Those radios and multiplexers are newer than the 70's, look like last generation long lines form the 80's. However the farinon equip is from the old days, may not have been in use even at time of shut down. Those pressure transducers on the wall absolutely did maintain a certain pressure in the waveguide. The air was dehydrated before being pumped in, you want as little moisture as possible in the waveguide. The entire waveguide including the horn was pressurized. Have a look around other old sites for pictures of the earlier WE radios used to drive the horns, in the early days the equip was hybrid tube, technology progressed to solid state and beyond and it allowed for more signal bandwidth per path. Today microwave links are still used but the whole unit(transceiver) literally mounts on the tower/mast and the frequency is much higher than a few ghz like long lines was. Thanks for the look inside! Not many stations are untouched for the most part like this! Even spares and test equip still there!
This is good equipment built according to the old school. I remember the beginnings of mobile telephony in Poland, I operated SDH-1 radiolinks from NERA for low bands around 7GHz only we used flexible waveguides from Andrew company with ellipse cross section also with dehydration system. It was the end of the 90s then I also operated split PDH DMC Spectrum M, Spectrum1 and Spectrum 2 and XP4 radiolinks. Nowadays, where it is not possible to install fiber optics for various reasons, we build microwave links on 23GHz and E-Band on 80GHz. But I remember well those days and trips to the base station with a spectrum analyzer, power meter and frequency meter for inspection, check or repair. Back then you had to have engineering knowledge, now you just replace the ODU or IDU possibly a connector on the RG cable and that's all repairs.
I left Long Lines in 1971. Those days, they had Cross Bar. Step by step switching in the CO. You needed ear protection because of all the relays clicking. If memory serves me correctly, the wiring and equipment between each CO (central office) was called xro or xlr. I could be wrong. The Bell System was an efficient running machine. Everything under it was spelled out in the Bell System Practices book. I worked in the Windowless Wonder LD 7 in New York City. To keep the equipment clean, the building had no windows. There were lights telling you what the weather was outside. It was an amazing company to work for. A shout out to a buddy, Bob Cardillo. He taught me many things and was a fine Craftsman. Thanks Bob.
a friend worked in the glass tower building in Downtown Los Angeles from 1960 to 1990. when they were designing the arco towers . ATT/ITT told them. they would need several floors in their buildings to put in a repeater for the microwaves going to Santa monica.. so they did a redesign and moved the buildings farther apart by 11 feet so the microwave signal could go between the gap.. my friend worked the graveyard shift.. calibrated the frequencies all night long along with other techs across the country.
That Microwave is the Western Electric DR-90 or DR-135, I installed and maintained them in the 90's. There's alot of good old ger there. The test gear is interesting, Anritsu is good gear! The problem with radio is limited bandwidth. Fiber has so much more bandwidth. Thanks!
Unless torn down in the past 6 months, there is a microwave tower and windowless blockhouse like this next to state hwy 68 north of Wilmington Ohio. All surrounded by chain link fence and farmland. Never seen any vehicles people etc. driving by it weekly for decades. There is a road off the two lane hwy near to it called RAYCON. Unusual name there and I wondered if it was related. No sign of changes ever noticed for the decades I drove past. Now I have some idea what cool RF gear is inside, maybe.
I used to drive past that once or twice a month too, for a previous job, and wondered about it every time. Happy to hear it's still there, if nothing else.
Back when I was climbing towers for a living, I took several of these sites down. The techs would uncouple the waveguides at the building and the rest was in our wheelhouse. The best part was not only getting paid for taking the tower and gear down but all the copper was ours. We partied pretty hard on that copper money!
That's in beautiful shape, I hope a museum is able to take it when they finally decide to get rid of it! Especially with all the test equipment and spares, that's a very complete site and I'm just stunned that it's all still there.
There is still one of these long line towers still up. in Bowdin, Maine. The microwave part has been decommissioned but I believe the tower is used for cellular now. Its cool to see the original microwave antennas intact tho.
Back in the 70s I worked for a company that made those data cards. I have no idea who bought them or what they did. I just worked on the assembly line and brought carts of them to the wave-soldering gizmo. After that they went to an oven to bake and then to a freezer to chill, several days each. This was to weed out faulty units, which got tested afterwards. If they passed the test they went to final assembly for faceplates and handles, then to shipping.
