Navy to Shut Down Sub Radio Transmitters

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS via NY Times ^ | September 26, 2004 | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[68skylark]

WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) -- With terrorism the new global threat, a network of radio antennas that let the Navy maintain secure communications with submarines at sea has become yet another Cold War relic.

On Thursday, the Navy will shut off its extremely low frequency (ELF) radio transmitters in northern Wisconsin and Michigan, saying the 15-year-old system, first proposed in the 1960s, is outdated and no longer needed. The Navy now will use 12 ``very low frequency'' transmitters located worldwide.

For years, peace activists and environmentalists targeted the two huge transmitters in the Chequamegon National Forest near Clam Lake and in Upper Michigan's Escanaba State Forest. Each transmitter consists of an antenna strung on 600 40-foot poles across dozens of miles of forest.

Critics contended that the system was for use during a first-strike nuclear attack, and that the radio waves could cause health and environmental problems. Demonstrations led to hundreds of arrests, some for trespassing onto the site and sawing down poles.

Steven Davis, spokesman for the Navy's Space and Navy Warfare Systems Command in San Diego, said the Navy spent about $25 million on research and studies into public and environmental safety and found no problems.

But Sen. Russ Feingold, who has wanted to shut down ELF since 1993, said the Navy had a ``bunker mentality'' in trying to pretend the facility had a purpose.

``I do think the war on terror had something to do with this,'' Feingold said. ``I think people are finally realizing we need to equip our military and everything we do toward the real threats.''

Davis said closing ELF comes after a ``re-evaluation'' of the Navy's priorities.

``Even as recently as three years ago, the world has changed considerably,'' he said.

The Navy spent $13 million a year to run both ELF transmitters, Davis said. He said the government has not yet determined the cost of dismantling the sites, which could take up to three years.

Some residents said they were concerned about the loss of jobs. Each site has one Navy worker and 27 civilian contractors, according to Davis.

``It is definitely going to hurt the economy,'' said Roger Anderson, co-owner of Deb's Y-Go-By, a bar, grill and bait shop in Clam Lake, a quiet tourist wayside about 40 miles from Lake Superior.

``Eventually, we knew this was going to be obsolete. It is just coming a little sooner than we thought,'' Anderson said. ``Maybe they need the money for the Iraq war or the war on terrorism.''

The Navy began using the $400 million system in 1989. The project was nearly killed in the late 1970s but was revived by President Reagan in his plan to modernize strategic defenses.

The project was scaled down considerably from the original 1960s plan, which included a grid of 6,200 miles of buried cable and 100 transmitters that would withstand a nuclear war.

Jerry Holter, 74, who lives about a mile from the Wisconsin transmitter, said he believes Project ELF served its purpose.

``It was a great deterrent to nuclear war against the United States. When we were in the Cold War, the Russians knew that if they hit us we could hit back twice as bad,'' he said. ``So it kept them in tow. Without the system, we were left out in the cold. We needed ELF.''

[Doohickey]

When considering the utility of this system to an operational submarine, keep in mind that wavelength is also inversely proportional to frequency. To receive an ELF signal, the receiving station has to deploy an antenna of sufficient length to receive the signal, steer a course nearly perpendicular to the transmitting station, and keep the antenna nearly level because the signal is horizontally polarized.

[Nowhere Man]

In was an open secret that ELF was designed to send nuclear launch orders to Ballistic Missile submarines. As you note, it penetrates the ocean whereas other radio waves don't. It wasn't the only method that the Tridents had of getting "the word." But I agree that we should keep ELF, for the redundency.

I remember reading about that in the Brookings Institute book, "Managing Nuclear Operations" (1987) about the longwave ELF systems. I know there are also planes that carry ELF gear too, the TACAMO (TAke Charge And Move Out) planes, usually C-130's although at the local airshow in Pittsburgh, the Navy did bring in a 707 that did the same thing. I was aboard it too, saw all the radio gear, you can "broadcast from DC to light" at 500,000 watts. Hmmm, a flying AM radio station, would be cool. B-) I remember the crew told me that plane was part of the communication network in the Cuban Missile Crisis too.

I also know a C-17 pilot who came here for the airshow, sat in the C-17's pilot's seat for 20 minutes, I played with the plane's radio, tuned in the Pirate's baseball game on AM and searched the 10 meter amateur radio band. If I could, I would have loved to fire up 10 meters and see who I can talk to. B-) I also copied frequencies from the VHF/UHF radio into my handheld radio scanner. I remember when he was 9 or 10, I was 18 at the time, gave him a copy of the F-15 "Strike Eagle" game for the Apple ][ computer, I like to say that maybe I had some influence on his career path. B-)

[Nowhere Man]

You've got a technical 'salad' of terms there that isn't very clear; a) they are phasing out the ELF system in favor of b) a VLF system with 12 different transmitting sites.

I've got to believe that the information 'data rate' will go up with the new system compared to the old system at ELF ...

Heh, I know, I drive people crazy with all those terms. B-) Will the new VLF sites be distributed all over the world? I remember a similar pan was used for the Omega navigation system, I think that's shut down now where they had 8 stations, 6 primary and 2 backup spaced around the world. IIRC, I think we had one in the Dakotas, another one was in India, and so on. I think they were on ELF in the 9 to 14 kc range.

Are you an amateur radio operator too? I'm KA3WRW. B-) BTW, I have some old QST's from 1963/64 that had an ad for a longwave radio where you can pick up Civil Defense and submarine communications too.

[Nowhere Man]

Yup, GWEN's gone - no more modem-sounding data bursts to compete with the hobby beacons within the 'license free' band of 160 - 190 KHz band ...

I remember those hissing data bursts, some nights they were active, you could hear the various nodes "talking" to each other. I know the predicessor to FEMA (Defense Civil Preparedness Agency) had a broadcast station, WGU-20, on 179 kc and planned to have a series of longwave stations around the country to broadcast info to the public during and after a nuclear attack.

There is morei nfo about it here: WGU-20 - http://www.conelrad.com/perki.html

Needless to say, it didn't fly too well, unlike Europe where they use that part of the longwave band for broadcast, longwave here was the curiousity of die-hard radio enthusiasts.