Exploring the cold-war phone system designed to survive a nuclear attack

before satellites and fiber optics transmitted information across the United States there was a Cold War era Network called long lines it's a microwave relay network with thousands of towers across the United States each about 40 miles apart I got hooked on the long lines Network after running across some eerily beautiful images of these towers published by Spencer Harding each truck-sized horn and tender pointed to yet another Tower crisscrossing the United States the installations were hardened with blast proof bunkers and were designed to enable critical military Communications in the event of a nuclear attack by Design most are located in remote areas but thousands are still hidden in plain sight I really wanted to learn more I found an expert that has mapped thousands of these and he's going to show us his favorite good to see you any problems getting here so I'm here with Mike we first time that we're meeting in person and so we've been chatting since like November I think it's been a while yeah you just gave me a whole bunch of information and we decided to go on a road trip here we are all right so we're here in Los Angeles and we're going to fly out to turquoise Mountain which is on your way to Las Vegas all right well let's uh let's hit the road we're taking the van I think everyone's first draw the long lines network is just the way it looks it it looks unlike any other radio tower you see out there these Stout Towers these big you know Cornucopia horn antennas out there uh there's something about it and as a kid though I look out the window and just try to find the antennas on the horizon you know give you something to look at you can tell it's a big building but you don't realize how truly large it is until you you get there okay we're getting close here oh wow it's really big and we are quite literally in the middle of nowhere BLM land Mojave Desert Joshua trees we've got our analog tree in our digital tree what a sight to behold I absolutely love this it's definitely a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be it's monolithic that building when you get closer it's even larger it's I can't believe I've never been out this is really exciting to come out here so thank you wait what do you mean well I've always been on that side I've never been able to make it out to this side what do you mean yeah that side the the highway side you've never driven up this road I haven't been able to get up this road yeah really every time I've come by I was either I thought you'd been up here before never been up here so I'm so excited to go up oh wait this is so cool yeah this is the first time so I'm really oh wow that's so you've never driven up and gotten close at all nope and we're gonna go right up to the building yeah this is exciting all right we made it to the top here we are can't believe it there it is just imagine Engineers driving up in their Plymouth Valiant through the desert coming up here and putting in a 12 hour shift but checks all those boxes middle of nowhere massive building staff 24 7. massive Tower loads of antennas juxtaposition in its best form that one looks like the wind got it and uh pulled it from its Mount those things are usually in there pretty well what happened but the cooler fine too is that horn on the left it's a a metal conical horn okay usually they've got a square aperture but these have a round aperture on them they're made by a company called Andrew so that's a special find you don't see a lot of those metal horns anymore interesting I mean this thing is massive it's got to be two three stories above ground and I think there's one below ground and this would have housed all the switching equipment Autobahn I believe Echo Fox Audubon was the private internal government communication Network Audubon was a very robust redundant Network a lot of it hidden in plain sight this would have switched and routed traffic from all the different microwave sites so this was a junction site so it would take everything and send it off on the way it needed to go a lot of the sites the smaller ones are just repeaters so they go from one to another this goes from one to many so it's a multicast site it's just such a special place and what are those antennas at the top uh so one of those would have been Echo Fox probably the one on the left the taller one on the left will be the echo Fox antenna if the president wanted to make a phone call he could be on Air Force One and dial in an echo Fox base station which are scattered throughout the country on the map here marked in yellow and he could initiate a phone call and it would go to the White House and from there it would go out just shows the progress of Technology from an entire building to everything located in probably a closet somewhere I know how large those long lines antennas are they're the size of a of a Econoline van they're massive uh you could park your van inside one of them and uh seeing that many on a tower for me is just a treat how's it different being up close and in person versus look at the pictures on the internet it's uh it's everything I could have imagined when I was a kid in my hometown in Eugene Oregon there was a long lines Tower up on the hill and my dad would always joke that's a high chair for a giant baby I think that's what originally got me started in that in this adventure as a kid get a different View yeah turquoise has been uh one of the most important spots in the long lines Network at least in Southern California uh in the American southwest linking Los Angeles Las Vegas basically California Nevada in the east to west route and it's proximity to military installations uh made it a great place for Echo Fox and combat ciders and seeing those Acres of shot creep sprayed around the back of it just makes you realize how much work went into building it and I think about two years ago right at the beginning of the pandemic I said you know what got nothing to do so let's uh let's add to the map and try to connect Canada coast to coast and there were you know thousands of these across the country and I think I added you know 2 000 sites I just like preserving the history so that years from now somebody says what's that they can know and they can fall down the same Rabbit Hole I went down building it and I want everybody to know the history of this beautiful Network and this was really the network that connected the country for civilian purposes and defense purposes so far we've managed to stay on BLM land there's been no trespassing during the filming of this video congratulations well we came we saw we turquoise I really appreciate you uh showing me around this is this has been pretty epic I'm really appreciative he's bringing me out here this is amazing yeah I'm I'm so stoked my first time out here and I got to see my uh my hero up close all right well back to LA back to L.A

Channel: Pete Meets

Views: 118,330

Keywords: ATT, long lines, AT&T long lines, cold war, cold war communication, autovon, echo fox, microwave, microwave network, microwave antenna, nuclear bunker, military communications, phone network, microwave relay site, horn antennas, Turquoise Station, documentary, film, independent, interview, journalism, short films, bell sytem, telecommunications, history, nuclear attack

Id: QfHyy-4W5X0

Length: 7min 44sec (464 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 04 2023