I believe microwave is still used (not AT&T) to connect to remote areas where building fibre is not easy (mountains). I also heard that microwaves links can transmit data faster than fibre and that little bit faster response can be used to make stock trades more profitable.
You'd figure they'd remove the old equipment because they needed the space, rather than Retire In Place, but the newer technology equipment packs a lot more data carrying capacity into a much smaller space, so actually the equipment space needs in central offices and equipment shelters like this is getting SMALLER rather than larger., Central offices that were once three floors of a large building, absolutely jam packed with 70s era equipment, now do a lot more with just a small area on ONE floor carrying a few racks full of modern equipment.
If they pull it out, they have to dispose of it. I don't think I ever saw a old piece of telecom gear pulled out of any company I ever worked for. If there was old telecom end point equipment in a demarc closet, it didn't matter how old something was or how long it hadn't been used, if we ordered a new T1 or whatever, they would just mount a new box wherever they could and leave the old, unused cabinets mounted to the wall. Often the cards would still have power on them, even though they hadn't been used for years. The only time anything ever got removed was when I removed it. Given my experience, it's not surprising to see this facility full of gear. Probably the only reason they pulled the tower down was due to safety concerns of it collapsing due to age.
Reminds me of the equipment racks in an old Douglas DC-8 airplane, often referred to as the "radio shrine" as the doors had see-thru plexiglass framed in metal, as well and mostly located in the rear walls of the cockpit.
We had sites here in Ohio that were underground below the towers and were made to be bomb-proof, I was a fireman and so was trained on fighting a fire down in those underground AT&T towers and switch stations, I had an AT&T office that was 6 stories deep.
We had the same type of installation near my hometown in Iowa. Supposedly for the "real" reason longline existed: to provide communication in case of total nuclear war. I have heard this installation is now used as an emergency backup server farm for someone.
2 x T3 digital links 90Mbps typically over 30Mhz RF channel the wave guide size suggests 6Ghz band, Western Electric was changed to Lucent Technologies in 1994 so its mid to late 1980s tech
I always chuckle when I remember us dreaming of having access to a dedicated T1 and realize today that I have 2Gb connection for (inflation adjusted) likely less than what a dial-up connection cost at the time.
I live close to Dahlonega-1, which was one of the larger hub sites. The site is now owned by American Radio. I have no idea if any equipment is still in the building, but I'd really like to tour it. I've been meaning to call them to see if they'd let me go in next time someone is up there.
The Long Lines division was actually for voice and data transmission for the Department of Defense. It was one of the DoD's early warning, command and control communications systems for nuclear defense. It was used for civilian video, data, and voice when the DoD use was low.
This looks like a site out in Lake Co California. But then again a lot of these sites were very similar in construction. Love seeing these old LL sites and have been in a few that have been repurposed into Public Safety, Cell, LMR and WISP sites.
I retired two years ago 41 years in the CATV industry. I found this video interesting. I had to laugh when I saw the stains on the floor. I had a building like that.
It would be a hoot to get a a single link of that old system up and running. Alas, all what you se in there will end up in a landfill with no way to intercept any of it.
Fiber and coax can be broken or cut. This stuff could back it up in a serious crisis unless maintenance is considered too much for a faint possibility.
Your should ask if you can turn some of the transmitters into ham gear to work the SHF microwave frequencies up there lol. Imagine the output you could get from one of those microwave transmitters.
This is very interesting. It's amazing how things used to work and how technological changes have made them obsolete. A site like this could be repurposed for ham radio use, especially during emergencies, although it would be better if it still had the towers to mount antennas on.
I love old tech and think it should be preserved, but I can't help but wonder how many grams of gold are present on-site in inert card-edges and coaxial connectors. Not enough for Ma' Bell to care about, but I'm sure it's not insignificant.
Did these systems work with tropospheric scattering? I live in Spain, and around the 80-90's I saw several systems used to link an analog TV signal from Granada (coast) and Algeria, across the Mediterranean Sea. Powers up to 2 kW, and antenna gains of more than 45 dBi.
the power backup was due to some use for govt. agencies back in the day. Same for making them "hardened" from attack. Most modern communications does have some sort of backup power, but the length of operation during an outage is not always specified. My local cable company had backup for a week at one point but time and budget cuts have reduced that to a matter of hours.
