arrived he found the local Army leadership was uninterested in the system, and he was reassigned to his former fighter unit. Only when incomprehensible equipment began appearing did the army return Bergquist from his fighter unit and tell him his job was to assemble the equipment when it arrived. The commander in charge of defending Hawaii, General Walter Short , had

Highlands Air Force Station - Misplaced Pages Continue

3276-579: The Navesink Highlands for seacoast defense , transferred from the mortar batteries at Fort Hancock, New Jersey on Sandy Hook . These were called Battery Hartshorne. The battery was named for Richard Hartshorne , a settler who acquired the land in the 1670s. This battery was disarmed in 1920. By 1933, Harold A. Zahl 's radio range experiments had begun from the Twin Lights lighthouse , and an August 1935 US Army Signal Corps radar test at

3354-456: The SCR-270 used 32 dipoles and reflectors, either eight wide by four high (fixed) or four wide by eight high (mobile)). In use, the antenna was swung (rotated) by command from the operations van, the azimuth angle being read by observing with binoculars the numbers painted on the antenna turntable. The maximum rotation rate was one revolution per minute. The radar operated at 106 MHz, using

3432-599: The SCR-270's operation was the primary water-cooled 8 kW continuous/100 kW pulsed transmitting tube. Early examples were hand-built, but a contract was let to Westinghouse in October 1938 to provide production versions under the Westinghouse designation "WL-530" and the Signal Corps type number "VT-122". A pair of these arrived in January 1939, and were incorporated into the first SCR-270 in time to be used in

3510-407: The SCR-270, used separate antennas for transmit and receive, For maximum antenna gain at a given size it is desirable to use the same antenna for both functions. One obstacle is the need to protect the receiver from the high power pulses produced by the transmitter. This was solved by placing a spark gap across a "trombone" tuned section of transmission line. The high-voltage power pulses would create

3588-520: The SCR-270-D, namely "maximum range on a single bomber flying at indicated heights, when set is on a flat sea level site": Components of the SCR-270 system included the following: The transmitter used dual WL530 water-cooled triodes configured as a high power push-pull resonant-line oscillator. The grids of the WL530s were connected to the keyer output which provided a high negative bias voltage that

3666-817: The SCR-271-A, s/n 1 was delivered to the Canal Zone and began operation in October 1940 at Fort Sherman on the Atlantic end of the Panama Canal . It picked up airliners at 117 miles (188 km) in its initial test run. The second set was set up on Fort Grant 's Taboga Island on the Pacific end of the Canal by December 1940, thus giving radar coverage to the vitally important but vulnerable Panama Canal. Westinghouse quickly ramped up production, and produced 100 by

3744-566: The United States Army in the Dominion of Newfoundland in 1942 to protect NS Argentia , McAndrew AFB , Ernest Harmon AFB , and RCAF Torbay . The stations at Cape Spear ( Prime ) , Elliston Ridge ( Duo ) , St. Bride's ( Trio ) , Fogo Island ( Quad ) , and Allan's Island ( Cinco ) , were manned by the 685th Air Warning Squadron under operational control of Newfoundland Base Command at Pepperrell Air Force Base . Key to

3822-533: The air defense assets they had, and how vital radar was to those defenses. The vulnerability was well demonstrated in war games—in particular those of United States Navy Fleet Problem IX that annihilated the locks on the Panama canal, and Fleet Problem XIII , when the Pearl Harbor fleet was destroyed in a mock attack by 150 planes in 1932. At Midway Island in June 1942, an SCR-270 antenna and shack were located at

3900-451: The angle. Generally it had an operational range of about 150 miles (240 km), and consistently picked up aircraft at that range. A nine-man field operating crew consisted of a shift chief, two oscilloscope operators, two plotters, two technicians, and two electricians. The declassified US military document "U.S. Radar -- Operational Characteristics of Available Equipment Classified by Tactical Application" gives performance statistics for

3978-733: The area obsolete, and these were gradually scrapped during the war. After World War II it was determined that gun defenses were obsolete, and the guns at Navesink were scrapped in 1948. The Twin Lights Aircraft Warning Corps Site 8A was an Army radar site that reported radar data to an Information Filter and Control Center in the New York Telephone building (now the Verizon Building ) in New York City during World War II. The station

SECTION 50

#1732780259930

4056-403: The bomber off course, so what was to be a simple demonstration turned into an example of real-world radar location and tracking. Development of this system continued as the SCR-268 , which eventually evolved into an excellent short-to-medium range gun laying system. In April 1937 a LtC. Davis, an officer in an Army Air Corps Pursuit Squadron in the Panama Canal Zone (CZ), sent a request for

