Glenn Campbell's report on Groom Lake "Weather" Stations

Glenn has just posted this on YouTube, I'm only half way through at the moment but it's pretty interesting.

I know some knowledgeable people on here have voiced doubts about the weather station at TIkaboo and Glenn's findings are quite interesting.

I think he might be overstating the impact of the Mystery Quest event on the inception of the cameras, people have been buzzed by the black copters st Tikaboo for a long time before and after then.

Discuss...

a reply to: gfad

I got a heads up on this last week so I painfully sat through the 80 minutes. Without theatrics, this would be 15 minutes tops, and no need to make fun of the mentally ill.

Glenn says he didn't see the PTZ (pan tilt zoom) camera pan. I have photos of the camera in different directions, so we know it does move.

I understand how the basic weather stations work. They have a circularly polarized antenna that transmits to a satellite based on a time multiplexed system. (The antenna had X shaped elements.) Every weather station is on GPS time. You can get 100ns accuracy between sites if need be. The idea is you burp out your data based on an assigned time slot.

Such a system is not capable of video or even snap shots. That is where the yagi antenna comes in. I don't believe you will find a similar antenna at the Alamo cell site. Rather I believe the yagi is just an antenna for use in a Verizon based data link.

The "digital" omnidirectional antenna looks similar to a 2.4G wifi antenna. However since the antenna is in a radome, you really can't judge the frequency based on size.

The fact that there are two antennas on the set up leads to a few possibilities. It could be that the fixed camera uses the yagi and the PTZ uses the omni. Or maybe both the fixed and PTZ cameras use the yagi and the omni is only used locally to talk to the system's instrumentation. (Calibration perhaps.)

Next up is the weather station in the Little Aleinn parking lot. It certainly is there to spy on the tourists. No need to move the gear from the old location unless spying on the tourists wasn't the goal.

The cameras in the Tikaboo and Little Aleinn PTZs are identical. At the time I first discovered the Tikaboo camera, the model was not on the DRI website. But I got a good shot of the camera in the Little Aleinn parking lot and could see Canon on the lens housing. (For what it is worth, the USAF uses Cohu cameras. Not that this doesn't rule out the DoD as the imagery client.)

I agree this has nothing to do with the 2009 "incident." People have shot stills and video through telescopes long before the TV camera crews have arrived. The only advantage to the high end camera would be to catch a plane in flight. For shots of the base, a telescope is probably superior.

The snap shots from the fixed camera are not at the resolution we get from the Internet. That could mean nothing, or it could mean the image we get is cropped. Now if cropped, that could be significant. I don't believe the photos from the fixed camera shows the camp site. Now if cropping is involved, then maybe it does view the campsite. I have a number of photos of the sun in the view of the fixed camera. I used the position of the sun in the camera plus the time of the photo to determine the azimuth of the camera based on the sun data from the Naval Observatory website. The camera views the road to Tikaboo along the valley floor. Not the area in the trees but the long clear stretch. Maybe they detect cars with frame comparisons.

Now for what Glenn did discover. I had no idea about the Badger Spring weather site. It isn't obvious on the drive to the Tikaboo staging area. I also didn't know about the Sand Springs weather station, which is located in the center of four crop circles. It seems to me that would be a terrible place for a weather station since they spray water on the crops. And as Glenn pointed out, it is only two miles from the other weather station in the Little Aleinn parking lot.

Note that the camera(s) on Bald Mountain can't observe traffic on the road to the back gate. I have computer generated data to show this, but you can simply drive to the back gate and note that Bald Mountain isn't always in view. Possibly the Sand Springs site will be upgraded to an observation site, though the base has plenty of spots to do this behind the border.

Maybe some type of station monitoring RC drones that nut job Americans might use to get video of what goes on in their own governments secret weapons programs and leak it youtube so they can feel important.

originally posted by: PhoenixOD
Maybe some type of station monitoring RC drones that nut job Americans might use to get video of what goes on in their own governments secret weapons programs and leak it youtube so they can feel important.

Are there any consumer drones that can fly the 10 miles (as close as you can get to the base), let alone the 26 miles from Tikaboo?

I always thought a land based remote video would be the way to snoop on the base. Stuff in the air is easy to detect.

originally posted by: gariac
I also didn't know about the Sand Springs weather station, which is located in the center of four crop circles. It seems to me that would be a terrible place for a weather station since they spray water on the crops. And as Glenn pointed out, it is only two miles from the other weather station in the Little Aleinn parking lot.

Just a question, is the Nevada Sand Springs weather station, a contributing part of the National Weather Service as per NOOAA?
My question is nothing to do with the bad siting, although some of the weather stations that are under NOOAA's directives, are anything but ideally sited. Thanks in advance.

KLAS got an official reply to the cameras.

As for why Tikaboo was selected as the site for this WX station out of all the other peaks in the Pahranagat Range, it was partially because of the site exposure and elevation as it is a compliment to the station in Badger Spring Valley (the watershed most dominantly seen in the images from the fixed camera), but mostly because there was already a foot path to this peak. WRCC could not find similar access to any of the other peaks in the Pahranagat Range.