@@abpsd73 yup, warning lights for aircraft fall under another category but consider what it takes to run a few bulbs / strobes versus the whole complex, including the radio gear and HVAC to keep building temps / humidity within range. There are also different rules for commercial broadcast versus emergency communications when it comes to staying on the air.
Microwave links replaced by coax? Seems less than practical. You would need a lot of amplifiers to get the miles in with coax. With many amplifiers comes reduced SNR and low performance. The goal was always to replace long coax runs with fibre, to improve the network .
It goes K carrier which was cable pairs, then L carrier which was coax (600 voice channel capable or 1 tv channel) then analog microwave radio TD2 then digital microwave DR6 then fiber optics. I worked K carrier thru early fiber optics.
@davidballard9534 yhea kinda what I thought. 1 TV channel, 6MHz? I worked CATV 50 Ch plus internet, 750MHz and you'd probably get half mile and then another amplifier.
I'm old enough to have used these long line services. I recall the noisy channels and the latency between myself and the other party. I knew enough about the variations between channels to hang up and call the party back if it got too noisy or the latency got bad. I bet the phone company sported plenty of complaints back then because people were paying for long distance services. I recall having to shout into the transmitter of the phone on occasion too. Good riddance to these dinosaurs, as far as I am concerned.
You know what happens. Contractors come to demolish. All that gear ends up in dumpsters. Makes dumpster diving a fairly respectable pursuit in some places.
Problem is, he didn't know what he's looking at. Mostly, he waves his camera over it and refers to it as "a bunch of stuff". The empty coffee jar gets as much attention as the operational units, and more than some. I maintained these systems for 6 years, then designed sites and links for another 35. I started drooling as I watched the video, and I'm recovering slowly. I dearly wish there was a way to join him, and re-do the video with a lot more detail info on what the boxes are there to do.
![KRK - ชนิสรา Ft.WanMai , N/A [Official MV] Prod. By Sakarin](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/C-WMwwYobcU/mqdefault.jpg)
Those radios and multiplexers are newer than the 70's, look like last generation long lines form the 80's. However the farinon equip is from the old days, may not have been in use even at time of shut down. Those pressure transducers on the wall absolutely did maintain a certain pressure in the waveguide. The air was dehydrated before being pumped in, you want as little moisture as possible in the waveguide. The entire waveguide including the horn was pressurized. Have a look around other old sites for pictures of the earlier WE radios used to drive the horns, in the early days the equip was hybrid tube, technology progressed to solid state and beyond and it allowed for more signal bandwidth per path. Today microwave links are still used but the whole unit(transceiver) literally mounts on the tower/mast and the frequency is much higher than a few ghz like long lines was. Thanks for the look inside! Not many stations are untouched for the most part like this! Even spares and test equip still there!
Found some references to DR6-135 radios via a Google search, showing some sites had those installed in 1988 and were decommissioned in 1999.
Based only upon the style and colors of the equipment, I was guessing 80's as well.
The Folgers was definitely ‘80s. All my relatives had a jar like that!
Time 103
Dave, stop, don't do that
Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
This is good equipment built according to the old school. I remember the beginnings of mobile telephony in Poland, I operated SDH-1 radiolinks from NERA for low bands around 7GHz only we used flexible waveguides from Andrew company with ellipse cross section also with dehydration system. It was the end of the 90s then I also operated split PDH DMC Spectrum M, Spectrum1 and Spectrum 2 and XP4 radiolinks. Nowadays, where it is not possible to install fiber optics for various reasons, we build microwave links on 23GHz and E-Band on 80GHz. But I remember well those days and trips to the base station with a spectrum analyzer, power meter and frequency meter for inspection, check or repair. Back then you had to have engineering knowledge, now you just replace the ODU or IDU possibly a connector on the RG cable and that's all repairs.
I left Long Lines in 1971. Those days, they had Cross Bar. Step by step switching in the CO. You needed ear protection because of all the relays clicking. If memory serves me correctly, the wiring and equipment between each CO (central office) was called xro or xlr. I could be wrong. The Bell System was an efficient running machine. Everything under it was spelled out in the Bell System Practices book. I worked in the Windowless Wonder LD 7 in New York City. To keep the equipment clean, the building had no windows. There were lights telling you what the weather was outside. It was an amazing company to work for. A shout out to a buddy, Bob Cardillo. He taught me many things and was a fine Craftsman. Thanks Bob.