4134-450: The city; 2) the Leningrad Naval Base comprises all naval facilities in the greater St. Petersburg area including training schools, commissioning institutes, the naval academy, and the Kronshtadt base on Kotlin island. An overseas military base is a military base that is geographically located outside of the territory of the country whose armed forces are the principal occupants of the base. Such bases may be established by treaties between

4212-427: The coasts. Despite the high-level attention and the excellence of the school in training on the use of the SCR-270 and its integration and coordination with fighter intercepts, the army did not follow through on supporting the junior officers who were trained at this session. Air defense required direct control of assets spread out over disparate units; anti-aircraft guns, radars, and interceptor aircraft were not under

4290-434: The end of 1941. Operators of sets that were sent to the Panama Canal, the Philippines, Hawaii and other strategic locations were all gathered for an air defense school at Mitchel Field , New York in April 1941. The school was the culmination of efforts begun in 1940, when the War Department created the Air Defense Command headed by Brig. Gen. James E. Chaney. Chaney was tasked by Hap Arnold to collect all information on

4368-426: The fighter strength seriously reduced. The Marine unit was withdrawn to Bataan in January 1942, where it was successfully employed in conjunction with an SCR-268 antiaircraft gun-laying radar to provide air warning to a small detachment of P-40s operating from primitive fields. Key commanders responsible for the defense of installations vulnerable to air attack did not appreciate the need for and capabilities of

4446-412: The general lack of understanding at all levels of command of the capabilities of radar, with it often being regarded as a freak gadget "producing snap observations on targets which may or may not be aircraft." General Gordon P. Saville , director of Air Defense at the Army Air Force headquarters referred to the Watson-Watt report as "a damning indictment of our whole warning service". In the Philippines,

4524-414: The governing power in the host country and another country which needs to establish the military base in the host country for various reasons, usually strategic and logistic. Furthermore, overseas military bases often serve as the source of the military brat subculture due to the children of the bases' occupant military being born or raised in the host country but raised with a remote parental knowledge of

4602-497: The keyer, but an external source could be used. The sweep signal passed through a calibrated phase shifter controlled by a large hand wheel on the front panel. The delay between the transmitted and received pulses could be measured accurately by placing the transmit pulse under a hairline on the screen and then adjusting the hand wheel so that the received pulse was under the line. Two high power WL-531 rectifier tubes provided adjustable plate voltage, up to 15 kV at 0.5 A, to

4680-483: The late 1920s, under the direction of Colonel William R. Blair, director of the Signal Corps Laboratories at Fort Monmouth , New Jersey . Although the Army focused primarily on infra-red detection systems (a popular idea at the time), in 1935 work turned to radar again when one of Blair's recent arrivals, Roger B. Colton, convinced him to send another engineer to investigate the US Navy 's CXAM radar project. William D. Hershberger went to see what they had, and returned

4758-402: The lighthouse allowed a searchlight beam to track an aircraft. An SCR-268 radar assembled in August 1938 was demonstrated at the Twin Lights lighthouse in 1939. In 1942-44 the Navesink (or Highlands) Military Reservation was built, which included Battery Isaac N. Lewis (also called Battery 116), a casemated coastal defense battery of two 16"/50 caliber Mark 2 guns , along with Battery 219,

SECTION 60

#1732780259930

4836-445: The main military facilities on a certain installation, military bases usually (but not always) have various different facilities for military personnel. These facilities vary from country to country. Military bases can provide housing for military personnel, a post office and dining facilities ( restaurants ). They may also provide support facilities such as fast food restaurants, gas stations, chapels, schools , banks , thrift stores ,

4914-500: The nation as part of the Air Defense Command Permanent radar network. In December 1953 the Navesink Military Reservation was renamed to the Highlands Air Force Station. In 1955 a General Electric AN/FPS-8 Radar for medium range surveillance was installed to augment the radar data of the General Electric AN/CPS-6 Radar and was (later converted to a General Electric AN/GPS-3 Radar that remained until 1960.) Nine units of officers housing were built in 1955 near Battery 219. In March 1957

4992-400: The occupant military's home country. In the 18th and 19th centuries the Royal Engineers were largely responsible for erecting military bases in the British Isles and the British Empire. In 1792 the Chief Engineer was instructed to prepare the Barrack Construction estimates for Parliament and at the same time the Department of the Barrackmaster-General was established. During the period from

5070-419: The same fate as the ships in Pearl Harbor had they attempted to engage the superior Japanese carrier fleet, with potentially enormous casualties. The radars on Oahu were put on round-the-clock operation immediately after the attack. After the Japanese attack, the RAF agreed to send Watson-Watt to the United States to advise the military on air defense technology. In particular Watson-Watt directed attention to

5148-448: The second RF amplifier stage. The local oscillator included a front panel tuning adjustment. The receiver sensitivity control was remotely located on the oscilloscope. The two RF and four 20 MHz IF amplifier stages could produce enough gain to fill the oscilloscope display screen with noise. A key innovation in the SCR-270 was a transmit-receive (TR) switch. The SCR-268 searchlight control radar, which shared much technology with

