Shortwave stations

[Gary's Ice Cream]

The Rt 2 site was discussed on one of the ham radio forums I belong to
recently.  As I recall the site was privately owned by an individual who
used them for reasons he did not want to disclose.  Some sort of
experimentation.  I  remember that in the 70's the land was empty except for
the towers.  Today it is like a forest and I believe someone said that the
towers are all still there.

Gary


-----Original Message-----
From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
[mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On Behalf Of
Jim Hall
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 12:38 PM
To: 'Dan.Strassberg'; boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org
Subject: RE: Shortwave stations

The towers in Andover sound the same. I am pretty sure there were curtains
between some towers there too. I think the building they were behind was a
Textron plant, so military is very likely. This was right at the corner of
Rte 125 and Ballardvale Street. Interestingly, the Google map of the area
now shows a Hanscom Federal Credit Union branch on the site where the towers
were. In looking at the Lincoln Labs web site, their original charter was to
build an air defense system against Soviet bombers. The web site talks about
"24 direction centers" which I am thinking might mean "direction-finding"
centers. So it's possible that both sites were related to this. With no
further threat of Soviet bombers, both sites would have been dismantled.

-----Original Message-----
From: Dan.Strassberg [mailto:dan.strassberg@att.net] 
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 11:56 AM
To: Jim Hall; boston-radio-interest@lists.bostonradio.org
Subject: Re: Shortwave stations

There was an area south of Route 2, west of Concord Prison, and east
of 495 that, maybe 10 years ago, contained a large number (never tried
to count but my guess is more than 15) guy supported towers that, I
imagine were in the neighborhood of 200' high. I don't think they were
illuminated, so that probably means they were a bit less than 200'.
There did not seem to be any discernible pattern to the layout of the
towers and I can't remember whether there were cables that ran from
the tops of some towers to the tops of others. ISTR that there were
cables and there may have been wires dropped from the cables--forming
"curtains" of a sort. I do not recall receiving interference to radio
reception (most likely, I was tuned to AM) as I drove past. I always
wondered what these towers were. Given that MIT Lincoln Lab is in
Lexington, not far from Hanscom Field and not all that far from the
site of these towers, I wonder whether the towers were related to
Lincoln Lab or the (just now closed down) military research facility
at Hanscom. I once had a vague idea of the sort of work that research
facility performed, but I can no longer recall.

-----
Dan Strassberg (dan.strassberg@att.net)
eFax 1-707-215-6367

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jim Hall" <aerie.ma@comcast.net>
To: <boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org>
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2011 11:06 AM
Subject: RE: Shortwave stations


> Speaking of old shortwave stations, when I was a kid, my
> orthodontist moved
> to Andover and I had to see him there. I remember that we would exit
> from
> I-93 at the Rte 125 exit. Right at the end of the ramp from 93,
> there was a
> building with a huge antenna array behind it. I would guess there
> were 25 or
> more towers with wires strung between them. I have always wondered
> what that
> was.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org
> [mailto:boston-radio-interest-bounces@tsornin.BostonRadio.org] On
> Behalf Of
> Linc Reed-Nickerson
> Sent: Sunday, June 26, 2011 6:43 PM
> To: boston-radio-interest@lists.BostonRadio.org
> Subject: Re: Shortwave stations
>
> Beverage antenna near Newburyport.
>
> I know of the huge beverage antenna near Houlton, Maine for AT&T,
> but
> until the mid 1960's there was a beverage antenna just west of
> Newburyport, MA.  When I was drafted in 1965 it was still there,
> when I
> came back from Vietnam in 1967 it was gone, anybody know what it was
> used for?
>
> Linc
>