The design language, the fonts, the buttons, the dials. Oh my, the golden age of industrial design 😍
a friend worked in the glass tower building in Downtown Los Angeles from 1960 to 1990. when they were designing the arco towers . ATT/ITT told them. they would need several floors in their buildings to put in a repeater for the microwaves going to Santa monica.. so they did a redesign and moved the buildings farther apart by 11 feet so the microwave signal could go between the gap.. my friend worked the graveyard shift.. calibrated the frequencies all night long along with other techs across the country.
That Microwave is the Western Electric DR-90 or DR-135, I installed and maintained them in the 90's. There's alot of good old ger there. The test gear is interesting, Anritsu is good gear! The problem with radio is limited bandwidth. Fiber has so much more bandwidth. Thanks!
True. But the RF bandwidth works with significantly less trench. 8-).
Since microwaves are bio-toxic, it's probably good they were an interim solution.
Unless torn down in the past 6 months, there is a microwave tower and windowless blockhouse like this next to state hwy 68 north of Wilmington Ohio. All surrounded by chain link fence and farmland. Never seen any vehicles people etc. driving by it weekly for decades. There is a road off the two lane hwy near to it called RAYCON. Unusual name there and I wondered if it was related. No sign of changes ever noticed for the decades I drove past. Now I have some idea what cool RF gear is inside, maybe.
I used to drive past that once or twice a month too, for a previous job, and wondered about it every time. Happy to hear it's still there, if nothing else.
Back when I was climbing towers for a living, I took several of these sites down. The techs would uncouple the waveguides at the building and the rest was in our wheelhouse. The best part was not only getting paid for taking the tower and gear down but all the copper was ours. We partied pretty hard on that copper money!
I used to drive by one of these sites in Gardena, California, off Artesia Blvd in the 70's- 80's. Always wondered what it was for.
That's in beautiful shape, I hope a museum is able to take it when they finally decide to get rid of it! Especially with all the test equipment and spares, that's a very complete site and I'm just stunned that it's all still there.
There is still one of these long line towers still up. in Bowdin, Maine. The microwave part has been decommissioned but I believe the tower is used for cellular now. Its cool to see the original microwave antennas intact tho.
Curious Mark would love to get his hands on this setup.
The blackest of black arts in analog equipment
Donate some of this equipment to the Connections Museum!
Back in the 70s I worked for a company that made those data cards. I have no idea who bought them or what they did. I just worked on the assembly line and brought carts of them to the wave-soldering gizmo. After that they went to an oven to bake and then to a freezer to chill, several days each. This was to weed out faulty units, which got tested afterwards. If they passed the test they went to final assembly for faceplates and handles, then to shipping.
I believe microwave is still used (not AT&T) to connect to remote areas where building fibre is not easy (mountains). I also heard that microwaves links can transmit data faster than fibre and that little bit faster response can be used to make stock trades more profitable.
You'd figure they'd remove the old equipment because they needed the space, rather than Retire In Place, but the newer technology equipment packs a lot more data carrying capacity into a much smaller space, so actually the equipment space needs in central offices and equipment shelters like this is getting SMALLER rather than larger., Central offices that were once three floors of a large building, absolutely jam packed with 70s era equipment, now do a lot more with just a small area on ONE floor carrying a few racks full of modern equipment.
If they pull it out, they have to dispose of it. I don't think I ever saw a old piece of telecom gear pulled out of any company I ever worked for. If there was old telecom end point equipment in a demarc closet, it didn't matter how old something was or how long it hadn't been used, if we ordered a new T1 or whatever, they would just mount a new box wherever they could and leave the old, unused cabinets mounted to the wall. Often the cards would still have power on them, even though they hadn't been used for years. The only time anything ever got removed was when I removed it. Given my experience, it's not surprising to see this facility full of gear. Probably the only reason they pulled the tower down was due to safety concerns of it collapsing due to age.
Reminds me of the equipment racks in an old Douglas DC-8 airplane, often referred to as the "radio shrine" as the doors had see-thru plexiglass framed in metal, as well and mostly located in the rear walls of the cockpit.
