Old 304X0 AFSC

Hey, I was a 304X0 in southern Europe and in Michigan. Looking for other X0s.

Wideband Communications Equipment (AFSC 304X0) and Satellite Communications Equipment (AFSC 304X6) merged into 2E1X1

Hey There! I was Wideband until 1992, then became a Wideband-SatCom guy. I'm now a Ground Radio Troop in the Air Guard! Miss the old analog wideband days!

304x5 television equipment specialist. Vandenberg AFB CA 1977-1980 in support of Minuteman Missile and NASA satellite launches.

Anyone remember the vacuum tube/solid state hybrid equipment?

Ex-304x0 here as well!

Started out a Wideband (Can still remember seeing the term "Radio Relay" over the shop door) repairman (Whoa - Repair... There's a dying concept!), Then switched to SATCOM/WIDEBAND (SHF Maintenance), Then finally settled into the BISS thing.

Kunsan
Eglin
Rhien Main (Feldberg RRS)
RAF Lakenheath
Aviano

Are the old 304X6's picking up the old 304X0 mountain top assignments to improve overseas imbalance?

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[i]Originally posted by hotelone[/i]
[br]Are the old 304X6's picking up the old 304X0 mountain top assignments to improve overseas imbalance?

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No, many of the mountain top sites were closed when SATCOM took up the communications bandwidth that the Radio Relay sites provided.

In Spain, Humosa, Zaragoza, Soller(Majorca) and Menorca were closed in the early 1990s. In Greece, Mt. Hortiatis, Yiannitsa, Perivoulaki, Agropoulos and Drama were closed around the same time.

I don't know about the sites in Turkey or Italy. I assume many of the Digital European Backbone (DEB) sites were closed because SATCOM took over.

There is a resurgence of tactical microwave and troposcatter going on in the Army and Marines because SATCOM can't always provide all the bandwidth and SATCOM sigs are very weak coming from far away in orbit and are easily hosed.

I was in Italy from 89-92, just before they shut down a number of sites. All the fixed site tropo is gone, as far as I know. I've been researching the old sites in Google Earth and marking them as I find them. I've gotten quite a bit of the old sites found, but a few I still can't find. There are some good pics of some of the old sites in Google Earth, if you look around. If anyone wants links, let me know and I'll send out what I have.

I'm still in the Air Nat'l Guard as a Satcom/Wideband/Ground Radio tech (pretty much whatever they need me as at the time!!)... Headed to Iraq next year as a ground radio tech.

Just thought I'd chime in with what I know. It's kind of depressing that the old-school heavy tropo is all gone. The old Cold-War systems like the White Alice, Ace High, DEW Line, and of course the Med tropo seem to be ancient history nowadays. Sad.

Joe

Joe,

I know what you're saying. The AF put all its eggs in the SATCOM basket.... however, SATCOM has serious vulnerabilities:

1. It's easily jammed because the signals are very weak (analysis below).

2. Having no redundancy is a serious ops weakness.

3. The Russians and Chinese have been using high powered lasers to damage the solar arrays on birds, especially low Earth orbiters (LEOs).

That's why the Army and Marines are putting money to update their tropo/LOS systems.

To compare signal strengths let's look at a serious tropo link versus a geosynchronous SATCOM link.

Tropo will be a TRC-170 or TRC-97 (4.4-5 GHz) running 1 kW (+60 dBm) into a 20 foot dish, assuming 15 dB gain over a tropo path of 200 miles (322
km), making an assumption that propagation is fairly steady, and tropo return is 0.5% off troposphere.

SATCOM will be two cases: 1) 275 MHz, 10 W (+40 dBm) with 8 dB gain antenna on bird, geosynchronous orbit due south, 30 degree north latitude on Earth.

2) C-band (3.7-4.2 GHz) 25 W(+44 dBm), 20 dB gain antenna on bird, geosynchronous orbit due south, 30 degree north latitude on Earth.

In the case of the tropo:

Path loss (straight line) = 20*log((4*pi*D(meters))/wavelength(meters))
= 156 dB
Reduce by 99.5 % to account for main beam going into space and only 0.5% returning to Earth 23 dB more loss

So... +60 dBm + 15 dB (ant) - 156 dB (path loss) -23 dB (tropo loss) = -78 dBm

receive signal at the receive antenna (not including receive antenna gain. -78 dBm is 21 dB S/N ratio on a perfect receiver with 30 MHz bandwidth.

