CONELRAD
 

Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

with thanks

CONELRAD
 

"George McLeod" wrote in message
...
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

with thanks

If you go over to Yahoo! and check the Yahoo Groups for
the Heathkit forum, you will probably someone there who
can help. If you have a model number for the Heathkit it
would helpful too. There is a German site that still has
the Heath schematics available for download.

Pete

CONELRAD
 

George McLeod wrote:
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

What is this device? Does it automatically tune the radio to a CONELRAD
frequency?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

CONELRAD
 

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
George McLeod wrote:
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

What is this device? Does it automatically tune the radio to a CONELRAD
frequency?
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."
to monitor AGC voltage on the monitor receiver. When

The Heathkit was a model CA-1. It used a 2D21 thyratron
the station went off the air, the thryatron fired and locked
a relay which had contacts for the whatever notification
device was being used. AGC sensitivity could be set from
a volt or so to about -20 volts. Looked a bit like the
QF-1 box.

pete

CONELRAD
 

On 25 Jan 2009 12:50:41 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

George McLeod wrote:
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

What is this device? Does it automatically tune the radio to a CONELRAD
frequency?
--scott

I lived in this era. Back in the 1950's there was a program called
CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation. Subtitled CONELRAD. All AM
radios (FM was in its commercial infancy, we only had Public Stations
in the FM band) had little triangles with the Civil Defense logo at
640 Kcs and 1240 Kcs. [Kilocycles (per second) here is not accidental,
Hertz, as a term to mean cycles per second, was not adopted until the
mid-1960's.] In the event of an emergency, usually interpreted to be
an attack upon us by the Russians (this WAS the McCarthy era after
all) you were supposed to tune your AM radio to one of those two
frequencies for information on what to do. Inplicit in that was that
all other radiostations would get off the air so that they could not
be used as homing devices for attacking aircraft. The fact that there
were other methods to navigate was blithely ignored.

About 1957, CONELRAD was expanded to include amateur radio stations
and all stations were obliged by the FCC to have a CONELRAD monitor
which would tell you that an emergency was declared, that you were to
get your own station off the air, and like the rest of the population
tune to 640 or 1240 AM.

This ruling was more observed in the breach than the observance. And
few amateur stations did anything about it. [My response...I was a
teenager then...was to look for a mushroom cloud. If I saw one, I'd
get off the air. :-)

A few companies built add-on CONELRAD monitors. If I remember
correctly, you attached the device to an ordinary AM radio which was
already and always tuned to 640 or 1240 Kcs. (1240Kcs. actually
happened to be the frequency for the station in my own hometown in
Wisconsin.) When some keying signal came on, the CONELRAD monitor
would alarm and then you were to get off the air. It didn't retune any
radio to anything, it just told an alert went off as broadcast on one
of those two frequencies...at least that was all a ham version did.
In theory, you could just have a small radio playing in the background
which supposedly would tell you the same thing.

In actual tests, which were conducted from time to time, just as
Emergency Service Tests are occasionally heard now. All of a regions
stations got on one of those two frequencies (to confound the enemy's
direction finders) and they had some sort of switching so that they
all broadcast the same message from "Big Brother" but broadcast them
in some sort of rotation. The few tests that I actually heard knocked
our local station off the air, but the "emergency" broadcast itself
was total gibberish because there were too few stations in our rural
part of Wisconsin by day, and nighttime propagation was too screwy to
provide any responsible path.

I don't remember when CONELRAD died as I went off to college in 1960
and wasn't on the air very much and not at all when I was in school.
It was dead when I got back on the air with any regularity after I had
graduated..

Heathkit did indeed built such a monitoring kit. It was in the same
size box as their famous QF-1 Q mulitiplier or their earliest SWR
in-line monitor, one of the first with a Monimatch architecture. It
cost somewhere between $10 and $20 as a kit IIRC, but that was too
much allowance money for me to spend. Even as a teen, I had a keen
sense for Governmental BS (which paid off well later as I was a career
Federal Employee for 35 years in the intelligence world. You needed a
steep skirted BS filter to work in that environment.)

CONELRAD was one of the biggest governmental flops ever in the
communications arena.

Jon W3JT (K9CAH back then.)

CONELRAD
 

"Jon Teske" wrote in message
...






