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Re: [TenTec] Embassy Antennas

To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Embassy Antennas
From: Bwana Bob <wb2vuf@gti.net>
Reply-to: wb2vuf@arrl.net,Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment <tentec@contesting.com>
Date: Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:07:36 -0500
List-post: <mailto:tentec@contesting.com>
30 51J4's must have been a sight to behold! Probably got hot in that 
room, too.

I have a picture of a navy station in Antarctica that had a bank of R390's.

In 1998 when I was in Switzerland, I saw a big LPDA in the middle of 
farm country. I later figured that this belonged to Bern Radio, the 
"coast station". They have a nice web site.


                                Bob WB2VUF

Joel R. Hallas wrote:
> During my US Army days in DL land (1963-65), our embassy folk had large LPDA
> arrays on the roof at the consulate building in Frankfurt used to monitor sw
> and mw foreign broadcasts. There was a room with about 30 51J4s in racks
> filling most of one wall. 
> 
> Each night they would ship, via TTY, a translated summary of the received
> news reports. It would go through our VHF/microwave network (long gone,
> including the 300 foot tower I sometimes had to change the bulbs on!) to the
> UK and to the US, probably by cable. It was reputed to end up on the
> president's desk every morning.
> 
> We used to keep a TTY machine on the circuit, so we knew what was happening
> before JFK and later LBJ did!
> 
> Regards, Joel
> Joel R. Hallas, W1ZR
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tentec-bounces@contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces@contesting.com]
> On Behalf Of Ken Brown
> Sent: Friday, December 07, 2007 8:58 PM
> To: Discussion of Ten-Tec Equipment
> Subject: Re: [TenTec] Embassy Antennas
> 
> 
>> Only in very few outlying Embassies are there any over the air type
> communications.  Everything is or was on line encrypted. Basically any
> outside wiring or antennas not allowed.   
>>  
>>   
> I have seen log periodics on buildings in Europe. I notice those kinds 
> of things. Most times, when I have investigated to see what is in the 
> building on which the antenna is mounted, it has been a foreign embassy. 
> (foreign to the country I was in) I would expect them to use encryption 
> whether by wire or by wireless, and to use wire most of the time. I 
> would think they might want to have a backup to wire. Wires after all 
> can be cut. Many of the installations I have seen may well be left over 
> from the days when satellite comm links were not commonly available. 
> Even so, I think it would be wise to maintain an HF backup to the 
> satellite system. Additionally, some scheduled transmissions, perhaps 
> sending null messages, would be a good idea to make sure the system 
> works when it is really needed, and so that the sudden resumption of 
> transmission after none at all, would not reveal anything. Much 
> intelligence can be gleaned from traffic analysis, without decryption of 
> the traffic.
> 
> DE N6KB
> 
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