I linked to the worst of the lies. The USAF has a facility on Badger Mountain that could easily house the weather station. The Sundance helicopter company in Vegas has a contract to bring workers to the site.
www.lasvegasnow.com...

a reply to: gariac

Couldn't agree more on the timing,I reckon you could summarise everything in 20 minutes max (and I too sat through the whole thing), and dressing up in hospital gowns is pretty tasteless but I guess it's all part of the Glen Campbell Package. On the other hand I still admire him for putting in the hours driving around the desert, the slog of doing the research, and the effort of putting it online.

He has turned up some really interesting things in the video, but it could be inconclusive. I agree completely the camera at the peak and the camera at the A'Le'Inn are there only to spy on visitors, and in the case of the latter get their license plates. The other weather stations do point to a conspiracy but it's not proof, yet. You can't show the absence of a camera and claim it's proof because the DoD operates on a policy of developing capability.

I also thought his comments about the broken wind-meter were pretty funny. Looks like no one is interested in the wind data

Neither the CEMP station at Rachel nor the station on Tikaboo Peak are live streaming cameras. The images from these cameras are stored at the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nevada and are managed by WRCC staff.

Then why do they move? If the data isn't being sent anywhere who is controlling them? Or do they just move randomly? Seem ridiculous.

originally posted by: gariac
a reply to: gfad

I got a heads up on this last week so I painfully sat through the 80 minutes. Without theatrics, this would be 15 minutes tops, and no need to make fun of the mentally ill.

Indeed. I too watched this thinking that, without the theatrics and repeatedly going over the same information, it should have been about 15 minutes. And suffering from mental illness myself (social-anxiety-disorder and depression) I find Campbell's antics offensive.

Glenn says he didn't see the PTZ (pan tilt zoom) camera pan. I have photos of the camera in different directions, so we know it does move.

I understand how the basic weather stations work. They have a circularly polarized antenna that transmits to a satellite based on a time multiplexed system. (The antenna had X shaped elements.) Every weather station is on GPS time. You can get 100ns accuracy between sites if need be. The idea is you burp out your data based on an assigned time slot.

Such a system is not capable of video or even snap shots. That is where the yagi antenna comes in. I don't believe you will find a similar antenna at the Alamo cell site. Rather I believe the yagi is just an antenna for use in a Verizon based data link.

The "digital" omnidirectional antenna looks similar to a 2.4G wifi antenna. However since the antenna is in a radome, you really can't judge the frequency based on size.

The fact that there are two antennas on the set up leads to a few possibilities. It could be that the fixed camera uses the yagi and the PTZ uses the omni. Or maybe both the fixed and PTZ cameras use the yagi and the omni is only used locally to talk to the system's instrumentation. (Calibration perhaps.)

Next up is the weather station in the Little Aleinn parking lot. It certainly is there to spy on the tourists. No need to move the gear from the old location unless spying on the tourists wasn't the goal.

The cameras in the Tikaboo and Little Aleinn PTZs are identical. At the time I first discovered the Tikaboo camera, the model was not on the DRI website. But I got a good shot of the camera in the Little Aleinn parking lot and could see Canon on the lens housing. (For what it is worth, the USAF uses Cohu cameras. Not that this doesn't rule out the DoD as the imagery client.)

Glad you brought all this up, gariac. You pointed out the existence of this weather station and its features on this forum quite a while ago. Campbell's revelations are nothing new.

I agree this has nothing to do with the 2009 "incident." People have shot stills and video through telescopes long before the TV camera crews have arrived. The only advantage to the high end camera would be to catch a plane in flight. For shots of the base, a telescope is probably superior.

Campbell's assumption that the weather station is in response to that "2009 incident" is pretty presumptuous. People have been climbing that peak for years with all kinds of photo gear.

a reply to: gfad

The Verizon data link is probably capable of live video. You weren't expecting truth from the government, were you? ;-)

I don't think you would install a PTZ without something like approaching live video, even if the frame rate isn't 30fps.

The last time I did some cellular sniffing out there, "Wue" (the license holder) had a LTE network in the works. It just had a number, not a name when you did a manual search on the phone for service. So if they can't do full motion video now, they will have the capability eventually. Verizon uses the Wue license.

As an aside, I have a few MCC-MNC codes I sniffed with my phone. (If you have to ask, you probably don't want to know.)

MCC-MNC
310-013 Verizon GSM
312-510 LTE
320-33 4G
320-23 4G

The 312 and 320 MCC codes are bogus.

a reply to: gariac

The lies I can accept. It's the ridiculously bad lies that are unacceptable!

Come on guys, you've been caught out. Some of their other excuses/denials would be passable if they didn't immediately follow them up with stupid falsehoods. Stop digging deeper!

a reply to: gfad

There are lies, damnable lies, and military briefings!