On 25 Jan 2009 12:50:41 -0500, (Scott
Dorsey) wrote:

George McLeod wrote:
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one,
for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

What is this device? Does it automatically tune the radio
to a CONELRAD
frequency?
--scott

I lived in this era. Back in the 1950's there was a
program called
CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation. Subtitled CONELRAD.
All AM
radios (FM was in its commercial infancy, we only had
Public Stations
in the FM band) had little triangles with the Civil
Defense logo at
640 Kcs and 1240 Kcs. [Kilocycles (per second) here is not
accidental,
Hertz, as a term to mean cycles per second, was not
adopted until the
mid-1960's.] In the event of an emergency, usually
interpreted to be
an attack upon us by the Russians (this WAS the McCarthy
era after
all) you were supposed to tune your AM radio to one of
those two
frequencies for information on what to do. Inplicit in
that was that
all other radiostations would get off the air so that they
could not
be used as homing devices for attacking aircraft. The
fact that there
were other methods to navigate was blithely ignored.

About 1957, CONELRAD was expanded to include amateur radio
stations
and all stations were obliged by the FCC to have a
CONELRAD monitor
which would tell you that an emergency was declared, that
you were to
get your own station off the air, and like the rest of the
population
tune to 640 or 1240 AM.

This ruling was more observed in the breach than the
observance. And
few amateur stations did anything about it. [My
response...I was a
teenager then...was to look for a mushroom cloud. If I saw
one, I'd
get off the air. :-)

A few companies built add-on CONELRAD monitors. If I
remember
correctly, you attached the device to an ordinary AM radio
which was
already and always tuned to 640 or 1240 Kcs. (1240Kcs.
actually
happened to be the frequency for the station in my own
hometown in
Wisconsin.) When some keying signal came on, the CONELRAD
monitor
would alarm and then you were to get off the air. It
didn't retune any
radio to anything, it just told an alert went off as
broadcast on one
of those two frequencies...at least that was all a ham
version did.
In theory, you could just have a small radio playing in
the background
which supposedly would tell you the same thing.

In actual tests, which were conducted from time to time,
just as
Emergency Service Tests are occasionally heard now. All of
a regions
stations got on one of those two frequencies (to confound
the enemy's
direction finders) and they had some sort of switching so
that they
all broadcast the same message from "Big Brother" but
broadcast them
in some sort of rotation. The few tests that I actually
heard knocked
our local station off the air, but the "emergency"
broadcast itself
was total gibberish because there were too few stations in
our rural
part of Wisconsin by day, and nighttime propagation was
too screwy to
provide any responsible path.

I don't remember when CONELRAD died as I went off to
college in 1960
and wasn't on the air very much and not at all when I was
in school.
It was dead when I got back on the air with any regularity
after I had
graduated..

Heathkit did indeed built such a monitoring kit. It was in
the same
size box as their famous QF-1 Q mulitiplier or their
earliest SWR
in-line monitor, one of the first with a Monimatch
architecture. It
cost somewhere between $10 and $20 as a kit IIRC, but that
was too
much allowance money for me to spend. Even as a teen, I
had a keen
sense for Governmental BS (which paid off well later as I
was a career
Federal Employee for 35 years in the intelligence world.
You needed a
steep skirted BS filter to work in that environment.)

CONELRAD was one of the biggest governmental flops ever in
the
communications arena.

Jon W3JT (K9CAH back then.)


CONELRAD was inspired by the supposed fact that the
Japanese aircraft that attacked Pearl Harbor used a Honolulu
broadcast station to home on the target. Conelrad required
all broadcast stations to leave the air during an alert and
certain stations switched to 640 or 1240 Khz, depending on
which was closer to its normal frequency, and operated with
low power. All ham stations were supposed to leave the air.
The stations switched among a group to cause RDFs to become
confused, at least that was the idea. All stations were fed
with the same audio, which originated at the key station of
the group via a telephone network. My memory is that all
stations had monitors tuned to the key station which were
tripped by a tone of some sort. In Los Angeles KFI was the
key station with KMPC (710) acting as back-up when KFI was
off the air. Because of its function as the key station KFI
began broadcasting twenty-four hours a day except for a few
hours on Sunday nights for maintenance, during which KMPC
stayed on the air.
There was, I think, only one nationwide test, and a few
local tests. It was quite possible to identify some of the
individual stations by their sound and the key station could
be identified by the higher audio quality. The system was a
failure but contributed to the general panic about a
possible Russian neucular attack. A lot of people were
convinced that a Russian attack was inevitable and there was
quite a scam going at the time among contractors who offered
to build bomb shelters in your back yard. I wonder how many
of those bomb shelters still exist.

