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You Folks Seen this Panoramic of Area 51 Before?

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posted on Jan, 16 2011 @ 03:18 PM
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i liked it



posted on Jan, 16 2011 @ 09:58 PM
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Don't forget that the RCS range at Groom Lake isn't just for test articles mounted on pylons. It is also an airborne RCS range for aircraft flying overhead. Every F-117A had to have its RCS verified using the Dynamic Coherent Measurement System (DYCOMS) at Groom Lake, as did all other U.S. stealth aircraft.



posted on Jan, 16 2011 @ 11:18 PM
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reply to post by Shadowhawk
 


I think they use the Hanscom plane for in-flight RCS. N105TB. I'm going to try to track down the model numbers of that type of large dish. Prior to shutting down the Blue Cube, they first shut down a remote facility in Dublin Ca. They ended up giving the facility to the University of California. Hey, who couldn't use a big dish. There should be a public document on the types of dishes and how fast they slew. It would also be nice to know what gear the old Beatty facility had.

Dublin NRO dishes

This is the panorama I shot of Helendale RCS in October.
Helendale RCS
Horizontal dishes on a frame.

I can't get confirmation on this, but I'm told Groom checks IR signature from a mountain top location. I assume this is the Papoose facility.



posted on Jan, 16 2011 @ 11:37 PM
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Wow!

That is a fantastic pic, my sparrow feathered friend! lol

Thanks a lot for posting it!



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 12:48 AM
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I see two dishes at the radar site. One looks like it rotates. The other dish is probably for relaying the data to another site.

Beatty NASA radar site

The site has been leveled. The concrete pads are still there, but that's it.



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 01:06 AM
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reply to post by gariac
 


Looks like the weather radar used at Air force bases I have been to in the past. Im pretty sure its doppler radar your loking at they send out microwave bursts or pulses. Due to microwaves they park straight up when not in use.



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 03:56 AM
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reply to post by dragonridr
 


AN/MPS-25

AN/MPS-36

WF-100

I put a few radar links here. All these radars are listed as DOE inventory at the TTR. The weather radar isn't a match, but the tracking radar might be a match.

I need to track down some photos of Pillar Point, which has tracking radar.

So maybe these large dishes are not for RCS but tracking test aircraft. The only problem with that theory is the dishes always seem to point to the south east, which doesn't cover much of the Nellis range. I don't recall any photos of the dishes pointing to the north or west.



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 04:39 AM
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that base is huge. I never realised it was so big. and those satelites look suss, but most base's have dishes that big these days (the wonders of modern technology), havent seen it before, but thats a very nice image. nice find ('
')



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 05:26 PM
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dycoms

I googled dynamic RCS and found this paper. It explains a bit of how dynamic RCS works without getting too technical. It looks as if those two dish could be used for dynamic RCS, but I suspect they weren't used for the static RCS.

Dynamic RCS from the ground looks tricky. You are trying to track an object designed not to be tracked. There are ways around this. You can make the plane slightly dirty, use a beacon, or provide location data in the telemetry stream.

The paper also goes into why they do dynamic RCS in the first place. The plane may flex a bit in flight, and this would not be caught on the ground The engine effects the RCS, i.e. the spinning blades could be seen. Lastly, there is the exhaust plume. I suppose it could be seen with radar.

I don't see ground based dynamic RCS easy to do with the plane flying over the base. That would require significant slewing for the radar. That would imply the planes fly in a line roughly perpendicular to the runway. I can't see them doing this to the south, unless they want to fly top secret aircraft over Tikaboo. I guess they could do this to the north, though we never see the dishes pointed in that direction. However note that the Dycoms is located in a part of the base not blocked by the mountain immediately to the north.

I can also see why if you have a decent budget, something like the N104TB aircraft makes a lot of sense. You need a chase plane anyway, so why not set it up with some RCS capability.



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 05:30 PM
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OP- great pic-thanks for sharing!

ATS field trip,anyone?



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 07:02 PM
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reply to post by Skippy1138
 


You need to wait until May before photographing the base Generally there is snow on Tikaboo though March and often April. You may not see it from Tikaboo Valley, but you will encounter snow on the trail. There is a slight risk of avalanche. I don't think the snow gets that high. However, the hike is difficult with snow on the ground. Actually, it is difficult without snow on the ground.

The sun angle isn't the greatest until late May if you want the old A-12 hangars illuminated. However, the later you wait, the greater the chance of encountering lightning. That is why most shots from Tikaboo are done in either May or September, but not mid year. As it happened to turn out, I got good weather in July 2010, but lightning interrupted my shoot two days after the other photographer. In the summer, you need so much water that I prefer to make two trips. One to drop off the water and tent, then the second trip carrying the photographic gear. It was on the second trip that the lightning storm approached.

