| THE 1950s + USAF SAC & EAM COMMUNICATIONS DURING THE EARLY COLD WAR - AT A TIME BEFORE THE ADVENT OF COMMUNICATION SATELLITES - HF GIANT TALK & SKY KING + NOAH'S ARC & AIRBORNE UHF RADIO REPEATERS |
| BY: AARON GEORGE BAILEY - WA5HRC - FEB. 1, 2011 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COLLECTIVELY, THE CONTENT HEREIN IS BASED UPON MY RESEARCH OF UNCLASSIFIED WWW SOURCES AND ARTICLES FROM HOBBY RADIO MAGAZINES, AND LASTLY, MY BOYHOOD MEMORIES OF, INADVERTENTLY, TUNING-IN THE POWERFUL "SKY KING" BROADCASTS ON MY SHORTWAVE RADIO. AT THE TIME, I DIDN'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT "SKY KING" WAS ABOUT. BUT "SKY KING" REMAINS ETCHED IN MY MIND FOREVER BECAUSE I HEARD IT SO MANY TIMES, WAY BACK THEN. HOWEVER, NOW, AFTER MANY YEARS, A CLEARER PICTURE HAS EMERGED IN BITS AND PIECES. NOTE- MOSTLY A CONVERSATION PIECE, THIS SUMMARY HAS SOME GUESSWORK AND NO DOUBT IT CONTAINS ERRORS. THEREFORE, IT IS NOT MEANT TO BE USED AS A REFERENCE. BECAUSE OF THE SIMPLE EXAMINATION HEREIN, I DO NOT SEE THIS WORK AS A COMPROMISE OF ANYTHING SECRET. IT IS ONLY MY CURIOUS INTEREST IN A SUBJECT, THE PRESENT DAY DETAILS OF WHICH, IS FAR BEYOND, IN FACT LIGHT-YEARS BEYOND, THE DEPTH AND SCOPE THAT IS PRESENTED WITHIN THIS WEB PAGE. AT A TIME BEFORE COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITES, THIS IS ABOUT THE STATE-OF-THE-ART TECHNOLOGY AND CAPABILITY THAT WAS. MY DISCUSSION HERE IS A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS, NOT A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS INVOLVING FREQUENCIES, THE NAMES, NUMBERS AND POSITIONING OF ASSETS, ETC. SINCERELY, IN MY GUT, I AM UNCOMFORTABLE ABOUT WRITING ON THIS SUBJECT. BE ADVISED - I'M A PROUD AMERICAN, RED, WHITE AND BLUE TO THE CORE AND I HAVE NO SINISTER INTENTIONS! MY FOCUS HERE IS ABOUT HISTORY AND MY LOVE OF RADIO COMMUNICATIONS AND AVIATION, AS IT WAS BACK THEN. |
| ABOVE - B-47 WITH SAC LOGO - ON DISPLAY AT LITTLE ROCK AIR FORCE BASE - JACKSONVILLE, ARKANSAS |
| First off, a brief review of the Cold War, the special chemistry of that time, as we need to put ourselves in a 1950s frame of mind. On October 4th, 1957, Russia shocked the World when it blasted Sputnik-1 into Earth orbit as the first artificial satellite. Sputnik represents the climax of Cold War tension during the late 1950s. For almost a decade, bitter Cold War rivals, American and Russia had stood toe to toe, both armed with nuclear bombs and both locked in an ideological life or death struggle. Up until this time, America was thought to be the High-Tech leader of the world but the Russian Sputnik demonstrated a powerful rocket and satellite capability which America didn't have. With bruised pride, America felt outclassed by a nation of peasants. In the Fall of 1957, fear spread throughout the USA, because the powerful Sputnik rocket could hurl A-bombs right into the heart of America. Under the leadership of the shoe pounding and fist waving Nikita Khrushchev, Communist Russia could now spring a surprise attack on America with its new satellite launcher, turned nuclear tipped ICBM. Feeling helpless, Americans gazed up at Sputnik(s) gliding across the twilight sky as several times each day they invaded U.S. Airspace. "Now the Americans sleep under a Russian moon," boasted Premier Khrushchev. But the collective, nagging question was, "Are these Sputniks a prototype for a fleet of nuclear armed satellites," which on command could rain down a deadly barrage of atomic bombs on U.S. Cities? Americans went about their daily routine under the circling Sputniks, mindful of the future threat of sneak attack from killer satellites. The Sputniks clearly demonstrated that America was behind Russia in heavy lift rocketry. Suddenly a two time loser, in a "Missile Gap," and the new frontier "Space Race," America needed some time to catch up and win! All through the 1950s, American's only defense against Soviet Russia, was the offensive might of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) under the capable leadership of General Curtis E. LeMay.