5226-426: The sets were instructed to phone in reports from a gas station some distance away. Although communications were eventually improved, the chain of command was not. And by explicit order of General Short, the radar stations were to only be operated for four hours per day and to shut down by 7am each day. The one operational radar set in the Philippines, by contrast, was put on continuous watch in three shifts in response to

5304-403: The site was operated as a research field station by the Lt. Colonel Paul E. Watson Laboratories in Red Bank, New Jersey. Watson Laboratories set up an experimental model of an AN/CPS-6 Radar which was developed at the end of World War II by M.I.T. After the 1948 Berlin Blockade in Germany, the Cold War was on and with the appearance of the Soviet Tupolev Tu-4 intercontinental bomber in 1947,

5382-420: The transmitter. Because of pulsed nature of the transmitter, the small amount of filtration was needed. The RU-4 circulated triple-distilled cooling water through the WL530 high power triodes and cooled the return water with a blower. Triple-distilled water was used to minimize leakage current from the high voltage on the tubes' anodes. Later units incorporated an antenna steering control system that could sweep

5460-455: The war warning sent to all overseas commands in late November. SCR-270 serial number 012 was installed at Opana Point , Hawaii on the morning of 7 December 1941, manned by two privates, George Elliot and Joseph Lockard. Though the set was supposed to shut down at 7 that morning, the soldiers decided to get additional training time since the truck scheduled to take them to breakfast was late. At 7:02 they detected aircraft approaching Oahu at

5538-411: The western end of Sand Island. During the Battle of Midway , this radar was used to warn the island of incoming Japanese air attacks and to successfully direct the fighter interception that followed, but the island's radar did not play any significant part in the main carrier-action portion of the battle that followed. A series of five SCR-271-equipped early warning radar stations were constructed by

5616-517: Was being observed by German spies, and moved development to Sandy Hook at Fort Hancock , the coast artillery defense site for Lower New York Bay . After the move, work immediately started on the Air Corps request for what was to become known (in 1940) as the "Radio Set SCR-270". Parts of the SCR-268 were diverted to this new project, delaying the completion of the -268. The non-portable version,

5694-544: Was built in 1862. The Navesink Highlands were used for antebellum flag signaling experiments that communicated with Fort Tompkins on Staten Island in 1859. In 1899 Guglielmo Marconi built a radio station on the hill next to the north tower of the Navesink Twin Lights to report on the America's Cup races off of Sandy Hook. In 1917 during World War I, four 12-inch coast defense mortars were placed on

5772-568: Was established in 1966 with the first Hughes AN/TSQ-51 Air Defense Command and Coordination System in the nation. This replaced the Martin AN/FSG-1 Antiaircraft Defense System in the Missile Master nuclear-hardened bunker, which used radar data to guide Nike missiles . HAADS assumed control of the USAF station after the DoD announced its closure for July 1966. The 646th Radar Squadron (SAGE)

5850-538: Was inactivated on 1 July 1966. The Army's use of the site ended in 1974 under Project Concise when the Nike missile program ended. Most of the buildings were demolished in the mid-1980s and mid 1990s, and a few building foundations remain in a small clearing within the site's overgrowth of vegetation. However, the concrete remains of Battery Lewis, Battery 219, and the Plotting and Switchboard Bunker still stand. The area

5928-405: Was interrupted by 621 Hz pulses which drove the WL530s' grids to conduction, thereby allowing a pulse of RF to be produced. The transmission line to the antenna was connected to taps on the filament resonant lines. As described above, the keyer/modulator produced a grid bias voltage for the transmitter tubes that keeps them in cutoff except for brief positive pulses the keyer produces 621 times

6006-715: Was the Army's command post for the New York-Philadelphia Defense Area and was designated as Nike Site NY-55DC and was a NORAD Control Center . It was operated by the 52nd Artillery Brigade (Air Defense). Texas Tower 4 (call sign "Dora") was an offshore radar annex of Highlands Air Force Station operated by a 646th Radar Squadron (SAGE) from 1958 until it collapsed into the Atlantic Ocean on 15 January 1961, killing 28 people. The Highlands Air Force Station had an AN/FRC-56 Tropospheric scatter Communications shore station which communicated with

6084-550: Was used for a November 1939 demonstration for the Secretary of War in which radar data was networked from the local SCR-270 radar and, via telephone, from one in Connecticut that both tracked a Mitchel Field B-17 bomber formation. From 1942 to 1945, the site had a World War II Westinghouse SCR-271 radar for early warning. The site was operated by the 608th Signal Aircraft Warning Battalion. Between 1946 and June 1948

#929070