SLSL "TSR" TCC-3, AN/GRC-10

[pynchonoid]

"Picnic got to work on the TCC-3 and Levine started
setting up AN/GRC-10. About midnight they had
communications." (38)


Interesting that in Pynchon's first published story,
communications (or, lack of communications) plays such
an important role, and the protagonist is a
communications specialist.  Seems this has held his
interest from the beginning of his career.


<http://hereford.ampr.org/millist/m6.html>
AN/GRC-10
 Radio set, National Guard/Army Reserve, 54-70.9 MHz,
FM, major components: T-235, DY-94 and R-125. 

picture of the AN/GRC-10:
<http://hereford.ampr.org/millist/pic/grc-103.jpg>


<http://www.gordon.army.mil/ocos/Museum/AMC/phone.asp>
Telephone terminal sets
For four-wire carrier systems (C-type)
[...]
AN/TCC-3: a lightweight carrier terminal for AAF, a
miniature version of CF-1 for use with either wire or
radio relay systems. 


The TCC-3 at work in 1959, and a reminder of the Cold
War, under the shadow of the Bomb context of Levine's
role in US military communictions:

<http://www.pinetreeline.org/misc/other/misc3d.html> 
The remote radar defense systems in this area are
vital to the defense of North America. The mission of
the 1876th Radio Relay Squadron is to provide
communications to support these systems.

Until 1955 when the Pole Vault Tropospheric Scatter
System was put into operation, point-to-point
communications in this area constituted a serious
problem. Frequent ionospheric storms disrupted the
flow of information from isolated radar stations to
air defense centers. The answer to the problem seemed
to be installation of a line-of-sight microwave relay
system. Installation and manning costs would be high
for the more than fifty stations required to provide
adequate coverage for the radar systems.

During the past years various research agencies have
sought a means of overcoming the line-of-sight
limitation. Two of these agencies were Bell Telephone
Laboratories and Lincoln Laboratories, which at the
request of the United States Air Force approached the
problem with the definitive aim of improving arctic
communications. After a period of intensive research
engineering, they proposed a solution utilizing a
combination of known facts about tropospheric
propagation and recent developments in vacuum tubes
and radio circuitry.

With the support of the Northeast Air Command (no
longer in existence), a test circuit was installed in
Newfoundland in late 1953 to evaluate the proposal.
"Tropospheric Scatter" communications were established
over a 150-mile path from St. Anthony to Gander
without repeater stations, to determine the capability
of this new means of overcoming the line-of-sight
characteristics of UHF. Emissions of approximately 500
megacycles at 500 watts and 4,000 megacycles at 10
watts were used in this test. Best results were
obtained with the lower frequency, although the 4,000
megacycles signal was also readable. Even before the
test was completed, such satisfactory results were
obtained that it was decided to go ahead with a
complete installation of this new equipment, and to
eliminate the previously-planned conventional
microwave system. This substitution resulted in an
immediate savings to the Air Force of many millions of
dollars. The possibility exists of realizing much
greater savings in the future by utilizing
tropospheric scatter equipment in other areas of our
world-wide defense network. However, the most
important fact is that we now have a reliable
communications system which is immune to frequent
ionospheric disturbances. To insure that the installed
system would perform properly, it was designed and
engineered to standards well above the requirements
actually indicated by the test.

The Radio Relay System can be compared with a
long-distance telephone network like those operated by
American Telephone and Telegraph Companies in the
States and our own Newfoundland Long Lines System. The
transmitters, receivers and antennae at each station
simply replace the Long Cable that would otherwise be
necessary. Each station forms an integral part of the
over-all Pole Vault system. The Radio Relay Squadron
was organized December 1954 in order that the Radio
Relay System could be operated as a complete network
regardless of the user of an individual circuit.

Where terrain is such that large radar installations
can’t quite cover the approach routes, small radars
fill in the gaps. Appropriately, they are called Gap
Fillers. The radar fence in this area uses them.
Communication between the Gap Fillers and parent sites
is by AN/FRC-39 Tropospheric Scatter Systems and
operated by the Radio Relay Squadron.

In outward appearance a tropospheric scatter
installation resembles an overgrown microwave station.
The dominant features of the installation are the
antennas, which in the case of the Pole Vault
installation are 60-foot parabolas. The antennas used
on the Gap Filler installations (AN/FRC-39) are
28-foot parabolas. The Gap Filler installation is a
smaller version of a Pole Vault installation having
many newer features 

[...] The multiplexing equipment used in the Gap
Filler System is the standard military Telephone
terminal AN/TCC3. It is a frequency division four
channel telephone terminal, plus an unmodulated
voice-frequency order wire circuit. The five channels
operate in the frequency range of 300 to 19,700 CPS.
It can provide either four channels for the
transmission of any signal within the 300 to 3500 CPS
range or provide one wide-band special service channel
which can be used for the transmission and reception
of high-speed data or facsimile transmission.
b.	The AN/TCC-3 has built-in test facilities for use
in system line-up and for detection of trouble. Also a
system alarm circuit is provided for detection of
failure in the transmission path of the system.
c.	Any channel of the AN/TCC-3 may be used as the
transmission facility for voice frequency telegraph
signals.
d.	TA-182/U Telegraph-Telephone Signal Converters are
used as voice frequency signalling devices with the
AN/TCC-3. It converts 20 cycle ringing signals from
the using agents to 1600 CPS for transmission to the
distant terminal.
e.	The voice frequency order wire circuit is equipped
with built-in 1600 CPS signalling circuits. [...]



-Doug







=====
<http://www.pynchonoid.blogspot.com/>

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