- (A) Flying against the mighty Luftwaffe, rough and tough, sailor talking, cigar-chomping LeMay, personally led several B-17 bombing raids over Germany in WWII. He earned the nicknames "Old Iron Pants" & "Bombs Away" LeMay.(A) General LeMay ordered SAC to hone its state of readiness with war games and by repeatedly firing off practice alerts. For his Airman, everyday would be like going to war. That's the way he trained them, for the security of American, as General LeMay was the right man for the job, at the right time in history. LeMay tweaked the U.S. war plan to perfection. Armed with nuclear bombs, part of the SAC Bomber force was kept in the air at all times, on station, patrolling near Russia. So if war started, they were only a couple hours from their assigned targets. The advantage of patrolling near Russia gave the U.S. President a quick strike retaliatory option. Instant Command and Control of this powerful strike force was critical. U.S. Presidents had the technical means to send “ATTACK” or “RECALL” orders by using a global network of powerful HF radio stations called “Giant Talk”. The On-Alert B-36, B-47 and B-52 Bombers were all tuned to the Giant Talk radio net at all times. --- NOTE- SEE "DR. STRANGELOVE" MY FAVORITE COLD WAR & SAC BOMBER MOVIE ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ As a boy, I had a very modest 4 tube shortwave radio that didn't pull in many stations. But the Giant Talk Stations, scattered around the World, ran a blistering amount of power and I always heard them, loud and clear, when they broadcast a "Sky King",, "Emergency Action Message" (EAM). The 1950s was the Golden Age of Shortwave Radio as the bands were alive with all kinds of signals from different services and the Sky King transmissions always stood out among the strongest. Sky King was the group callsign for the SAC Bombers in the air, or attack force, and most of the time they remained radio silent so as not to reveal their position or their numbers. At a time before communication satellites, the USAF relied heavily on shortwave (HF) radio links with its aircraft. Giant Talk transmitted frequent test transmissions to verify a good radio circuit with the SAC Bombers. A typical EAM would go like this-"Sky King, Sky King, do not answer, standby". This outward call would be repeated several times and then the body of the message would follow, heavily encrypted, and slowly read out phonetically, ALPHA,,,BRAVO,,,ROMEO,,,FOXTROT,,,ECHO,,, in random 5 letter groups, like, "ABRFE GINBE KZEON QEEMV,,,,etc". The whole message would be repeated at least two times and transmitted on a number of frequencies. EAM broadcasts often had an eerie echo sound, perhaps due to simultaneous transmissions from more than one ground station. EAM transmissions are thought to contain, "ATTACK-GO -to War" or "RECALL-NO GO -to War" orders, OR, other critical Command and Control Directives. Now, to the downside of this communications scheme. For Command and Control purposes, the HF Giant Talk radio network, used by SAC, couldn't have been Failsafe 100% of the time. Firstly, it was vulnerable to interference from other stations, especially the loud roaring sound blasted out from powerful Russian Jamming Stations that roamed the bands during that era. But most importunately, Giant Talk operated in the Shortwave range of frequencies, 3 to 30 megacycles, which by nature, is susceptible to radio wave interruption by bad atmospherics related to disturbances in the ionosphere. The ionosphere is a layer of ionized particles, high in the atmosphere, that acts like a reflector to shortwave frequencies. Fluid in nature, the density and reflectivity of the ionosphere is effected by a number of factors, like solar activity, time of day, and time of year. With good radio conditions, the ionosphere reflects shortwaves back down to Earth very efficiently, causing them to repeatedly "SKIP" along, and propagate over long distances, making worldwide communications possible. Only shortwaves have this unique SKIP property. Whereas other frequency bands like VHF and UHF tend to travel straight, line-of-sight, and they normally pass right through the ionosphere making them ideal for space