Ham Radio - The giant Collins HF discone antenna at the Titan Missile Museum.

An amazing place and a unique and equally amazing antenna that you can hook up to!

Museum site:

Green Valley amateur radio club page:

Wiki on discones:

Electronic notes on discones:

The titan 2 handbook I showed:

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[robstewart]

I had the pleasure of transmitting from that antenna in June of 2022 . What a thrill, It was a beautiful crisp day and stations were coming in from Europe and I spoke to stations across the US that antenna seems to be a great receiving antenna With all that steel up in the air.
Thank you Green Valley for taking care of that fantastic antenna.

[kirkgoins]

I was a Titan II Launch Crew Member at Little Rock, AR 76-81. I can remember using the HF Radio in the wee hours of the night to listen to all sorts of stations from all over the world as we had no requirement to actively monitor a specific freq most of the time. Thanks for the memories...

[bentrider]

My mother worked at Collins here in Cedar Rapids in the late 60's right out of high school till she retired around 88-90..She showed me how to solder and what not..So you could say Collins taught me how to work on my radios 🤣

[acestudioscouk-Ace-GACE]

Great video Kevin! I loved it and thanks for taking the time to make it. Very nicely made and edited. I really wish I could visit it... if I ever get to back to the US, I know where I'm going!

[kschroll]

In Sept 2021 in 106 degree heat I set my IC-7610 up attached to my running mustang so the battery wouldn't die and talked to my buddy in Washington state for about an hour and 20 minutes. 20 and 40 meters worked great!

[davedeiler]

Fascinating information, thanks for the tour.

[KVZ]

I've operated on the antenna many times with the 4x4 Ham club as W7AZO. Thanks for the in depth view of the antenna history.

[Guns_N_Gears]

I was out there on vacation in Sept.
We toured that museum, and everything there is colossal, even that antenna.

[UltraLimitedHD]

KB9RLW de KY4R, great visit & video Kevin, glad to be in the log, 73

[Don-evov]

Great video. Will probably watch it a couple of times. Quarter waves come up time after time in radio and microwaves. One of the NanoVNA methods I used to determine the velocity factor of my coax was to sweep all frequencies to spot the frequency at which the open coax was a short. Will look at the discone links. Cool to see "Megacycles, " and cool that Hams can use the antenna.

[AdamosDad]

We had one on the bow of my first ship (Collins HF discone antenna), the USS Newport News CA-148. Our only problem was our T1 and T2 guns had a lockout to keep us from shooting it off, that came to bear when we were being attacked by torpedo boats in Vietnam.
I had a lot of experience with Collins equipment as an Electronics tech in the Navy, great stuff🖐🏻73's🎙🎧KD9OAM📻

[JReed]

Cool antenna. From the sweeps it definitely looks like it could use a tear down and cleaning of all the connections, but considering is has been up that long with no maintenance it looks really good. What a cool antenna, thanks so much for sharing it with us.

[randallwalker]

Thanks for the good video! My wife and I are snow birds and have been to Green Valley a lot. Plugging my radio into the historic antenna is always a thrilling experience!

[howardkarse]

A well played blend of Ham radio at the site - and nice presentation of the site/museum overall.

[enigmarbs]

Thank you for the interesting video.
The principle of the antenna was very common for goverment use.
Our clubstation have a little version of those system used on the CIA Headquarter in Nürnberg, Germany.
They put it to a junkyard, when they leave the areas and we buyed it in the late 90's.
Still a nice system👍🏻

[njmb]

WOW! Awesome video Kevin! Thank you so much for sharing!

[edwatts]

Nice effort! XYL and I toured that facility several years ago, and that discovered caught my eye. We were in a rental car, so, I didn't have a radio with me.

We had been checking out Atlas-F sites in New Mexico, hoping to buy one and converting it into a home, and we stopped here on the way back to W6 land.

Thanks for the video.

Ed, KI6DCB

[MG.]

THANK YOU !
That was a very interesting video coverage of not only the antennas but the entire site.
ESPECIALLY want to thank you for pointing out the book _Titan II Handbook_. It will be added to my library soon.
My first job in electronics was for "Rockwell International Collins Radio Group" in Richardson, Tx, the first year after RI purchased Collins Radio. I was straight out of USAF microwave technician school. As an Air National Guard troop, I came back to my home station 254 Combat Comm in the Dallas area after graduating tech school (1978).
It was a long road, and I was a contractor from 1996 until I retired in 04/2020... 42 years of wearing many hats from RF tech to Sr Eng Tech to PCB layout to Sig Integ Eng to Sr EE when I retired. It was mostly in aerospace and military engineering & engineering support. I worked in different capacities for Rockwell Collins 4 different times, 4 times for Ball Aerospace, General Dynamics, MIT Lincoln Laboratory (one of our national labs), TI, Raytheon, etc. A contractor gets around. It was (mostly) a fun and interesting ride.
Best regards, KE5VOC Michael

[reedreamer]

I visited the Titan Missile museum back in 2006 - it was fantastic! But that was before I became a ham, so I don't recall seeing the discone. Good thing the Air Force did not have to contend with contesters when they used those HF antennas. ; )

[stevesomers]

Thanks, Kevin. Great video. I visited the silo years ago, but did not learn about the hf antennas there. The whole place is an amazing thing to witness. Excellent video. 73, Steve AE6SS