Talk:Air Force Space Surveillance System

Naming
According to http://www.globalsecurity.org/space/systems/space-fence.htm, the upgraded AFSSS S-band will be known as "Space Fence" and it is not a colloquialism. The previous VHF AFSSS might be referred to colloquially as "Space Fence", but this now refers to the upgraded S-band version and is the official program name. Can this be verified? It does appear that AF electronic media uses the terminology in the same way. For instance, see the following: —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.220.179.42 (talk) 14:39, 7 October 2009 (UTC)


 * According to High Frontier: The U.S. Air Force and the Military Space Program By Curtis Peebles on page 39, the space "Fence" went into operation in 1959 and was a U.S. Navy effort- The US Navy Space Surveillance System was part of a three part program called the Space Detection and Tracking System SPADATS operated by NORAD along with the The US Air Force SpaceTrack system and Canada's ADC Satellite Tracking Unit plus a fourth, the Smithsonian's Astrophysical Observatory.Johnvr4 (talk) 21:38, 25 April 2014 (UTC)


 * See if this helps with the history and Acronyms. US Naval Space Command Space Surveillance System (Allen Thomson) "One of the lesser-known assets of the US Space Command's world-wide space surveillance system is the 217 MHz NAVSPASUR "fence" across the southern US. The following items from various sources (indicated in italics) give some basic information about the system, its history and use"...  NAVAL SPACE COMMAND...This system became known as the Naval Space Surveillance System (NAVSPASUR)....The U.S. Navy SPASUR (Space Surveillance) System...Johnvr4 (talk) 21:17, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

It might be better to create a second article for the new system using whatever the new name of the system will be when / if it is ever finished leaving this article as Air Force Space Surveillance System to detail the UHF AFSSS / NAVSPASUR / 1960s vintage system. Even the Air Force admitted there was confusion in the names when they announced the systems' shutdown in 2013. "The AFSSS is typically referred to as the “space fence,” which has caused confusion with the new space fence being developed for the future." --Dual Freq (talk) 15:14, 13 September 2014 (UTC)


 * I think that the U.S. Air Force in the title of this article needs to go as it is confusing. The new Space Fence article is also confusing in that this info is not in that article.  There needs a Space fence (legacy) and (current) but together.Johnvr4 (talk) 11:51, 19 May 2016 (UTC)

Location
Added information on the receiver stations - Dmine45 13:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Corrected location link for Tattnall station (Glennville, GA instead of Ft. Stewart, GA) - Dmine45 13:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Glennville, Georgia is 25 miles from the site. Fort Stewart is 10 miles, Flemington, Georgia is 8.5 miles. The site is in Bryan County, Georgia on the base in the middle of no where, no towns nearby. Click the lat and long to see the location. As to why it is called Tattnall, Georgia. I have no idea, there is no Tattnall in the USPS zip code Data base, but several refs call it the Tattnall site in Georgia. 47CFR§2.106 Footnote US229 calls it Fort Stewart and gives the lat/long listed. Dual Freq 21:34, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

The site is no longer located on Fort Stewart. Glennvile is about 10 miles to the south. The Lat/Long coordinates are probably from the former Fort Stewart location. The site was moved to the current location in Tattnall county just west of US Route 301 in 1987. The site name was changed to Tattnall in the process. Dmine45 16:01, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Someone needs to tell the FCC, because they think it is located in the original location. In Federal law, 47CFR§2.106 Footnote US229 - Revised as of October 1, 2005. Reception of the sub-band 216.965-216.995 MHz shall be protected from harmful interference within 50 kilometers (31.1 miles) of the following sites: Fort Stewart, GA 31[deg]58[min]36[sec] N,081[deg]30[min]34[sec] W. Dual Freq 22:54, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Its not surprising that the FCC doesn't know about the move. I'll have to dig out the current Lat/Long coordinates for the Tattnall site (I have it in a box of old NAVSPASUR stuff). Basically, the FCC restricts use of 216.98 MHz (with guard bands) for the Fence from coast to coast along the 33rd parallel. Pretty soon it may be a moot point since there is discussion of moving the Fence to the L-band or X-band for greater precision. Dmine45 11:20, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * The Ft Stewart site (31.97667°N, -81.50944°W) does appear abandoned in the USGS aerial photos. Another site, west of 301 as you described, (32.04361°N, -81.92611°W) looks to be a likely location for the new site. It's just inside Tattnall County about 7 miles north of Glennville. I'm not sure I can add this location to the article because there is no source except your word and my original research based on that word. We need a reliable source to back this location up. Dual Freq 00:55, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Reason for Shutdown?
Officially, it was shut down because it was getting old. However, I remember a couple years ago, there was something on Discovery Channel or The Learning Channel, that was about a top secret rocket payload, that the military kept silent about its location, orbit etc. On this TV show, it mentioned how a radio hobbyist believed he had picked it up using a reflection of the Space Fence signal, that he had tuned in with his radio receiver. I was always wondering what the military was going to do to keep hobbyists from picking up the secret satellite's reflection (which kind of defeats the purpose of keeping it secret, if just anybody can detect its presence). And the timing of its shutdown (in September of 2013) is probably about only a few months after that TV show aired (based on when I remember it airing). Its new location is well away from where any radio hobbyists are likely located, as the population in these new locations is quite small (Pacific islands). It also is going to be well outside the frequency range of most hobbyist radios now that it's moving to the S-band. The S-band is the frequency range from 2GHz to 4GHz. The ICom PCR-1000 can only tune up to 1.3GHz. The new ICom radios PCR-1500 and PCR-2500 only go up to 3GHz. If this radar will now operate above 3GHz, then it is outside the range of any radio receiver that costs less than $1000 (some receivers might go higher, but they cost more than $1000, and most will probably cost over $10000, putting them well outside the budget of most hobbyists). I've never seen any receiver (other than dedicated equipment like RADAR equipment) that can receive in this range, but I've also never looked at the specs of any hobbyist radio receiver that costs over $1000.

The timing of the shutdown of the old equipment, and the new radio band and new geographic location of the new equipment, is quite suspicious, to say the least. My strong hunch is that this is being done, solely to stop hobbyist radio listeners from detecting the presence of this secret satellite and other secret satellites. And the claim that it is about switching to newer equipment is just a cover up, because admitting the truth would defeat the whole point of keeping it secret. Benhut1 (talk) 05:54, 25 January 2015 (UTC)

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