Long Lines bunker
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 6 авг 2024
- In this video I go inside a long lines bunker to get the pictures from a time capsule from the 1950s era communication world. This is a hardened bunker that at one time carried the infamous Autovan system linking critical military inhalations together in the event of a nuclear conflict with the soviet union. This is defiantly one of the largest bunkers I have been into to date.
WARNING do not venture into long line bunkers without authorization or an understanding of confined spaces. This building was highly contaminated from asbestos, mold, and oxygen deprived air in the basement. I was fully equipped with a SCBA and full Tyvek hazmat suit while in this structure.
If you enjoy this video and enjoy the telecom world Consider joining my discord in the link below.
We talk about almost everything tech related and always have a great time.
discord.gg/CENQRw5CeQ
That basement panel was for door alarms. If a door was opened during an event, alarm would sound.
Never burn the bridges you cross, you may need them one day. Some things need to be preserved. Old tech is better than none at all. I imagine everyone gets my point
После апокалипсиса связь будет через почтальонов на коне. Нам это уже объяснил Голливуд!
@@kotnapromke - And morse code over crude radio equipment. We will return to using sticks and rocks.
Can agree more about the burning the bridges and not reusing old tech because old tech is way more reliable than new tech it's held up all this time until now so that says something for sure
@@KlodFather Мой кот уже умеет передавать мне секретные сообщения мяуканьем. Чтобы сказать мне что я должен дать ему еды!
@@kotnapromke - And it is amazing that cats understand my language as well as yours when you pet them. They train us well LOL
Thanks for posting this. I’m 69 and my late teens was the last of the lifespan of the Ma Bell long lines system. In my youth I was very interested in communications and I spent many hours on the road around NH and Mass seeking out and photographing communications installations which of course included Bell long lines microwave sites which were still on line at the time. I have pictures of the link starting in Concord NH and heading south and west to carry long distance calls. Fantastic radio technology which like all tech changes and got obsoleted.
magnahelic gauges measure differential air pressure in inches of water column. It’s the pressure required to push water up a column, in this case up to 2”. 2” WC is approx 0.07 psi.
The coolest sites are the ones with the underground bunkers
The one I see when I step outside has the super hardened above ground 3 story structure and has a basement bunker, and next to the above ground is the entrance to the 3 story underground bunker that was manned by 24 people 24/7
The underground site was listed as a DOD site
It was bought by a new infrastructure company and they use it now.
They did a lot of upgrades to the bunker.
Really awesome
Absolutely. One site, Ennis Texas, was actually a shelter for local government and their emergency operations
I love seeing this history, I was probably 10 years old when the Berlin Wall came down and I grew up within 10 miles of at least 5 silos that I knew about, not to mention airbases and the pyramid of North Dakota only an hour away. All of this history especially the microwave sites are slowly disappearing… I’m happy to see someone documenting these, keep up the great work!!
It's a shame these old sites are left to rot. Even though the tech is out of date, the building could be retrofited with newer, modern gear and reuse for data centres and ISP cores.
They aren't located in places where they would be useful for those purposes.
If any site had that value would have been kept. The infrastructure was already paid for. The challenge is most of these sites are 5 miles to the west and east of no-where and sometimes just as hard to find. The mw signal can only be thrown so many miles and it has to hit repeaters. Fiberoptic can throw its signal 25-75 miles on a fraction of the equipment and cost. They rightfully should have just been razed, but that cost more than the building and land was worth.
@@user-cz8do7xl8u Just seems a waste, we don't have things like this sitting around here in Aus, I would love a joint like that for a DC use.
@@nick21614 can be made to pretty quickly these days.
I agree. They used up so much money and effort to build all that and now it's just a dystopic post apocalyptic wasteland.
11:35 Those screamin' Jimmies are awesome! I bet a collector would love to grab that an mount it on a trailer and bring it to shows to let it sing again!
