Hey! What is this picture...

[Arrow]

Can any one of you guys tell me...

If it is what I think it is..

It'sa piece of a puzzle I have been putting together for a long time...

David had it posted in the gallery...It's at Tan Son Nhut

[blues clues]

looks like a toc.
razz

[Stick]

Sis it looks to me like it?s a "commo (communications) bunker." From the size of the dishes on it it's probably at least for a command if not a STRATCOM (Strategic Communications Command), which is worldwide. A lot of the communications recieved in these bunkers was encripted and classified. Those communications were either distributed at the camp where they were recieved or taken by a classified courier to an LZ, where a helicopter was requested and assigned. Only the courier knew where the chopper was going and he told the pilot where to go to once they were airborn.

[Boats]

High security head?

[Seascamp]

Looks to be very specific uni-directional microwave antennia. I'm surprised to see them so low but if they had a fixed and specific higher elevation target antenna, that would work. The long wire antenna masts in the background strongly suggest that the place is a comm station of fairly high importance. It's not that often that such tall masts were seen and its possible they were de-da-dit CW crypto TX/RX setups. Another possibility is that the disk antennia are what the Navy called TACAN (Tactical Air Navagation) and an aircraft would "ride the beam" to get on home. But the low level installation is a bit of a question as to why. Navy wise, we put all that stuff up as high as we could.

Sgt. Tropo could probably identify the rig by AN/ part number

Scamp

[Arrow]

Thanks guys....the long wire antenna mast caught my eye and felt pretty certain that it was microwave on top...but like Scamp wasn't sure because they were so low...what John and Scamp described coincides exactly with whatI know which wasn't much given the security classification he had...

This stuff is important to me...

I'm going to pass the pic on to a Signal Corp Officer I know...

And maybe Sgt Tropo will come up on the radar screen as I know he is familiar with the equipment..

Most of all thank you David for all you do.

[Seascamp]

Some techie stuff for ya. At the time of the VN war, long-range transmission was via lower frequency band CW (Constant Wave) and the modulation was via on-off crypto Morse code ( I call that de-da-dit). This lower band stuff had the advantage of following the curvature of the earth but had the disadvantage of requiring a mighty tall transmission mast. So them tall masts tell a tale and if there was a security clearance involved, it?s a safe bet it was a crypto clearance and crypto clearance guys virtually signed their life away if they ever said didly about anything and I mean anything.

Navy wise it was obviously impractical to put such a tall mast on a ship so our CW transmission tended to be higher frequency and shorter range but we could raise our Fleet Type Command when needed and any ships in our task force so we were good, no problem.

Scamp

[Arrow]

Scamp...

It was crypto...

And I appreciate any and all info you all can map out in regard to equipment etc.

And your right...they don't talk...

given the great communication we had between us..it is remarkable how loyal he was to that code...and remarkable given my curious nature I never ever went there in conversation...we were 18 and 19 year old kids when he started his training...

Unlike so many others that were not suited for the jobs they were put in...

They got it right with him...

He loved the work...

[Seascamp]

My role in the Navy was ship?s eyes and ears so anything I can tell you about the crypto side of things would be by association, not by direct participation. That being said, I would make sure transmissions got out and reception came in. All the crypto coding and decoding equipment in the middle was a black box to me. The rate symbol for a Navy Crypto guy was a lighting bolt crossed with a quill, the receiver /transmit key operators had a rate symbol of multiple lightning bolts and that?s about the extent of my knowledge of the internal operation. But assuming the Army was not so dissimilar from the Navy the generic receiver set was the URC-32 and as soon as that was functional and patched into crypto, I was out of the picture. Same with the transmit side but
there were different transmitter sets that could be patched in depending on what was being sent where. I couldn?t even go into the compartment where the coding decoding equipment was as I would probably be shot by one of them Detachment Marines guarding the place. They had a bad reputation of being trigger-happy and over zealous so that was a good place to stand clear of, which I did, boy howdy.

To pass the PO1 exam, I had to know commo gear and well as radar and ECM gear (my real specialty) so I got involved in the commo side by default, not by design. But anyway, by inspection, a person could fairly well tell what was going on. One of the usual long wire mast configurations was called a half wavelength dipole and the visible mast length is equal to one half the light speed length of the transmit frequency. So the longer the mast the lower the frequency and in military speak, the more likely there was a worldwide link playing out and one can bet that that was mostly coded traffic coming and going. By comparison, a microwave dish would also have a direct relationship with the light speed length of the transmit frequency. So, by looking at the pic you can clearly see the equipment in the foreground was way high frequency as compared to the operating frequency of the masts. Microwave has the disadvantage of being line of sight so wouldn?t be all that useful for over the horizon commo. I assume the microwave side may have had a crypto black box room in the mix somewhere, but probably not at every relay station, as that would not have been practical and very risky.

I can see why a qualified person would enjoy crypto work as they were in a class all their own. But on the other hand, that world is not for everyone as the responsibilities are very high, personal risks are high and ya can?t say anything about anything to anybody.

Scamp

[Arrow]

Scamp...

Thank you brother for taking the time and I will copy what you have told me to disk and keep it for my children...

You don't know it but you said for him what he would never say concerning reponsibility andrisk. And addeda piece of his history to my heart and to my family that we would not have had otherwise. Thank you brother from my heart....Sis