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"Mystery" Antenna

B

Big 121

"Mystery" Antenna

Summer 0f '72, I was on a break-in ride on my new Yamaha, headed to Borrego Springs on county S-22 through Ranchita. Combo store-post office-gas
stop was it's center. Near the store, I noticed a familiar sight ,about 1/3 mile south. It was a fully guyed triangular tower, red & white, maybe 250' tall.
Stopping at a dirt road that led to it, I was amazed that it would be here, 3900' up in the high desert. I looked on for maybe 5 mins.; it was a private
road;and I did not want to crud up my new cycle riding to it. And in the 100+ heat I wasn't going to foot it. NO power lines going there, either.
Back in town, inquiries to local radio guys yielded nothing. Nothing noted in IRCA bulletins or Whites Radio log. Thinking it might be a long wave military
operation, I monitored the longwave band for a while. No luck.
That fall, with a ladyfriend , we motored to Borrego, and this time I was goin' down that road and see closeup,what I could. BIG surprise. It was GONE!
I still have no clue as to its purpose, or who put it there...
Big 121
 
Re: "Mystery" Antenna

Outside of the usual suspects (government, military, etc.), it could have been part of a movie set. Sometimes, getting permission to film radio towers is tricky, so it's possible this mystery tower could have been an elaborate filming prop.
 
Re: "Mystery" Antenna

Big 121 said:
Summer 0f '72, I was on a break-in ride on my new Yamaha, headed to Borrego Springs on county S-22 through Ranchita. Combo store-post office-gas
stop was it's center. Near the store, I noticed a familiar sight ,about 1/3 mile south. It was a fully guyed triangular tower, red & white, maybe 250' tall.
Stopping at a dirt road that led to it, I was amazed that it would be here, 3900' up in the high desert. I looked on for maybe 5 mins.; it was a private
road;and I did not want to crud up my new cycle riding to it. And in the 100+ heat I wasn't going to foot it. NO power lines going there, either.
Back in town, inquiries to local radio guys yielded nothing. Nothing noted in IRCA bulletins or Whites Radio log. Thinking it might be a long wave military
operation, I monitored the longwave band for a while. No luck.
That fall, with a ladyfriend , we motored to Borrego, and this time I was goin' down that road and see closeup,what I could. BIG surprise. It was GONE!
I still have no clue as to its purpose, or who put it there...
Big 121
Click to expand...

If it was an AM tower (and I'm guessing that was your interest, in that you were using the IRCA and White's as sources) was there a base insulator, insulators on the guys and a dog house? Or, did it have the alternative for AM of a unipole's outrigger wires offset from the tower and some form of shunt feeding?

Neither a DX club nor, particularly, White's, were journals of record at the time. And the Borrego Springs location would be bizarre for an AM, in that they could easily get near-salt-water-grounding and get off the mountainside by going a short distance to the east towards the Salton Sea. Or, at least, it could get lower and flatter and a moister, soil-based ground near Warner Springs; non-directional AMs tend to have a lot more leeway in site selection than FMs insofar as protection requirements go, so putting a tower in the worst possible place would sway me against thinking this had ever been an AM station.

If this was not an AM-looking tower, it might have been erected for some type of measurements, or have been in the process of decimmissioning as a microwave or communications tower when you first saw it... explaining the lack of power, lack of anything mounted on the tower at the time, etc.
 
Re: "Mystery" Antenna

Not getting close enough to see, the antenna base and lower area was obscured by the 4-8' brush, and the guys were insulated at std. intervals.
All the hallmarks of a std. AM tower. Was by there possibly 1 or 2 years earlier and it was not there.
A thought comes to mind- maybe it was used as a "radar target" for training purposes for the airbase pilots in El Centro.
Big 121
 
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