UTTR/Hill AFB/? Tethered Blimp Sites

originally posted by: gariac
Ｉ haven't been out to Wendover for a while, so I don't know the balloon project, but the Google balloons are very high. They are UFO sighting
generators. Tethered balloons are called aerostats.
Aerostat

There are two "blimp" facilities, one here:
40°53'15.68"N, 113° 8'57.87"W
and one here:
40°57'14.17"N, 113° 8'46.38"W

And checking the latest GE imagery, you can see the two blimps!
#1: 40°53'14.41"N, 113° 8'23.37"W
#2: 40°57'16.89"N, 113° 8'11.37"W

This is the third year/trip in a row I have seen these blimps flying.
Or as gariac points out, Aerostat's.
en.wikipedia.org...
The ones here in Utah I am referring to aren't listed in the above links, however I did find the following link:
www.deseretnews.com...

This trip, only one was flying, the north one. I spent the night in my holiday trailer at a nearby rest stop (40°45'19.96"N, 113° 1'6.84"W). When I sat down to drink my morning coffee, and looked out the window, I see what I thought at first was someone with video gear on tripod's. But after a second look, I realized those weren't camera's, but feedhorns. And a whole lot of gear in this shelter on a picnic table. Although I wasn't able to photograph that, when they saw I was taking pictures they put up this tarp to block my view. They were either transmitting or receiving RF to/from the tethered Aerostat, which is about 15 miles away.

Gear:

Tarp:

I made the trip in as far as I could to observe the base of the southern Aerostat:

These dudes showed up, and kept watching me until I decided I better take off...

originally posted by: FosterVS
When I sat down to drink my morning coffee, and looked out the window, I see what I thought at first was someone with video gear on tripod's. But after a second look, I realized those weren't camera's, but feedhorns.

looks like radio amateurs, you should have gone over and had a chat.

Doing something like this

originally posted by: hellobruce
looks like radio amateurs, you should have gone over and had a chat.

Mmmmm, I don't think so.
Unless radio amateurs drive a rig like this:

I have to assume when these aerostats are used in real life, they raise them a bit higher. That is, we just see them parked, I assume. Otherwise it seems like a lot of infrastructure for not much altitude.

A horn is a low gain microwave device. You use it if you don't want to do precise aiming. You need a little height to avoid Fresnel zones (silent H, but a Canadian for sure would know that).
Fresnel zone

So you can get the sense of what they are doing, namely communicating or painting a distant object with RF. Why they are doing it from a very public space is a good question. It could be just to see what the public can see. [Think of the poor schmuck at the DoD who has to review every Groom Lake photograph taking by civilians to determine if the base is maintaining OPSEC. In the case of these Aerostats, perhaps no amateur has published what they learned about them, so they hire some dudes to pretend to be yahoos.]

originally posted by: gariac
I have to assume when these aerostats are used in real life, they raise them a bit higher. That is, we just see them parked, I assume. Otherwise it seems like a lot of infrastructure for not much altitude.

A horn is a low gain microwave device. You use it if you don't want to do precise aiming. You need a little height to avoid Fresnel zones (silent H, but a Canadian for sure would know that).
Fresnel zone

Not only is that H silent, but invisible too

So you can get the sense of what they are doing, namely communicating or painting a distant object with RF. Why they are doing it from a very public space is a good question. It could be just to see what the public can see. [Think of the poor schmuck at the DoD who has to review every Groom Lake photograph taking by civilians to determine if the base is maintaining OPSEC. In the case of these Aerostats, perhaps no amateur has published what they learned about them, so they hire some dudes to pretend to be yahoos.]

Other than a cable coming out the back of those feedhorns, there seems to be little else. So I am thinking receiving. However, my experience is limited to the days of 3.7-4.2GHz satellite TV i.e. BIG dishes. (Like the 10m Scientific Atlanta I had to assemble)

I do wonder why a rest stop though. They were running everything off a generator, so it's not like they needed a power hookup. This rest stop is almost exactly 15 miles away from where this Aerostat is tethered though, perhaps this distance is relevant.

a reply to: FosterVS

Probably not the case here, but sometimes to do stuff on BLM land, you need a permit to er um eh make use of facilities. If your event is big, they don't want a lot of latrine holes to be dug. I've seen military exercises where the camo was carefully done, and they have a portapotty sticking out like a sore thumb. So the public rest stop means you get to use a bathroom without paperwork hassles.

There is a popular rest stop by Edwards AFB used by plane spotters. But now I wonder if it is worth the occasional drive through to see if the base uses it.
35° 0'24.51"N 117°43'7.47"W is a waypoint straddling both sides, but obviously the base would use the southern rest stop. The Boeing dreamliner did plenty of orbits near there.

I just noticed the shadows of those blimps. They are at some significant altitude.
40°57'33.99"N 113° 8'45.82"W
40°53'34.04"N 113° 8'55.94"W

If you go back in time, you can see them tethered to the tower.