We had sites here in Ohio that were underground below the towers and were made to be bomb-proof, I was a fireman and so was trained on fighting a fire down in those underground AT&T towers and switch stations, I had an AT&T office that was 6 stories deep.
We had the same type of installation near my hometown in Iowa. Supposedly for the "real" reason longline existed: to provide communication in case of total nuclear war. I have heard this installation is now used as an emergency backup server farm for someone.
Probably gates or the like for their terror servers:(
2 x T3 digital links 90Mbps typically over 30Mhz RF channel the wave guide size suggests 6Ghz band, Western Electric was changed to Lucent Technologies in 1994 so its mid to late 1980s tech
I always chuckle when I remember us dreaming of having access to a dedicated T1 and realize today that I have 2Gb connection for (inflation adjusted) likely less than what a dial-up connection cost at the time.
Around here we have some towers (some with the horns still on them) but the equipment is mostly gone. Cool to see what was on those racks!
I live close to Dahlonega-1, which was one of the larger hub sites. The site is now owned by American Radio. I have no idea if any equipment is still in the building, but I'd really like to tour it. I've been meaning to call them to see if they'd let me go in next time someone is up there.
I know a guy who got one of those dryers at a surplus auction. He uses it for his spray guns in an automotive paint booth.
The Long Lines division was actually for voice and data transmission for the Department of Defense. It was one of the DoD's early warning, command and control communications systems for nuclear defense. It was used for civilian video, data, and voice when the DoD use was low.
AT&T Long Lines was responsible for ALL long distance transmission, not just defense. It carried network television signals also before satellites.
That test equipment can still be used to test the microwave systems that are used today.
We called the towers bird cookers.
This looks like a site out in Lake Co California. But then again a lot of these sites were very similar in construction. Love seeing these old LL sites and have been in a few that have been repurposed into Public Safety, Cell, LMR and WISP sites.
I retired two years ago 41 years in the CATV industry. I found this video interesting. I had to laugh when I saw the stains on the floor. I had a building like that.
It would be a hoot to get a a single link of that old system up and running. Alas, all what you se in there will end up in a landfill with no way to intercept any of it.
Ive also heard it called AIP'ed. Abandonded in place.
Fiber and coax can be broken or cut. This stuff could back it up in a serious crisis unless maintenance is considered too much for a faint possibility.
And microwave can be easily jammed or damaged by high power intrusion.
great video love the old building I see a lot good parts for projects and repair !
Your should ask if you can turn some of the transmitters into ham gear to work the SHF microwave frequencies up there lol. Imagine the output you could get from one of those microwave transmitters.
That would be cool. Some of the older sites that were sold off have become repeater sites for 2m/70cm
Thanks for the peek at the old gear. I bet you could fire those bad boys up and load the wave guides with a lot of grease and popcorn and...
This is very interesting. It's amazing how things used to work and how technological changes have made them obsolete. A site like this could be repurposed for ham radio use, especially during emergencies, although it would be better if it still had the towers to mount antennas on.
Would be interesting to snap-shot the cost of all the gear, at moment in time of gear purchase. Is that bunker a billion-dollar concern?
Wow! Im so glad you gave us this tour! More more more!!!
@2:03 "Heavens to Mercoid!"
That's the back of a flux capacitor at 5:50
very neat - Thanks for showing us
Love to get ahold of that stuff as a Hamradio operator this is my dream place I love . Thiers nothing wrong with that scope thier the best you can get
I love old tech and think it should be preserved, but I can't help but wonder how many grams of gold are present on-site in inert card-edges and coaxial connectors. Not enough for Ma' Bell to care about, but I'm sure it's not insignificant.
Did these systems work with tropospheric scattering? I live in Spain, and around the 80-90's I saw several systems used to link an analog TV signal from Granada (coast) and Algeria, across the Mediterranean Sea. Powers up to 2 kW, and antenna gains of more than 45 dBi.
AT&T Long Lines was C-band point to point microwave links. Troposcatter systems had significantly longer range and also less throughput.
Very Cool for being a retired Telecom Engineer Thanks
Do you have a video of inside of those antenna’s/cones?