I live very near the TAT-5/TAT-6 cable landing site and have for a long time wanted to get access to film a tour. I'm not sure what, if anything, the bunker is used for these days with those undersea cables deocm'd, but I think it was also a microwave site at one time. If the current tower was part of the installation, then the horns have been removed at least. Trying to get in touch with anyone about it via the AT&T behemoth has proven pretty much impossible. Now I understand where the channel name comes from.
You have absolutely zero chance of being allowed to film inside an active cable landing station. Zero.
Nothing particularly special in there though. if you're expecting to see something like a giant floor mounted water cooled laser cannon coupled into the fiber, you'll be disappointed. The transcievers are just standard namebrand rackmounted things the same as used for city-to-city fiber runs. The undersea fibers have amplifiers and retransmitters, after all.
@@Sylveste22 TAT-5&6 were galvanic and are no longer in service. The cables and bunker penetrations are purported to still be there, though. At least as of the early 2010's. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing else active there today, except for cellular. I work in telecom, and back in the day there was a whole safety and competency training that needed to be completed/passed before any individual contractor tech would be allowed to descend to the cable room.
@@marcberm Ah okay, then you understand. Yes confined space training etc for the splice pit.
They're always interesting sort of places to visit for the history at least.
@@Sylveste22 right because light decays when transmitted in a reflective vessel........ surrreeeeee
Thanks for giving us a look inside! Very cool. @7:50 "Lower Tank Pressure" perhaps?
Lol yes I went inside to get the pictures
Suck on a straw till the water rises 2 inches….the pressure inside the straw is 2 inches of water column less than the outside.
Wow!!!!, keep these videos coming!!!!
10:14 Row 2, "OTHER DOORS", "BACK DOOR", "REC[..] DOOR", "FRONT DOOR".
Doors breached warning lights
Good stuff, amazing!
Loved this!
That must have been fricken awesome to see in person!! I love videos of these places.
The red Fm200 warning may refer to halon gas fire suppression system. It was very common in large data centers. Normally triggered by a combustion detection system, vesda. Normally, the system triggers audible alarms and red flashing warning strobes to allow anyone in the area to get out to avoid asphyxiation. Normally there is an abort button to allow the automatic release. I know of one case where hot work was being done without isolating the system and a very large Fm200 gas bottle was released. The refill cost $200,000.00 plus the system called a fire alarm resulting in four fire trucks attending which may have cost $4000.00 each for a false. I am not sure if Fm200 is still used, as it's ozone depleting. Perhaps CO2 now.
I’m not sure what is in FM200, but understanding is that it is less damaging than old halon to electronics in the case of a gas release. I worked in a small data center with an FM200 system. When an alarm registered, an extremely loud bell began to sound and a human had about 20 seconds to cancel the release via a large red button. The FM200 is oxygen displacing, so you don’t have long to get out, or you’ll suffocate.
The data center moved to a new site and the FM200 canister went along in the move. I never talked about the cost with the boss, but as noted above, it was obvious the gas canister is very expensive asset.
In all the other hardened sites, fallout areas are generally clearly placarded and include warnings on the doors unless those were stolen.
Awesome video, I have a lot of interest in both Long Lines and Autovon. Here in the DC area, there are many former LL sites, including some that are mostly intact (TD-2 horns are still up on the top of the tower), and there are two AT&T Troposcatter sites (hardened sites) in the area and both are in use for other projects by AT&T.
This looks like a newer site, and it is initially a bit surprising that so much is above ground. Apparently the building material is up to withstanding several PSI of overpressure and things like power generation equipment could be located in the top floor which looks not to be entirely hermetically sealed.
I believe the older sites were built with cut and cover and almost entirely underground except for the concrete tower for the microwave horns. Probably the concrete in the mostly underground sites did not need to be as strong, relying on the ground around the underground building to absorb blast energy.
A lot of work was done in the 1950s tests to understand the overpressure impulse and ground shockwave generated by aerial, surface and below ground nuclear detonations. My assumption is that data were not available when the original Long Lines bunkers were being designed, hence the decision to build almost all below ground.
