Project Maroon Bowsprit, page 1

My Dad was always diligent about not sharing secret information; I knew almost nothing of what he did. I knew he had to travel for long periods of time and sometimes couldn't even tell the family what continent he'd be on.

What I'm about to share is not a lot, but on searching for "Maroon Bowsprit" on the internet I haven't got a single hit. I'm sharing this now for a few reasons - for some reason it's been on my mind a lot lately, my Dad passed away over a year ago, and the small amount of information is over 30 years old now. So here's what I know.

On a small road in the swamps south of Homestead, FL is a FRD-10 Radar installation. I've been there. Once as a kid, spending the summer in Florida so my dad could work at that location, I was able to hold $30,000 in cash as my dad had to deliver that money to the site for some reason; it was pretty amazing to me then!

I truly don't know much except the site was a listening post that bounced waves off the Ionosphere to listen to remote locations. The name of the Project my Dad worked on was Maroon Bowsprit. I remember because he got a coffee cup with that name on it and I was concerned people would find out something secret! Apparently it was no problem since "Maroon Bowsprit" still gives zero hits on the internet

In searching I found this blogspot post that has some pictures of the FRD-10 and lists some of the locations my Dad went to over the years.
luxexumbra.blogspot.com...

Here's a picture of the Homestead site (from the above blog)



Anyone know about this?
Maybe take this time to help research.

reply to post by Thermo Klein

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I have never heard of this at all, ever. It sure would be cool to find out about though. I am curious too, I hope someone a little more computer literate than me can dig up some info about it.

Here's something. Not much. I'll look some more.

ex]COMBAT SUPPORT SYSTEM (CCSS)","" "NE9288","CRYPTOLOGIC COMBAT SUPPORT CONSOLE (CCSC","" "NE9290","MAROON BOWSPRIT/SAIL SYS ...
webdata.xwalkcenter.org...

bowsprit [ˈbəʊsprɪt]
n
(Transport / Nautical Terms) Nautical a spar projecting from the bow of a vessel, esp a sailing vessel, used to carry the headstay as far forward as possible
[from Middle Low German bōchsprēt, from bōch bow3 + sprēt pole]

reply to post by The GUT

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Thanks! I remember seeing the SAIL SYS MAINT on the cup too

reply to post by at1withharmony11

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I'm very familiar with HAARP and EISCAT. Although the FRD-10 installations bounce beams off the Ionisphere it is done for listening and not Ionosphere manipulation such as the HAARP-type arrays.

Originally posted by ezekielken
An ultra secret highly classified project that they had coffee cups made for? I am definitely freaking out now!

I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to be Destroyed by Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World

I could totally
see them making mugs
like the patches linked to above

sure why not
in your face like #1 DAD

reply to post by XeroOne

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Wasn't civilian - he was a government contractor with multiple levels of Top and above security clearances.

In the blog link I posted it seems to be part of a SIGINT group.

reply to post by Thermo Klein

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But the government and military on the rare occasion supply personnel to scientific projects, especially if they demand skills that aren't taught in the civilian world. They do this sometimes with projects in the Arctic/Antarctic, or so I hear on the grapevine.

Originally posted by Thermo Klein
My Dad was always diligent about not sharing secret information; I knew almost nothing of what he did. I knew he had to travel for long periods of time and sometimes couldn't even tell the family what continent he'd be on.

What I'm about to share is not a lot, but on searching for "Maroon Bowsprit" on the internet I haven't got a single hit. I'm sharing this now for a few reasons - for some reason it's been on my mind a lot lately, my Dad passed away over a year ago, and the small amount of information is over 30 years old now. So here's what I know.

On a small road in the swamps south of Homestead, FL is a FRD-10 Radar installation. I've been there. Once as a kid, spending the summer in Florida so my dad could work at that location, I was able to hold $30,000 in cash as my dad had to deliver that money to the site for some reason; it was pretty amazing to me then!

I truly don't know much except the site was a listening post that bounced waves off the Ionosphere to listen to remote locations. The name of the Project my Dad worked on was Maroon Bowsprit. I remember because he got a coffee cup with that name on it and I was concerned people would find out something secret! Apparently it was no problem since "Maroon Bowsprit" still gives zero hits on the internet

In searching I found this blogspot post that has some pictures of the FRD-10 and lists some of the locations my Dad went to over the years.
luxexumbra.blogspot.com...

Here's a picture of the Homestead site (from the above blog)

Anyone know about this?
Maybe take this time to help research.