I did a Google search after writing all this and found a
couple of good sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CONELRAD

http://www.oldradio.com/current/bc_conel.htm


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

CONELRAD
 

Jon Teske wrote:





On 25 Jan 2009 12:50:41 -0500, (Scott Dorsey) wrote:

George McLeod wrote:
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.
What is this device? Does it automatically tune the radio to a CONELRAD
frequency?
--scott

I lived in this era. Back in the 1950's there was a program called
CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation. Subtitled CONELRAD. All AM
radios (FM was in its commercial infancy, we only had Public Stations
in the FM band) had little triangles with the Civil Defense logo at
640 Kcs and 1240 Kcs. [Kilocycles (per second) here is not accidental,
Hertz, as a term to mean cycles per second, was not adopted until the
mid-1960's.] In the event of an emergency, usually interpreted to be
an attack upon us by the Russians (this WAS the McCarthy era after
all) you were supposed to tune your AM radio to one of those two
frequencies for information on what to do. Inplicit in that was that
all other radiostations would get off the air so that they could not
be used as homing devices for attacking aircraft. The fact that there
were other methods to navigate was blithely ignored.

About 1957, CONELRAD was expanded to include amateur radio stations
and all stations were obliged by the FCC to have a CONELRAD monitor
which would tell you that an emergency was declared, that you were to
get your own station off the air, and like the rest of the population
tune to 640 or 1240 AM.

This ruling was more observed in the breach than the observance. And
few amateur stations did anything about it. [My response...I was a
teenager then...was to look for a mushroom cloud. If I saw one, I'd
get off the air. :-)

A few companies built add-on CONELRAD monitors. If I remember
correctly, you attached the device to an ordinary AM radio which was
already and always tuned to 640 or 1240 Kcs. (1240Kcs. actually
happened to be the frequency for the station in my own hometown in
Wisconsin.) When some keying signal came on, the CONELRAD monitor
would alarm and then you were to get off the air. It didn't retune any
radio to anything, it just told an alert went off as broadcast on one
of those two frequencies...at least that was all a ham version did.
In theory, you could just have a small radio playing in the background
which supposedly would tell you the same thing.

In actual tests, which were conducted from time to time, just as
Emergency Service Tests are occasionally heard now. All of a regions
stations got on one of those two frequencies (to confound the enemy's
direction finders) and they had some sort of switching so that they
all broadcast the same message from "Big Brother" but broadcast them
in some sort of rotation. The few tests that I actually heard knocked
our local station off the air, but the "emergency" broadcast itself
was total gibberish because there were too few stations in our rural
part of Wisconsin by day, and nighttime propagation was too screwy to
provide any responsible path.

I don't remember when CONELRAD died as I went off to college in 1960
and wasn't on the air very much and not at all when I was in school.
It was dead when I got back on the air with any regularity after I had
graduated..

Heathkit did indeed built such a monitoring kit. It was in the same
size box as their famous QF-1 Q mulitiplier or their earliest SWR
in-line monitor, one of the first with a Monimatch architecture. It
cost somewhere between $10 and $20 as a kit IIRC, but that was too
much allowance money for me to spend. Even as a teen, I had a keen
sense for Governmental BS (which paid off well later as I was a career
Federal Employee for 35 years in the intelligence world. You needed a
steep skirted BS filter to work in that environment.)

CONELRAD was one of the biggest governmental flops ever in the
communications arena.

Jon W3JT (K9CAH back then.)


Jon;

An excellent summation of CONELRAD. The only correction is the lower
frequency. It was 620 Kcs which is half the upper frequency of 1240.
This was for reception at the higher freq by use of the harmonic effect.

When I was in high school in the late 50's we had a school fm broadcast
station. Our CONELRAD detector was a standard receiver with an addon
device that squawked when the carrier was lost. Our control station was
Radio station WOWO in Fort Wayne IN. We tested the receiver every hour
by pressing a phone jack in. This acted like the loss of carrier from
WOWO and sounded a LOUD horn. When WOWO would loose it's carrier due to
what ever it really got your heart going. We were in the middle of the
great nuk war threat and never knew if or when the balloon would go up.
HI HI..

CONELRAD operated by switching the active carrier of several radio
stations around the country in a random sequence so that Soviet bombers
could not use radio navigation to locate any specific target for bombing.

I agree that CONELRAD and the whole CD effort, for that matter, was a
total flop. Great PR but a flop never the less. Growing up just south of
Cleveland OH and the later near Grissom AFB (a SAC base about 60 miles
north of Indianapolis IN I held no expectations of surviving any nuk attack.