communications. While VHF & UHF radio signals don't follow the curvature of Earth, they are very stable and reliable when the transmitting antenna has a clear line-of-sight to the receiving antenna. For this reason, aircraft at high altitude can talk over hundreds of miles to ground control stations or even further still, to other aircraft at altitude. In fact, for stable and reliable voice communication, Civilian aircraft use VHF, and Military aircraft mainly use UHF and sometimes VHF. So clearly, to overcome the fickle nature of shortwaves, SAC must have had another communications scheme based on UHF, in order to augment HF Giant Talk. But what could it have been at a time before communications satellites were even thought possible? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- REFERENCE - "A Brief History of LRAFB" within this web page, paragraph two, where I write a few lines about the B-47 that exploded over Little Rock on March 31, 1960. While reading the official Air Force report on this accident, one sentence caught my eye, ",,,the copilot had been concentrated on receiving 'Noah's Arc' (radio) traffic." For the benefit of the reader, I wanted to add a footnote about what Noah's Arc was. A Google search led me to a 47 page PDF document by the 307th Bomb Wing (a History). On page 12 of this document I found a revealing three lines which speaks volumes about the nature of Noah's Arc radio traffic. It reads, " In 1962, six of the wing’s B-47s were modified into EB-47s. They were dubbed “Pipe Cleaner” aircraft and their mission was to act as an airborne UHF radio relay platform for promulgation of the emergency action (Noah's Arc) messages." So it seems, Noah's Arc was the UHF counterpart to the HF Giant Talk. Expanding on the above statement further, my guess is - In effect, special aircraft were fitted with powerful UHF radio repeaters and they would fly at high altitude, and / or, possibly orbit in circles at a predetermined position. On station, and functioning much like communications satellites do today, they would relay UHF radio signals at great distances, back and forth, between ground stations and distant aircraft that were around the curvature of Earth. This communication scheme, utilizing aircraft as radio relays, enables the normally line-of-sight UHF or VHF radio signals to be used much like long distance shortwave, but with added reliability. With a number of such airborne relays, in theory, a UHF/VHF radio signal could be sent around the world OR to different points of the globe. I leave the rest of the story to the imagination of the reader. |
(A) Silent Key - Curtis E. LeMay -Nov. 15,1906 to Oct. 1,1990 - "LeMay was an active amateur radio (HAM)
operator and held a succession of call signs; K0GRL, K4FRA, and W6EZV. He held these calls respectively
while stationed at Offutt AFB, Washington, D.C. and when he retired in California. K0GRL is still the call sign
of the Strategic Air Command Memorial Amateur Radio Club. He was famous for being on the air on amateur
bands while flying on board SAC bombers. LeMay became aware that the new single sideband (SSB)
technology offered a big advantage over Amplitude Modulation (AM) for SAC aircraft operating long distances
from their bases. In conjunction with Art Collins (W0CXX) of Collins Radio, he established SSB as the radio
standard for SAC bombers in 1957." -This Text Quoted from "Curtis LeMay -Wikipedia.org"
operator and held a succession of call signs; K0GRL, K4FRA, and W6EZV. He held these calls respectively
while stationed at Offutt AFB, Washington, D.C. and when he retired in California. K0GRL is still the call sign
of the Strategic Air Command Memorial Amateur Radio Club. He was famous for being on the air on amateur
bands while flying on board SAC bombers. LeMay became aware that the new single sideband (SSB)
technology offered a big advantage over Amplitude Modulation (AM) for SAC aircraft operating long distances
from their bases. In conjunction with Art Collins (W0CXX) of Collins Radio, he established SSB as the radio
standard for SAC bombers in 1957." -This Text Quoted from "Curtis LeMay -Wikipedia.org"
