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AN/FPS-24 Radar Tower, Mt (cdn.masto.host)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/photography@fedia.io
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AN/FPS-24 Radar Tower, Mt. Umunhum, Los Gatos, CA, 2024.All the pixels, but no incoming enemy attack, at flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/53#photography

A large monolith-like building, with vents but no windows, atop the summit of a mountain.
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[–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (9 children)

This is a stitched imaged made from two shifted side-by-side captures with the Rodenstock 70mm/5.6 HR-Digaron-W lens and a Phase One IQ4-150 digital back (@ ISO 50) on a Cambo WRS 1250 camera, shifted left/right +/- 15mm, producing a 230MP final image.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (8 children)

    From 1958 through 1980, this incongruous four story (82 foot) monolith was the centerpiece of the "Almaden Air Force Station", a long-range radar site that was part of NORAD's SAGE early warning system. The blast-hardened concrete building served as the platform for an FPS-24 radar system, a massive 120 foot wide reflector that emitted a 5 megawatt VHF pulse, continuously rotating at 5 RPM.Notoriously, the powerful radar signal disrupted TV and radio reception throughout the San Jose area.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    @mattblaze I'm sure I've mentioned it in response to a past post, but not only did it interfere with TV and radio in the local area, it created noise on the intercom system up at SLAC in Menlo Park.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (4 children)

    It's unclear if the SAGE system would have actually been effective in tracking incoming bombers, which presumably would have employed radar jammers and other countermeasures. Fortunately, we never found out.The huge rotating antenna (not shown) was removed shortly after the site's decommissioning in 1980, but the building, a prominent local landmark visible from downtown San Jose, has been preserved.

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  • [–] [S] 1 point 11 months ago (3 children)

    I have mixed feelings about these cold war relics. On the one hand, they're artifacts of what was perhaps humanity's most dangerous folly to date, locking the world in a deadly game where the stakes only went up with each round. This doesn't seem like something to commemorate or celebrate.On the other hand, these objects, many now destroyed or decayed, serve as visible evidence of just how close to oblivion we are willing to go. And looked at from the right angle, they have stories to tell.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    @mattblaze when I lived Florida, I would often drive by a house with a bomb shelter in the front lawn. I don't know if it's still there, but I get chills thinking that we were so close to nuclear war that a lot of people thought home bomb shelters were a good idea.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    @mattblaze I love the fact that you are interested in the facts and history. :)I never would've guessed what that was. The parts of NORAD that I've come across in Canada are the domed radar towers. This one was part of the Barrington Air Station, operational in 1957, decommissioned in 1990, and this remaining part is now a Canadian Coastal Radar site. We went here to see the lighthouse and as fog lifted, were rather surprised to see it dwarfed by the radar station.

    Looking across a field of low vegetation to see a huge building that is a tall rectangle with a dome on top standing to the right of a white lighthouse, which looks insignificant in comparison. It's a bright day, but fog is still enshrouding the top of the domed building.

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