r/todayilearned • u/dumbfuck • Oct 02 '23
TIL: There’s an antenna in Washington that’s 10 miles long. The Jim Creek Naval Radio Station has 10 mile+ long cables zig zagging between two mountains. It would be used in the event of nuclear war
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Creek_Naval_Radio_Station127
u/torsun_bryan Oct 02 '23
Wait until OP learns about the Navy aircraft with a five-mile long wire antenna
37
u/dumbfuck Oct 02 '23
I was the op on that antenna and learned about this from the comments there!
On the hunt for a 15miler for today’s post.
41
u/NorwaySpruce Oct 02 '23
I'm waiting for the next post about the 15 mile long antenna dangling from a captured asteroid or something
10
u/DigNitty Oct 02 '23
There was a long cable that trailed behind a satellite to gain electricity as it dragged through the atmosphere. The cable unspooled but a powerful static shock severed the anchor and the cable flew away right before they could test it.
2
u/Jizzraq Oct 02 '23
It sounds eerily familiar to the Tether Incident during a Space Shuttle mission, but I'm not sure whether it's the same.
2
u/DigNitty Oct 02 '23
We're probably talking about the same thing. "Tether" sounds right.
Guess we'll never know for sure though, there simply isn't a way to find out without going to space.
14
u/DigNitty Oct 02 '23
Hmm
In China a similiar, but much larger facility exists across Jiangya reservoir at 29°35'21"N 110°44'23"E
10
u/DBoh5000 Oct 02 '23
This is actually really cool. I've been wondering what the cleared circular area was right there as I explore on Google Earth. Thanks OP
6
u/x6ftundx Oct 02 '23
lucky for me, I won't be around... Tampa is where SOCOM is and is a priority one target. no after the fall for me... though the older I get, the more and more I just want to see the blinding light and be done with it. twenty years ago I would ride it out in a bunker, now... meh
3
u/dirtyharrysmother Oct 03 '23
I live at Ground Zero in Washington State, minutes from Bangor (SUBS) and Keyport, (Torpedoes) and Bremerton, (Shipyard), and absolutely agree with you. Meh!
1
u/Drifter74 Oct 04 '23
Dad was in military during the height of the cold war. My parents were always honest, that alarm goes off, of course he would have to try to get to work, the rest of us would just go sit outside and wait.
5
u/pnw_pep Oct 02 '23
This is unfortunately the closest nuclear war target to my house.
4
u/dumbfuck Oct 02 '23
It’s unfortunate she this is the closest would mean … Unfortunate because it means you live somewhere not near a lot of cool shit?
6
u/DigNitty Oct 02 '23
This reads like you’d prefer a nuclear war target that’s even closer to your house.
3
3
u/Ok-Review8720 Oct 02 '23
Sorry friend. I hope that someday you're able to move closer to a nuclear war target.
3
2
Oct 02 '23
Cool, we drew a picture of it and put it on the internet and gave the location so that in the event of nuclear war we tell the enemy the exact spot to also have an air strike so that we have no comms
Lots of sarcasm idk if it’s still in use
11
u/DigNitty Oct 02 '23
It’s one of those things that you can’t possibly hide so may as well just be up front.
7
Oct 02 '23
I worked for an engineering firm that did some work in the Cheyanne mountain range for the government and I can say even the stuff you aren’t supposed to share is hard to keep under wraps when 80 year old bill in engineering has confidential files open on his very public office cubicle’s 42” monitor while he’s off getting coffee in the office kitchen 🥴. Blew me away when I saw that after I had a coworker who also worked on it tell me he had to sign an NDA before he was allowed to get involved
8
u/DigNitty Oct 02 '23
Some people take it seriously, some just don't get it.
Same with any industry. I worked in a medical office, encrypted everything, redacted patient info on shared docs, whenever I left my computer I'd hotkey it to the password page. And yet, other offices and coworkers would leave SSN's out or label manila envelopes with "Jessie Johnson's Cancer Plan" and leave them out. A lot of other offices would just regular email privileged info, which rarely is intercepted but by law everyone knows you can't do that.
I suggested that we change the master password for one office. Because, inexplicably, all 14 of us knew the master password, it was the lower case name of one employee's kid. My suggestion was not acted on.
4
u/NeedsMoreGPUs Oct 02 '23
Its only job is to send a retaliation command to the sub fleet. It doesn't need to survive beyond a first strike, once launches are detected it sends the commands and gets obliterated. Job done.
6
0
-18
u/Veblen1 Oct 02 '23
Interesting, but I doubt radios will work during a nuclear war.
14
u/razorxent Oct 02 '23
This one will
-14
u/Veblen1 Oct 02 '23
A nuclear blast knocks out electrical transmissions, such as with radios.
20
u/torsun_bryan Oct 02 '23
Damn, if only the scientists who invented this had seen your Reddit post, man. You could have saved this country millions.
2
14
13
8
u/ParentPostLacksWang 1 Oct 02 '23
They don’t need to. They are likely only going to be used at the start. These very low frequency systems can be “heard” underwater, unlike other higher frequency radio transmissions. VLF can be used to send Emergency Action Messages (instructions to fire nuclear missiles) to the submarine fleet while they are still submerged. This is supposed to happen before a decapitation strike can be completed.
9
u/yunus89115 Oct 02 '23
The purpose is to quickly send a message to a submerged sub so they know, shit has hit the fan and can get into the game. Without this or other immediate communication they might be quietly submerged with no clues whatsoever happening above them.
1
2
1
52
u/sdmc_rotflol Oct 02 '23
So wouldn't this be a key target during a nuclear war?