AT&T Long lines and AUTOVON communication system

[300 H and H]

There is a place not so far from here that I have driven by for years. On the top of a hill in the Boone Co Iowa countryside. It has a large 4 legged tower with
odd horn shaped antenna pointing East and West. Today I found out what it is, and why I am surprised.

Back in the day long distance phone conversations Criss crossed the nation by way of microwaves, and towers set up to repeat them roughly 40 to 50 miles apart. Many of those sites are gone today with the change in communication technology. But the site near me was one of only 70 sites worldwide that combined a Military communications system called AUTOVON and that was the real reason it was there.

I found it on Becon search

https://beacon.schneidercorp.com/Application.aspx?AppID=84&LayerID=795&PageTypeID=4&PageID=552&KeyValue=088525202200005

Number 5 on the outdoor list is a 65,000 square foot underground data center that is 50ft in the ground? Holy sh1t!
Locals say it is 4 levels underground. All of this was bult in 1968. Was used until the mid 90's I am told.
And it is all hardened with thousands of yards of concrete and spring suspended floors to survive a nuclear attack!

Here is a You Tube of a similar AUTOVON installation that I think is 50,000 sq/ft.

This one has 2 500Kw diesel gen sets to run that damn thing! That is locomotive type power! Who knows perhaps the Russians would have targeted this in a nuclear war?

Just an interesting bit of local history that had I driven by and wondered about. Turns out it had national relevance. Today there is an active cell tower there ironically.

 

[300 H and H]

Infobunker AT&T Boone Tower Site | The Center for Land Use Interpretation

This former AT&T equipment bunker, in the farmland north of Des Moines, Iowa, is being marketed as an underground data center called the Infobunker. On the surface is a microwave relay tower, built as part of AT&T’s nationwide communications system in the 1960s. The bunker here, with around...

clui.org

It incorrectly states the underground is only 20K sq/ft. when it is actually 60,000 sq/ft.

 

[bczoom]

I know these bunkers quite well, especially when I owned one of the largest in the Country myself.
Those cones on the towers are for microwave relay. Although obsolete, when AT&T/US Govn sold off the properties (Mainly to American Tower Corp), it was agreed that the towers would not be removed for 99 years, "just in case".
Below is a national map of Long Line locations. At each location, there's a tower and a facility to run it. Actual bunkers are not at every location. Bunkers are at key locations only and are for redundancy if the above ground facility is knocked out due to nuclear blast.

 

[bczoom]

Here's a pic of the one I owned being built.

 

[300 H and H]

Turns out it sold online last September. It was still in partial use as late as 2000. Most immaculate one on You Tube from what I have seen.
Quite the structure and with quite a story. It was one of only a few sights to receive and transmit data from the operation looking Glass airplanes kept in the air 24/7 from Offit AF base in Omaha.
Worth a look if your interested.

 

[bczoom]

Turns out it sold online last September.

You didn't notice a price, did you?

Mine was in the 16,000 sq/ft range. Just as clean. Some pics.

 

[300 H and H]

Well I was wrong the site I found was a sister site to the one in Boone Iowa. This one is in northern Nebraska that sold last September.
I don't know the price.

bczoom your bunker lacks the spring mounts common on the larger 50,000 sq/ft models. Was it supposed to be able to handle a near miss of a nuclear bomb? Did it also have a military presence by including the ATOVON communications along with civilian ATT traffic?

Not really wanting to own one at market price, I just find this about as interesting as finding out you have had a minute man missile silo in your back yard. I just had no idea it existed even though I have driven by it many times.

These installations are a part of our history that few seem to know. It has made me appreciate the awesome huge task of Telelphone communications as the evolution of it becoming what we have today. I had never really thought about this until recently.

 

[bczoom]

Yes, mine had AUTOVON. That system as well as the long-line communications systems were removed when the site was decommissioned so all I had was some of the paperwork, not the hardware.

In general (and at my site), only the critical infrastructure components were on springs.

Yes, it was rated for a near hit by a nuke. Around the perimeter of the site, there were EMP blast detectors. If they detected something, the site would be automatically locked down, including ventilation in milliseconds. Primary shutdown components were electrical but it also had a pneumatic system as a backup (in case the EMP shut down the electric before shut down systems completed their thing).

Once locked down, there was internal systems including nuclear, biological & chemical air filtration, water/sewer and electric to keep everything running.