This is awesome I remember a few years ago I binged watched any long line video I could find on RUclips lol. I live in Minnesota and I know for sure we have a long lines site in downtown Mpls and I also think there's one in St. Cloud Minnesota too. I'm 50 years old so I kinda knew about these even back then but nothing like now and it's actually kinda sad that these sites are falling apart or decommissioned cause it would have been a great back up for communications in case of the worse case scenario.
they were for back up communications in the day.... but salvaging them now would be like using Morse code combined with black and white TV.
I'd love to find the one in St Cloud.
Being 500 miles away from Ellsworth and Minot, and 300 miles away from Marinette, makes us a prime target for fallout.
Thats cool as hell
One was for sale outside of Miami. It was between two highways so kind of hard to use (like I had $)
Cool
These built-specific locations were abandoned because of fiberoptics, satellites and microwave made for better more efficient communications, ergo these were made obsolete. The sites that could be reused were kept and the rest were put into 'disposal'. AT&T and the U.S. Gov't definitely got their moneys worth out of these places. Keep in mind that AT&T did not abandon them, they were stripped of asbestos, equipment and as much wire as possible to meet make them sellable to the 'public' and then sold off to new owners. Who then abandoned a portion of the site or entirely after they found out that most of them were essentially worthless, except for the use prior. A large portion of these sites were sold to American Tower, whom were interested in the tower and FCC license that came with the sites. A lot more of these sites exist all over the world, some used for radio stations, repeaters, homes and schools.
Our WISP bought two of these sites from american tower to use the towers for the internet service they use air fiber systems I put up a 85 foot tower on my property as a hop as they call it .
Years ago my dad was at a retirement home and they had a cell tower on the property,it was a short wide four leg structure loaded with antennas and it was spooky.
Is there any place I could contact you? I'm in the San Antonio area and have been exploring a lot of the old long lines system around TX, this was an awesome location!
10:14 The only alarm abbreviation on this panel recognized is: PWR/power. Seems this site used abbr.’s of Radio alarms. From the last two videos watched from your channel, most equipment seen, appears to support the microwave radio equipment, one way or another. Pass-through / repeater sites appear unique. Only early microwave radios I was around were Federal-(real antique little to no info. available now days - Much adjustment required to keep operational) and Collins Radio. (Oldest equipment seen). Trip down memory lane for any worker of M.W. radio equip.
Hey dude, very impressive, question... How do I get into this industry?
I would think:
ENG = Engine
PWR = For power loss
BLG = Some type of damage to a outer wall.
The rest I have no clue.
The one where I live has a giant mural on the lowest floor
Were you able to go inside? How did you get the pictures?
The bottom row... Other door, back door, receiving room door, and front door.
Nice but where is it located ?
As for the annunciatior panel ~10:30, I’ll give you my best guess on the indicators. I worked in a lot of ATT facilities but never a MW relay site unfortunately.
BLG - probably related to any type of environmental alarm within the building; HVAC, water detected, high temp, etc.
ENG - Engine alarm. Gen Run, low fuel, over speed, etc..
PWR - some type of AC or DC alarm. Commercial power failure, Rectifier failure, battery on discharge, low voltage, etc..
CI - I’m not sure but could be a generic alarm for the switch located in the facility. A lot of the larger relay sites had switching equipment for Autovon.
LMX - I’m not familiar with but sounds like it’s associated with multiplexing equipment. Common in these sites.
FM-AS - no idea. Probably related to TD3 technology.
TD3 - the type of Microwave radio used in this facility.
TDRM - Probably a radio alarm of some type.
I - no clue
B - no clue
OTHDRS- could indicate some Over The Horizon technology that was in place at the time, but I’m speculating. Or could be ‘Other doors’
BK-DR - was probably back door open. Or could be radio related.
REC-DR - was probably receiving door open (loading dock). Or TD3 radio.
FNT-DR - was probably Front door open. Or radio again
I have no idea about the last indicators in red but are probably related to the radio system.
