During my time at the 810th Radar Squadron I served as a sort of unofficial base photographer and managed to document a fair amount of day-to-day life. Fortunately these photos, mostly in the form of old Polaroids, have survived the years in storage in pretty decent condition. I recently scanned them and restored them as needed.

This website is my attempt to show a slice of  life at the 810th as I experienced it.
Since my job involved general facilities maintenance, I managed to get into pretty much every area on the base, from the "Officers Club" (a tiny room behind the dispensary with a lot of liquor in it), to the communications center. The later was the one area that required a higher security clearance than I had. I had to make an appointment to go in so they could hide the stuff I wasn't supposed to see.

Of course I wasn't able to carry a camera into all these places, particularly behind the security fence, but I could describe the entire base in a fair amount of detail, and I can tell a few stories about my years there. You can read some of them on this web site.

Although this web site shows only one Radar site, I assume we were fairly typical of many others across the country and around the world. Perhaps this will bring back some memories of those days for others who served on these sites.

  • 810th Document cover sheet. The names and spelling of people mentioned are from my very distant memory. If anyone sees an error or can name someone who I missed please contact me so I fix the problem.
  • 810th From a distance.
  • The 24 Tower sail from the ground. Note that this was 120 feet wide X 50 feet high, weighed some 70 tons and rotated at about 5 RPM.
  • 24 Tower at 4am - time exposure.
  • 24 Tower First Floor - A/C Equipment on the left - Dual air compressors center.
  • 24 and 26 Towers in the sun.
  • 24 Tower from the Civil Engineering building window - Double exposure.
  • 26 Tower with it's PA Tube - Double exposure.
  • 26 Tower Radome on the left, Power Plant on the right and the 24 Tower sail in the center.
  • FPS-6 Height Finder as seen from the 24 Tower stairwell.
  • Ops Building A/C. This is the equipment that cooled the AN/FST-2 computer system. The Trane compressor is on the left, the Worthington on the right.
  • My cheesy bike. I paid $150 for it. It was a bit of a mess. I disassembled, cleaned, painted and rewired it.
  • Medic Bob Loch in the Infirmery.
  • Bob Loch fixing a late night snack.
  • Bob Froning in the Motor Pool.
  • Bob Froning posing with the 24 Tower.
  • The Dental Clinic. We had a dentist on site for four months each year. I installed the X-Ray unit in this office.
  • The Refrigeration and Electrical Shop office. The locked refrigerator on the left was filled with cokes. Anyone could toss a quarter in a jar and grab a coke. A delivery driver came by weekly to restock it.
  • The Military Police had an office in the front of the building. At one point they moved to a new location and the Civil Engineering office moved in.
  • Bud Moran hanging the new Civil Engineering office sign. MSGT Ford looking on on the right.
  • Jerry Scoggins and Albert Nelson install a package A/C unit in the CE office.
  • Joe Tiller sweeps up. The building on the hill was the supply room and plumbing shop. The Ops building can be seen behind it.
  • John Kessler (back) and Norris Moore.
  • A group in the Motor Pool. Jim Swisegood on the right.
  • MSGT George Ford.
  • Norris Moore relaxing in the shop at night.
  • Norris replaces a blown jack (fuse) on a power poll, restoring power to the barracks. Thanks Norris!
  • Electrical & Refrigeration shop by day. Jim Swisgood laying on the bench. Jerry Caldwell, sitting on the bench. Jerry Scoggins, center in chair. Unknown individule on the right.
  • Shop at night. I'm repairing the video monitor on the bench.
  • TSGT Dupree & Albert Nelson (civilian base carpenter).
  • One evening a pump for the base water supply failed and no one realized it until the water was gone. There was a mad panic as we figured out what was wrong and restored the service. After that I rigged up this panel with a pressure switch and bell from an old telephone. If the pressure ever dropped below a certain point the bell would sound alerting us to the problem so we could fix it before there was a complete outage. As I recall this did save us a couple of times before I left.
  • One of two pump houses providing well water for the base. These and the sewage treatment plant were located across the road from the 810th. Among my duties was the maintenance of the clorination system that kept the water safe.
  • I would occasionally transfer record albums from vinyl to open reel tape. The 24 Tower's buzzing made that impossible in the barracks but I found the noise was much less pronounced down in the lower well house. You can see the pump motor in this view.
  • There were two large tanks on the base that held water from the two wells. One tank held 10,000 gallons and the other 100,000 gallons. To produce sufficient pressure to get water to the highest point on the base (bathrooms on upper levels of the 24 Tower) we had house pumps and a big pressure tank in an adjacent building. There was also an emergency system driven by a gasoline engine.
  • The sewage treatment plant was located between the two wells. I had little to do with this bit of infrastructure. It was inside a locked chain link fence so no one could steal our crap.
  • My room in barracks 4, next the the mess hall.
  • The GATR (Ground Air Transmit Receive) Site. The GATR site was used for the Ground to Air Data Link so command guidance could be sent to suitably equipped aircraft. This was located across the road and in. it's own compound. I did get to go in there a few times.
  • Rec Hall interior. Behind me here was a smaller room with a color TV. Folks would go there on lunch break and watch Jeopardy.
  • Rec Hall and Squadron Boat.
  • Rec Hall - Pool.
  • The story I was told is that some commander decided the 810th should have a swimming pool. Unfortunately there was no money in the budget to have a pool installed. They did find that there was money to repair a pool we didn't have though. So they kept getting pool repair money until they had enough to build this nice pool.
  • The pool was very popular.

The next photos were sent to me by another former member of the 810th team, Jim Ashurst. These were all taken during his time there and show the site from his viewpoint. Click on the photos for a better view and brief description.

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