For those who may interested in visiting the Titan Missile Museum and/or learning more about the museum and ham radio operations there, here are a few links that may interest you:
http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/ http://gvarc.us/GVARCFrames/Titan/Discone/Discone.htm http://www.wa0itp.com/titandiscone.html http://www.qsl.net/wb5dyg/html/Titan.htm 73, Tony K4QE On Sun, Jul 28, 2013 at 12:41 AM, Frederick Wagner <fhwagn...@sbcglobal.net>wrote: > The article and discussion about W3CRA's wonderful results reminded me of > my tour of duty as a > > Missile Combat Crew Commander at Davis-Monthan AFB near Tucson. My primary > site, now destroyed, > was about 500 feet above the valley floor for headings about 300 through > 345 - and the antenna was a > > military Collins Discone over a military grade radial field, and the > discone could be fed at the base as a folded cage monopole - > > that monopole was about 60 feet tall and the cage was at least 45 feet in > diameter. > My 'free' time to operate was mainly at night, and I'd take my Century-21 > transceiver to the site, and run some RG-58 from > > my commander's console down to where I could tie into the antenna > switching relay (our site rarely had to use HF for > communications). On 80 CW, at night, on that antenna, in the late 1970's, > working up into WA, BC, AK, JA and on to the rest of Asia > was like calling down a quiet hallway. The only Titan II site left in > Tucson is 571-6 down in the valley next to I-19, > > preserved as the Titan Missile Museum, and visiting hams can tie into the > discone - but it sits next to a mountain of mine tailings, > with none of the takeoff angle advantages that the site across the valley > and up the hill had. > If anyone wants to see the location, follow the two lane road East out of > Green Valley AZ up to the mouth of Madera Canyon. > Near the mountain, you'll see some faded Orange Fiberglass globes on the > HV powerlines. We periodically had military Helicopters > visiting the site, and those balls were so the helos would know where the > site, and the powerlines were. > My callsign in those days was W7HSS - I occasionally operated from other > sites west of the copper mines, but the best results > were always from my home site, 571-5 > > Fred Wagner > KQ6Q (ex W7HSS, W5QDL, K(N)6VVD > _________________ > Topband Reflector > _________________ Topband Reflector