To my recollection, the old CEMP was by the Quick Pick, not the center of town, but the edge of town. (Relatively speaking since we are talking about Rachel.)

She says the Desert Research Institute (DRI) moved the climate monitoring station a few years ago from the center of town to its current spot outside the inn

Next lie...how does a camera way up on a pole read a sign directly beneath it but facing the horizon :

The DRI says the Rachel camera is there to make sure highway signs that flash weather and traffic information are working properly.

The foot path to Tikaboo isn't much of a path. Nearby Badger Peak has helicopter access:

As for why Tikaboo was selected as the site for this WX station out of all the other peaks in the Pahranagat Range, it was partially because of the site exposure and elevation as it is a compliment to the station in Badger Spring Valley (the watershed most dominantly seen in the images from the fixed camera), but mostly because there was already a foot path to this peak.

a reply to: gariac

Next they'll tell you they used the same path to haul all the concrete, water and a mixer up there

originally posted by: gfad
a reply to: gariac

Next they'll tell you they used the same path to haul all the concrete, water and a mixer up there

While Glenn thinks some military heavy lift chopper was used for Tikaboo, the Sundance chopper has been known to make insane numbers of trips based on tracking data. That is, it would loop from what I presume was a staging area to a peak, then repeat this back and forth. They did this at Mt. Irish a few years ago. I presume for construction, but have no verification of that. All I know is the trips were made.

Envision a house move using a Prius. I suppose a Sky Crane would be better, but the base seems to have a relationship with Sundance.

I think this kind of sums it up:
"The project will be funded by a grant from the Department of Defense and operated by the Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC) a NOAA funded data archive center."
eplanning.blm.gov...

I suppose the military could claim they need updated weather info for their operations. However there are any number of peaks within the NTTR they could stick their own weather station on.

Per a statement from DRI:
"DRI is not a front for a U.S. Air Force intelligence gathering operation outside Area 51. DRI serves as the nonprofit environmental research arm of the Nevada System of Higher Education."

Really??? What about this:
"DRI scientists provide the US Department of Defense (DoD) with a wide range of science-based information in support of global military objectives."
www.dri.edu...

Oh wait - I see - you aren't a front, you just "provide information".
Feel free to google "Desert Research Institute" and "military".

WTF no one is capable of outfitting a laptop with a SDR based waterfall spectrum analyser using a cheap USB TV receiver dongle (~$15) and use a double balanced mixer and a selectable LO (available on eBay) to investigate what is emitted by these devices using a simple wideband directional antenna???

Anyway, just for WiFi work, no one have heard of Kali Linux, and wiFi card in monitor mode?

originally posted by: PeterMcFly
WTF no one is capable of outfitting a laptop with a SDR based waterfall spectrum analyser using a cheap USB TV receiver dongle (~$15) and use a double balanced mixer and a selectable LO (available on eBay) to investigate what is emitted by these devices using a simple wideband directional antenna???

Anyway, just for WiFi work, no one have heard of Kali Linux, and wiFi card in monitor mode?

I have a couple USB DVB-T dongles that I use for ADS-B tracking. Haven't used them as a spectrum analyzer yet.

How about a 138Mhz - 4.4GHz USB spectrum analyzer? On my list for next trip there.

originally posted by: PeterMcFly
WTF no one is capable of outfitting a laptop with a SDR based waterfall spectrum analyser using a cheap USB TV receiver dongle (~$15) and use a double balanced mixer and a selectable LO (available on eBay) to investigate what is emitted by these devices using a simple wideband directional antenna???

Anyway, just for WiFi work, no one have heard of Kali Linux, and wiFi card in monitor mode?

Actually you don't need to run Kali. Any linux will do. Just install Kismet. The trick is getting the right USB dongle since not all have monitor mode. USB dongles from Alfa will do.

I had my phone with me and there was nothing detected on wifi. But if wifi was present in the setup, it could be the client rather than the WAP.

It is easier said than done bringing gear to the peak. That foot trail praised by the DRI isn't much of a foot trail. All your gear needs protection since falling is a real possibility.

Glenn is right that we could use some switchbacks.

a reply to: FosterVS

Haven't used them as a spectrum analyzer yet.

Gqrx is great as a waterfall spectrum analyser. Using cheap DVB-T dongle is ok if the spectral surveillance span is relatively narrow and required SNR is low. But with a nearby immobile target of nearly continuous emission, a directionnal antenna and a lot of time, it can do wonder.

You need to add a mixer and LO using SMA "plumbing" at antenna to cover the higher GHz bands, but beware of parasitic LO leakage.

a reply to: gariac

But if wifi was present in the setup, it could be the client rather than the WAP.

A completely passive monitoring program like airodump-ng will detect and decloak everything: AP, client, connected or not, client trying to connect at large and even the "kids" scanning the air using a not so passive method.

Coupled to a highly directionnal antenna like a planar Curtain Quad is lot of fun...