That's the former Naval Security Group Activity Homestead out on Card Sound Road just off US 1, south of Homestead. There was nothing out there except our Supply site, the Operations site (pictured in the OP), a commercial gravel pit and a huge swamp until you got to Key Largo.

I was stationed there from 1986-1990 as a Watch Officer. Hurricane Andrew pretty much closed it down. There was some good fishing in pond behind the ops building, just had to watch out for the gators. It's main mission was Cuban, Caribbean and Central America, along with being part of the Atlantic HFDF Net.. Also had some civilian native Cuban speakers working there, i guess Cuban spanish is different from regular spanish.

Our Admin bulding and barracks were on Homestead AFB. It was kinda funny, the first building you saw when entering the Air Force base was our Navy admin building with our big anchor out front. It was pretty good duty there. That's where i fell in love with Bass fishing.

I remember the Sail system. The user would always report it going down and having to reset it.

The area is abandoned now and the Wullenweber (FRD-10) antenna is torn down. It wasn't a radar nor did it have anything to do with HAARP like some think. I also did time at Adak, Galeta Island and Imperial Beach Ca as well.

Here's some more pics....
www.navycthistory.com...

Thanks for something neat to look at. Did not find much on the search term Maroon Bowsprit,

Lot's of links based on FRD-10.

Don't know if you saw this or not.

www.navy-radio.com...

]Significance: The AN/FRD-10 Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA) at NCTAMS
(Facility 314) was a part of the United States' Cold War efforts to gather
foreign intelligence information. Along with fourteen other FRD-10
CDAAs worldwide, it was a part of the Naval Security Group's Classic
Bullseye network, a program for strategic signals intelligence (SIGINT)
collection and transmitter locating. This CDAA technology, designed by
the Naval Research Laboratory and deployed as the FRD-10, was a
radical improvement in the performance of high-frequency direction
finding. Its design is the Navy's adaptation of an antenna system using
monopole and dipole elements uniformly spaced outside the rings of
reflector screens. Thus, the system is able to intercept and detect the
direction of high-frequency radio transmissions covering 360 degrees

Many pieces of military electronic equipment are identified by numbers and letters which are assigned according to the Joint Electronics Type Designation System (JETDS). This nomenclature begins with the first two letters, AN, which stand for Army or Navy. Next are three more letters which stand for; the type of installation, the type of equipment, and its purpose. In the case of the FRD antenna this is; F=fixed ground installation, R=radio, D=direction finding. The last portion of the JETDS identifier is the equipment model number.

There is some general info on FRD-10 at FAS and also at Global Security,

Also, wiki had a fair amount of info related including this nugget

Wullenweber technology was developed by the German navy communication research command, Nachrichtenmittelversuchskommando (NVK) and Telefunken during the early years of World War II. The inventor was NVK group leader Dr. Hans Rindfleisch, who worked after the war as a Technical Director for the northern Germany official broadcast ( Norddeutscher Rundfunk - NDR). Technical team leaders were Dr. Joachim Pietzner, Dr. Hans Schellhoss, and Dr. Maximilian Wächtler. The latter was a founder of Plath GmbH in 1954 and later a consultant to both Plath and Telefunken.

Dr. Rolf Wundt, a German antenna researcher, was one of hundreds of German scientists taken to the U.S. by the Army after the war under Operation Paperclip. He arrived in New York in March, 1947 on the same ship as Wernher Von Braun and his wife and parents. He was first employed by the U.S. Air Force, then by GT&E Sylvania Electronics Systems on Wullenweber and other antenna projects.

en.wikipedia.org...

Again thanks for the interesting topic.

Not that I know anything about how code names are come to, but another way of looking at Maroon Bowsprit is bowsprit being obviously from a ship and maroon could mean being marooned, not the colour.

This thread is the first one to make me genuinely curious and hunting again in a long time.

Edit to Add: I did a google indexing of www.navycthistory.com for for the word maroon first: nothing.
I did the same for the word bowsprit, and got this text file:

canick_louis_l.txt

It mentions Bowsprit several times with capitalization:

After A school, got orders to Ft. Meade for PDP-11 school .. to prepare for Bowsprit maintenance. The PDP-11training was great. But we didn't learn anything about Bowsprit.

It may mean nothing, but read the document for yourself (especially OP. Could it reveal something more in your memories?)

reply to post by The GUT

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How did you find this ftp directory?

Originally posted by windus
reply to post by The GUT

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How did you find this ftp directory?

I think I just googled with quotations if I remember correctly. Give it a try, it should come up.

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