Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/05/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]On May 10, 2007, at 5:09 PM, Ken wrote: > On May 9, 2007, at 9:34 PM, Charlie Meyer wrote: > >> It's like "CT" acres, with a last tour at Sugar Grove to jump from. > > Wonder how many folks know what that means. :-) > > Ken Sugar Grove is an American government communications site located in Pendleton County, West Virginia 38.514997? N 79.28421? W operated by the National Security Agency. According to a December 25, 2005 article in the New York Times, the site intercepts all international communications entering the Eastern United States. The site was first developed by the Naval Research Laboratory in the early 1960s as the site of a 600ft radio telescope that would probe outer space, but the project was halted in 1962 before the telescope construction was completed. The site was then developed as a radio receiving station. The site was activated as Naval Radio Station Sugar Grove on May 10, 1969, and two Wullenweber Circulary Disposed Antenna Arrays (CDAAs) were completed on November 8, 1969. Numerous other antennas, dishes, domes, and other facilities were constructed in the following years. Some of the more significant radio telescopes on site are a 60ft dish (oldest telescope on site), a 105ft dish featuring a special wave-guide receiver and a 150ft dish (largest telescope on site). Though the CDAAs were decommissioned in the 1990s, the site is still active, and photographs taken between 2000 and 2004 show significant construction on the site. The site is part of the ECHELON communications network operated by the United States and its allies to intercept and process electronic telecommunications. The network operates many sites around the world including Menwith Hill in the United Kingdom and Yakima, Washington. Sugar Grove is located in an officially designated National Radio Quiet Zone that covers 13,000 square miles in West Virginia and Virginia. The zone was established by Congress in 1958 to facilitate its mission and that of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory located 30 miles away at Green Bank in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Thanks to Wikipedia, nothing can be kept secret any more. Now everyone on the Lug knows. Next question: What floats in the secret code pond in the CIA headquarters courtyard in Langley? No - it isn't Jimmy Hoffa's body. Larry Z