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76 points reaperducer | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
1. JKCalhoun ◴[] No.44566890[source]
Got to play around on a White Alice (?) station near Homer, Alaska maybe 40 years ago or so. It was an abandoned station on Ohlson Mountain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohlson_Mountain_Air_Force_Stat...).

There was a huge dish pointing straight up. A friend and I walked around on the dish. There was a very small compartment more or less where the elevation axis was. The slightly creepy feeling I might get stuck in it kept me from going in but my friend did.

Another large structure was likely a transmitter. A large surface with a grid of smaller antennas covering one side.

Most cool to me though were the rooms with 6 foot high panels with all manner of analog meters, switches, lights.... Nothing worked of course, most everything was smashed. I wish now that I had brought some tools and removed as many of the components as I could.

My overall impression was a kind of wonderment that so much money and effort would be expended by the U.S. government to watch for Soviet aircraft/missiles. So much equipment built, foundations poured, cinder blocks stacked...

And then I suppose sophisticated satellites made it all obsolete.

replies(1): >>44569246 #
2. esseph ◴[] No.44569246[source]
Just so you know, that site was finally really covered over the past 5 years or so (haven't lived over there in a bit). Truckloads of gravel. I wish they would have made it a museum and taken care of it instead of just letting it rot!