8 liter 6 cylinder multifuel ARMY deuce Engine is that gen
This stuff had to be 100% self-powered by federal law back then if the power grid was down as I was told. Is that still true for cell service nowadays
the power backup was due to some use for govt. agencies back in the day. Same for making them "hardened" from attack. Most modern communications does have some sort of backup power, but the length of operation during an outage is not always specified. My local cable company had backup for a week at one point but time and budget cuts have reduced that to a matter of hours.
There is probably some FAA requirement as well for sites with towers that the obstruction lighting has to have a backup power source.
@@abpsd73 yup, warning lights for aircraft fall under another category but consider what it takes to run a few bulbs / strobes versus the whole complex, including the radio gear and HVAC to keep building temps / humidity within range. There are also different rules for commercial broadcast versus emergency communications when it comes to staying on the air.
Time 103
Dave, stop, don't do that
Daisy, Daisy,
Give me your answer, do!
Wondering what it's used for now... everything still powered up... looks like an excellent radio repeater site!
Might be shocked at the amount of outdated equipment left on just out of fear that turning it off will break something.
Probably houses the fiber equipment. It still needs maintenance so something is important in there.
Scowell ... Yeah but all the antennas are gone from this one, as well as anything to hang new ones on.
K2KQU
fun fact about the long line air dryers, they
Microwave links replaced by coax? Seems less than practical. You would need a lot of amplifiers to get the miles in with coax. With many amplifiers comes reduced SNR and low performance. The goal was always to replace long coax runs with fibre, to improve the network .
It goes K carrier which was cable pairs, then L carrier which was coax (600 voice channel capable or 1 tv channel) then analog microwave radio TD2 then digital microwave DR6 then fiber optics. I worked K carrier thru early fiber optics.
@davidballard9534 yhea kinda what I thought. 1 TV channel, 6MHz? I worked CATV 50 Ch plus internet, 750MHz and you'd probably get half mile and then another amplifier.
Cool stuff, You own this place now?
What a gold mine
Wpuścić chama do biura to atrament wypije.
Isn't this more like 80s stuff?
This particular site was upgraded. It was built in the 60s.
Nitrogen?
En caso de ataque nuclear esto interconecta silos submarinos y bombarderos para una respuesta al enemigo, Rusia puntualmente
I'm old enough to have used these long line services. I recall the noisy channels and the latency between myself and the other party. I knew enough about the variations between channels to hang up and call the party back if it got too noisy or the latency got bad. I bet the phone company sported plenty of complaints back then because people were paying for long distance services. I recall having to shout into the transmitter of the phone on occasion too. Good riddance to these dinosaurs, as far as I am concerned.
Really cool
Old day "5G internet" :)
Some of that high powered microwave stuff needs to wind up in the hands of styropyro
It's not very high powered though, 5-10 watts only. The extremely high gain directional antennas made using high power transmitters unnecessary.
Cool.
Marvelous technical insight from a seasoned RF engineer.
Do you have ANY clue his much precious metals are sitting in those electronics? Id pay $10k for everything in that room all day long
dont destroy history man
You know what happens. Contractors come to demolish. All that gear ends up in dumpsters. Makes dumpster diving a fairly respectable pursuit in some places.
Goldbugs are the worst for historical or retro equipment.
CPU's ground up and test equipment cards cut up to get the hard gold contacts.
You may want to brush up on the subject before making a video about it.
why? he walked around and showed us what he saw. Its not an educational video. There are plenty of those videos.
@ he didn’t know what he was showing, just making it up as he went along.
Problem is, he didn't know what he's looking at. Mostly, he waves his camera over it and refers to it as "a bunch of stuff".
The empty coffee jar gets as much attention as the operational units, and more than some.
I maintained these systems for 6 years, then designed sites and links for another 35. I started drooling as I watched the video, and I'm recovering slowly. I dearly wish there was a way to join him, and re-do the video with a lot more detail info on what the boxes are there to do.
My dog smells like Fritos.
does this site have an electric toilet?
for fun, they routed one power rf output into the guest toilet. it cauterizes the orifice. no need to p**p again.
No, but it may have an electric chair. 😂
I maintained a site in Woodside, CA in the early '70s. It had a burner potty but smelled so bad, they just put a porta-potty outside. Great memories.
Lol, no the regular toilet was removed now a Porta potty that spiders live in is all that's left.
@@wwsoapbox6921where in Woodside was it located?