Hopefully a real TD3 guy will chime in and correct me😂
B and I Could refer to basement and first floor, to indicate where an alarm was present
Perhaps, BLG could refer to "Blower Gates", as if the blower had a gate that could let "dirty" air into the generator in case of overheating.
Lower left indicators I agree should refer to the doors being left open
Perhaps, CI could mean "Closed intake" for the generator. Or "clogged intake"
As for the red indicators, being them all bunched up together and red, they could be for the more serious stuff, related to nuclear. FRE RAD could refer to detectors for FREON and RADON gas, perhaps those have something to do with the fallout detection.
Time 1012 Sign with seemingly random numbers letters:
Apparently someone didn't enter the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42 into the computer every 108 minutes and magnetic pressure was released moving all of the equipment into another dimension. .
I would think the fans in generator room exhaust the air.
I know where I'll be moving very soon 😊
Mind if I ask, who still legally owns the building and land (a private non-telecom affiliate owner)? Is there any incentive to maintain it in any capacity? Like maybe maintain it, till a repurpose can be found.
Most of these sites have been purchased by people like myself or American Tower or other Tower companies and made available to lease for cellular, local government, and other RF systems. The buildings have not received a lot of interest however.
@@blakebowers8842 One of the old Long Lines underground bunker buildings was recently listed on a real estate site as doomsday residential conversion with a seven figure price tag. It was quite a nice residence if you didn’t mind never seeing real daylight.
I was sorely tempted a couple of years ago when an AT&T satellite communication site on 10 acres with private lake went up for sale about two years ago in West Virginia with a surprisingly low price tag of $400,000. Everything in the site was in great shape and not vandalized, including three huge Cummins Diesel generators. The dish was something like 30 meters diameter. The property was listed on the county GIS web site with a $0 property tax (!). I wonder if the county would extend that tax rate to an individual owner? I thought a possible use would be amateur radio astronomy vacation site or amateur radio enthusiasts to do earth-moon-earth transmissions. I have no idea what you could do with the property commercially.
@@blakebowers8842 Interesting. Do they all inherently get repurposed for another Telecom/RF Function or it's really whoever needs it for whatever they need it?
I wonder if people were assigned to go to these locations in the even of nuclear war or if war was imminent.
Yes, that is correct. There were designated staff people who would be called in on short notice with the expectation of being sealed in the facility. The larger sites had some association with the Department of Defense who had staff at the facility. There were three floors underground. This is from my (possibly faulty) memory: top floor - power and switching, radios, main distribution frame, middle floor - utility, offices, kitchen, dormitory, bottom floor Autovon switching, TV and radio switching, operator consoles, monitoring consoles.
The old sites had a square concrete tower column to support the microwave horns. A person who had worked in Long Lines told me (not independently verified) that some sites had four vertical antennas, one on each corner of the concrete tower and those were for communication with aerial command posts
@@wtmayhew If any of them are still alive someone needs to find and interview them before that piece of history is lost.
Location? State?
Should turn it into a DC
agreed
A dc for fiber?
A data centre for cloud computing. Building is well suited for this.
No fiber trunk to the building. Towers are using a MW backhaul. There are plenty of other active sites that can be configured into DC's or Cloud sites. The amount in cost to make this site a DC would eclipse any cost to just put the DC in an already modernized building. This could make a good astronomy B&B maybe...
Long lines bunkers use to be cool 30 years ago, but now that everybody knows about them, not really cool any more.
hard to watch, you shake the camera too much
Mother board. Build off neurons in a brain.
Would. A. Baseball. Hat. W water. Stop. Microwave signals
Looks like your on. A. Runway. Red light cam
Find the. Computer micron sf. Found.
Reason. Think for a minute.
GoPro Bud, buy yourself a new GoPro with steady shot. Your video is unwatchable.
Suggestion: Learn to hold a video camera better. Learn to take the time to complete your sentences. Long words are long and exist for a reason, trashing their pronunciation when you're looking right at a label on camera as if you aren't even trying, is distracting to what you're trying to accomplish. Take the time.
the audio was very low,