Talk:CONELRAD

Reverted advertisement
Reverted:
 * , is a website dedicated to cold war culture. The site’s founders, Ken Sitz, Curtis Samson and Bill Geerhart share their fascination with what they call “The Golden Age of Homeland Security” by archiving early cold war audio and film and “all its attendant pop culture fallout” on the web. Their survey of the past is a segment of a greater cult tradition that makes mockery of an era of fear and terror, ultimately turning this history into pulp fiction.

This appears to be a straight advertisement for the website in question. While I personally find the site somewhat interesting and amusing, it's certainly not encyclopedic, and in any event has only tangential relevance to CONELRAD itself. If any Wikipedians think the advert is useful, feel free to explain why on this talk page. --Quuxplusone 6 July 2005 20:30 (UTC)

City's Civil Defense Sirens 30
Does anyone know the meaning of the phrase, "(City's Civil Defense Sirens 30)" in the introductory paragraph? It was added in the edit of <21:44, 3 March 2007 Newsandrumor>. It seems to be a related to CONELRAD's replacement by the Emergency Broadcast System. However, as now written, it is unintelligible to me; a citation or explanation is needed. -rich 

Picture of AM radio dial
AM (&FM) Zenith Radio Model Number S-23168 showing showing triangle-in-circle ("CD Mark") @ 640 and 1240 kHz.Bdrothermel 23:29, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'll edit this to note that *most* but not all radios in the US carried these symbols. It was suggested by CD and the Radio-Television Manufacturers Association but never obligatory. Altaphon (talk) 20:11, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

Removed Youtube link
I've removed a Youtube link to a supposed "Conelrad simulation". It's not an actual CONELRAD test nor is it an even faintly accurate simulation. The creator seems to have adapted a 1980s EBS script for CONELRAD instead of searching for the actual CONELRAD script, which from what I recall was very different. --NellieBly (talk) 07:59, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Other Youtube links
I've come across a couple of different videos that, in my judgement, follow pretty closely what an actual CONELRAD alert would look like. Here are the links if you want to add them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In5xpvaF2so http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsiFsMr0T2I — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bennythebaker96 (talk • contribs) 20:42, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Question
I don't understand the following statement from the article: ''Beginning in 1957, operating U.S. amateur radio stations were required to verify at least once every 10 minutes that a normal broadcast station was on the air. If not, the amateurs were required to stop transmitting. Several companies marketed special receivers that would sound an alarm and automatically deactivate the amateur's transmitter when the monitored broadcast station went off the air.''

Why were they required to stop transmitting, and what does it have to do with CONELRAD? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Worldruler20 (talk • contribs) 10:45, 9 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The requirements were part of the CONELRAD system. Radios stations were required to go off the air to prevent Russian bombers from using their signals and navigation aids. I'll try to clarify the text and add a ref.--agr (talk) 17:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

640 and 1240AM articles
do not mention CONELRAD at all. 68.229.214.195 (talk) 20:49, 21 May 2018 (UTC)
 * I added a "see also" link for both 640 AM and 1240 AM. --Wtshymanski (talk) 21:13, 21 May 2018 (UTC)

Choice of frequencies
Any particular reason for the choice of 640 and 1240 KHz frequencies ? Would having the frequencies closer together have made more sense (less panicked knob twiddling in an emergency) ? Were there similar arrangements for Canadian or Mexican radio ? And did anyone suggest a third frequency for non-key stations in case the local "key station" was rendered inoperable ? 86.161.110.58 (talk) 17:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * According to one source, the widely separated frequencies were meant to confuse enemy aircraft RDF. "One radio station would broadcast for a few seconds go off the air, then change over to the next station in a chain that would alternate between 640 and 1240. By doing this, it would be very difficult for enemy aircraft with RDF to get a "lock" on any signal accurately". - LuckyLouie (talk) 18:20, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

NAB article about CONELRAD
https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-NAB-Engineering/NAB-5th-Edition/Section-8-NAB-Engineering-Fifth-Edition-8.pdf starting at page 121 in the PDF, contains a very detailed technical article about CONELRAD, including the pseudo-synchronous-sequential mode of operation.PetesGuide, K6WEB (talk) 21:23, 14 September 2018 (UTC)