Accuweather does a decent job predicting the chance of lightning. I now check it before doing the hike. For the hike I did in July 2010, it predicted a moderate chance of lightning two days after my hike. There were only a few thunderbolts, but the prediction was impressive. FWIW, every lightning storm I've watched go over Tikaboo has approached from the west.

The Nevada Test Site, (now N2S2), carefully monitors lightning over the region with a network of magnetometers. There is even real time monitoring, though the hardware was down all last year.
sord lightning

You can see one of the sensors on this page:
back gate



posted on Jan, 17 2011 @ 07:04 PM
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Originally posted by _BoneZ_
reply to post by sparrowstail
 


Very cool image. Notice the massive satellite dishes pointed straight up into space at the far-right of the image? I wonder what those monstrosities are communicating with up there.


Satellites pointing out to space? Weird. Most Satellites are pointed in the ground. Good job eagle eye!



posted on Jan, 29 2011 @ 11:56 PM
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reply to post by _BoneZ_
 




Here is a quick google image search for televsion satelite ground stations.
Notice how large they are too?

www.google.com...

Notice how some also point straight up?

Maybe the satelites in orbit that they are linked to, are directly above them(in orbit)?

Maybe the large dishes on the ground are able to move, ie point at different angels?
Maybe they communicate and link with multiple satelites?

I really don't see what you are trying to get at with "what ever they must be communicating with in space".



posted on Feb, 15 2012 @ 06:38 PM
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The radio scope satelite dish facility located in Dublin, CA is still there and operational. I always thought it belonged to SETI. Its located on GOV/FED land. I was advised by the city of Dublin and Camp Parks that the dishes belongs to the USAF, however no other information could be given. You cannot see the dishes from Google earth, etc. What do you think they are being used for?? If they are using the Radio Freq. Spectrum, they must have something on file with the FCC, you would think....It would be interesting to research if the GOV has leased (or sold) the dishes to an outside (commercial) agency....



posted on Feb, 15 2012 @ 07:39 PM
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on the left they are doing a LOT of digging and mining!
I wounder why both?

they seem to be sorting the soil out?
why do that? some thing funny?

and on the right, just behind the sat dish.
some kind of tower?
I wunder if it gifes out enegy?
or just some new type of radar.



posted on Feb, 16 2012 @ 01:55 AM
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reply to post by dmac1
 


I heard the Dublin dishes and land was gifted to UC Berkeley. I am reasonably sure the USAF doesn't use them since the Blue Cube is shut down as well. That is, the Dublin facility was somehow related to the Blue Cube.

The Blue Cube is unique enough that people wanted to photograph it. This of course pissed off the operations. One day a Sunnyvale HS photography class made a project of photographing the Blue Cube, and the base called the cops. I can't find the news article on line unfortunately.

This is the latest redevelopment plan for the base.
sunnyvale.ca.gov...
They allocated $2million just to tear down the Blue Cube, due to it's unique construction. I'd love to have one of those vault doors they used to enter the secure rooms.



posted on Feb, 16 2012 @ 02:07 AM
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reply to post by buddha
 


The soils engineers do core samples and pits, and make a determination which soil to keep and what to off-haul. So sorting out the dirt isn't all that unusual. It is just engineering. I'm not 100% sure Groom off-hauls the unwanted dirt. One way to store unwanted dirt cheaply is to put it in a pile with a 2 to 1 slope. That is the slope that is basically stable without much engineering. The dirt pile near the new hangar might be such a pile. However, on one of my NTS tours, I saw dirt haulers leaving Groom Lake road, i.e. out by gate 700. Now either they had some dirt they wanted to use elsewhere, or they were off-hauling the unwanted soil.

The goal in construction is to have a balanced site. Hauling the dirt off site costs money. But these huge military installations don't have to follow the same thinking as a commercial project. Groom Lake is so big they can afford to make a dirt pile and just let it sit there. It is not like they need the room.

When they built the Keno air strip, the dirt came from a hill a few miles away.



More on the construction here:
www.lazygranch.com...

I'm sure to someone with a civil engineering degree, it all makes sense.



posted on Feb, 16 2012 @ 02:34 AM
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Ok, could be because of the distance the pic was taken from, but did anyone else notice the lack of personnel.
Surely, somewhere in the shot there's a chap with a clipboard or someone from the military.







 
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