I'll put up the SATCOM analyses later... something just came up.

Here's the SATCOM analyses:

For 1) and 2) Path from a due south geosynchronous bird to 30 degrees North latitude is about 30531 km.

Path loss at 275 MHz will be:

20*log((4*pi*D(meters))/wavelength(meters))
= 20*log((4*pi*30531000/1.090154)
= 171 dB

Path loss at 3.7 GHz will be:

20*log((4*pi*D(meters))/wavelength(meters))
= 20*log((4*pi*30531000/.08102)
= 194 dB


So in case 1), the receive power reaching the antenna itself (not including receive antenna gain) will be:

+40 dBm +8 dB - 171 dB = -123 dBm

So in case 2), the receive power reaching the antenna itself (not including receive antenna gain) will be:

+44 dBm + 25 dB - 194 dB = -125 dBm

In case 1), a signal bandwidth will be less than 10 MHz, probably 5 Mhz or less.... so if a signal has 5 MHz bandwidth then the receiver noise floor will no better than -174 dBm/Hz +10log(5E6 Hz) = -107 dBm which will require a receive antenna with a minimum of 16 dB gain and in reality more to overcome receiver noise figure and required S/N ratio for demodulation.

In some cases, the receiver's bandwidth is less than 10 kHz so that the receiver noise floor is -174 dBm/Hz +10log(10E3 Hz) = -134 dBm so crossed dipoles might do at 275 MHz.

In case 2) where signal bandwidths can exceed 10 MHz, quite a bit of antenna gain is required, on the order of 27 dB or better.

quote:

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[i]Originally posted by Izzy351[/i]
[br]I was in Italy from 89-92, just before they shut down a number of sites. All the fixed site tropo is gone, as far as I know. I've been researching the old sites in Google Earth and marking them as I find them. I've gotten quite a bit of the old sites found, but a few I still can't find. There are some good pics of some of the old sites in Google Earth, if you look around. If anyone wants links, let me know and I'll send out what I have.

I'm still in the Air Nat'l Guard as a Satcom/Wideband/Ground Radio tech (pretty much whatever they need me as at the time!!)... Headed to Iraq next year as a ground radio tech.

Just thought I'd chime in with what I know. It's kind of depressing that the old-school heavy tropo is all gone. The old Cold-War systems like the White Alice, Ace High, DEW Line, and of course the Med tropo seem to be ancient history nowadays. Sad.

Joe

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Joe,

Which sites in Spain or Greece have you not found yet?? Menorca's (one of my old stomping grounds) is on high def on Google Earth, I can get you coordinates. The big island Majorca's site (Soller) is still on low def and is hard to find. Mt. Hortiatis ... that one's on low def.

Tom

quote:

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[i]Originally posted by Carnage_59[/i]
[br]Joe,

Which sites in Spain or Greece have you not found yet?? Menorca's (one of my old stomping grounds) is on high def on Google Earth, I can get you coordinates. The big island Majorca's site (Soller) is still on low def and is hard to find. Mt. Hortiatis ... that one's on low def.

Tom

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Hi Tom! Thanks for replying...

I thought I found the site at Soller here:
39.807234, 2.794111

+39° 48' 26.04", +2° 47' 38.80"

I just thought there was nothing left because they made room for other stuff. Is that not it? I haven't even looked for Horatiatis, I guess because I don't even remember that one. I knew there was something up there based on the old link maps I found, but I never looked for it.

I found a bunch that are obviously sites, either because the antennas are still there or the pads are. In Spain, I've found Inoges, Humosa, Guardamar, and Minorca. If you have any more, I'd love to see them. I found all but the Martina Franca site in Italy. I even found a few extras that are remnants of the Ace High tropo network.

In Greece I found Pateras, Levkas, and Edheri. In Turkey I found Yamanlar, Sahintepe, and Sinop. If you have more, let me know.

I can send you my GE .kmz file if you'd like to take a look at it. Some places aren't related to this, just places I wanted to mark, and others I just tagged to hold the general area where a site was. I have the DEB sites in Italy marked to the best of my ability, as well as some Army tropo sites I worked over the O/W or was familiar with.

I was actually stationed at Coltano, and spent some time up on a mountain when they needed some help with manning. If you know your sites, you'd know that was an Army site. Yes, I was in the Army back then, but worked mostly on Air Force links. Oddly enough, I got out and into the Air Guard and worked mostly on Army type SATCOM/Wideband equipment. Ironic.

Sorry for rambling -- been a long week at work and I haven't had my coffee yet...

Thanks for replying, and sorry for Hijacking -- I guess I should start my own thread. I actually found this site & thread searching for something else. I'll work on that this weekend possibly.

Oh, and here is a site with some pics I found in the same search. You may have seen them already, but I thought it would be of interest:
http://wrichey.photos.military.com/gallery/2422445#127006261

Joe

Hi Joe,

I've seen the pics on mil.com you've posted before. When I was at Menorca in 1979-1980, the tropo shot to Alicante was gone and so was the equipment. In the tropo area there was a big empty space where the Alicante equipment was.

I'm going to try to find some time to upload photos of Menorca, Spain, Mt. Hortiatis, Greece and Yiannitsa also in Greece.

I found out the site at Minorca now belongs to the provincial government at Ferreries. One of my old buddies from Minorca (who married one of the local women) got permission to go up the hill but not enter the site itself. The ironic part is that the provincial government has declared the site off limits, however, transients have repeatedly climbed the fence and done damage to the facilities. It's a shame the site's not been taken care of.

I'm trying to get permission to operate HF/VHF/UHF from the site using the amateur radio callsign EA6/WB9RXJ in June of 2008. There was no reciprocal licensing treaty until the very end of my tour there.

Anyhow, I'll keep you guys posted. If there's any amateur radio operators here... I'll let you know what days I'll be operating from Minorca. Even if the provincial government doesn't grant permission to operate from the site, I can still operate from the island under CEPT.

quote:

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[i]Originally posted by Carnage_59[/i]
[br]Hi Joe,

I've seen the pics on mil.com you've posted before. When I was at Menorca in 1979-1980, the tropo shot to Alicante was gone and so was the equipment. In the tropo area there was a big empty space where the Alicante equipment was.

I'm going to try to find some time to upload photos of Menorca, Spain, Mt. Hortiatis, Greece and Yiannitsa also in Greece.

I found out the site at Minorca now belongs to the provincial government at Ferreries. One of my old buddies from Minorca (who married one of the local women) got permission to go up the hill but not enter the site itself. The ironic part is that the provincial government has declared the site off limits, however, transients have repeatedly climbed the fence and done damage to the facilities. It's a shame the site's not been taken care of.

I'm trying to get permission to operate HF/VHF/UHF from the site using the amateur radio callsign EA6/WB9RXJ in June of 2008. There was no reciprocal licensing treaty until the very end of my tour there.

Anyhow, I'll keep you guys posted. If there's any amateur radio operators here... I'll let you know what days I'll be operating from Minorca. Even if the provincial government doesn't grant permission to operate from the site, I can still operate from the island under CEPT.

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Awesome!! Someone posted a pic from the Minorca site and linked to GE. I found it a couple weeks ago. You can see it here:
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/4558008.jpg

I'd love to see your pics, so whenever you get some time...

I'm an Amateur as well -- got licensed in '87 and have been pretty active over the last 15 years or so. My call is N3JI. Downside is that I'll be in Iraq in June of '08, but do keep me up to date with getting permission. I plan on bringing my stuff with me as well (IC-7000, tuner, small amp, dipole) -- it would be too cool to work you on Minorca with a YI call...

Joe. I noticed in a post of yours from December 20, 07 you had co-ordinates for the Yamanlar site in Turkey. Spent a few years up there in the mid sixtys. Would you share those numbers? I have tried to find the site on Google, but to no avial. Thanks in advance..Walt Mitchell

quote:

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[i]Originally posted by Izzy351[/i]
[br]

quote:

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[i]Originally posted by Carnage_59[/i]
[br]

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Hi Tom! Thanks for replying...

I thought I found the site at Soller here:
39.807234, 2.794111

+39° 48' 26.04", +2° 47' 38.80"

I just thought there was nothing left because they made room for other stuff. Is that not it? I haven't even looked for Horatiatis, I guess because I don't even remember that one. I knew there was something up there based on the old link maps I found, but I never looked for it.

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Joe,

That looks like Soller, and to confirm, according to Google Earth, it's on the highest point on Mallorca which also is a good indication.

I'll try to get you coordinates for some of the sites in Greece, but the outlying areas from Salonika (Thessaloniki) are in low-resolution.

Tom