Dave Nagel
WD9BDZ

CONELRAD
 

"David G. Nagel" wrote in
message ...
Jon Teske wrote:





On 25 Jan 2009 12:50:41 -0500, (Scott
Dorsey) wrote:

George McLeod wrote:
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one,
for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.
What is this device? Does it automatically tune the
radio to a CONELRAD
frequency?
--scott

I lived in this era. Back in the 1950's there was a
program called
CONtrol of ELectromagnetic RADiation. Subtitled CONELRAD.
All AM
radios (FM was in its commercial infancy, we only had
Public Stations
in the FM band) had little triangles with the Civil
Defense logo at
640 Kcs and 1240 Kcs. [Kilocycles (per second) here is
not accidental,
Hertz, as a term to mean cycles per second, was not
adopted until the
mid-1960's.] In the event of an emergency, usually
interpreted to be
an attack upon us by the Russians (this WAS the McCarthy
era after
all) you were supposed to tune your AM radio to one of
those two
frequencies for information on what to do. Inplicit in
that was that
all other radiostations would get off the air so that
they could not
be used as homing devices for attacking aircraft. The
fact that there
were other methods to navigate was blithely ignored.

About 1957, CONELRAD was expanded to include amateur
radio stations
and all stations were obliged by the FCC to have a
CONELRAD monitor
which would tell you that an emergency was declared, that
you were to
get your own station off the air, and like the rest of
the population
tune to 640 or 1240 AM.

This ruling was more observed in the breach than the
observance. And
few amateur stations did anything about it. [My
response...I was a
teenager then...was to look for a mushroom cloud. If I
saw one, I'd
get off the air. :-)

A few companies built add-on CONELRAD monitors. If I
remember
correctly, you attached the device to an ordinary AM
radio which was
already and always tuned to 640 or 1240 Kcs. (1240Kcs.
actually
happened to be the frequency for the station in my own
hometown in
Wisconsin.) When some keying signal came on, the
CONELRAD monitor
would alarm and then you were to get off the air. It
didn't retune any
radio to anything, it just told an alert went off as
broadcast on one
of those two frequencies...at least that was all a ham
version did.
In theory, you could just have a small radio playing in
the background
which supposedly would tell you the same thing.

In actual tests, which were conducted from time to time,
just as
Emergency Service Tests are occasionally heard now. All
of a regions
stations got on one of those two frequencies (to confound
the enemy's
direction finders) and they had some sort of switching so
that they
all broadcast the same message from "Big Brother" but
broadcast them
in some sort of rotation. The few tests that I actually
heard knocked
our local station off the air, but the "emergency"
broadcast itself
was total gibberish because there were too few stations
in our rural
part of Wisconsin by day, and nighttime propagation was
too screwy to
provide any responsible path.

I don't remember when CONELRAD died as I went off to
college in 1960
and wasn't on the air very much and not at all when I was
in school.
It was dead when I got back on the air with any
regularity after I had
graduated..

Heathkit did indeed built such a monitoring kit. It was
in the same
size box as their famous QF-1 Q mulitiplier or their
earliest SWR
in-line monitor, one of the first with a Monimatch
architecture. It
cost somewhere between $10 and $20 as a kit IIRC, but
that was too
much allowance money for me to spend. Even as a teen, I
had a keen
sense for Governmental BS (which paid off well later as I
was a career
Federal Employee for 35 years in the intelligence world.
You needed a
steep skirted BS filter to work in that environment.)

CONELRAD was one of the biggest governmental flops ever
in the
communications arena.

Jon W3JT (K9CAH back then.)


Jon;

An excellent summation of CONELRAD. The only correction is
the lower frequency. It was 620 Kcs which is half the
upper frequency of 1240. This was for reception at the
higher freq by use of the harmonic effect.

When I was in high school in the late 50's we had a school
fm broadcast station. Our CONELRAD detector was a standard
receiver with an addon device that squawked when the
carrier was lost. Our control station was Radio station
WOWO in Fort Wayne IN. We tested the receiver every hour
by pressing a phone jack in. This acted like the loss of
carrier from WOWO and sounded a LOUD horn. When WOWO would
loose it's carrier due to what ever it really got your
heart going. We were in the middle of the great nuk war
threat and never knew if or when the balloon would go up.
HI HI..

CONELRAD operated by switching the active carrier of
several radio stations around the country in a random
sequence so that Soviet bombers could not use radio
navigation to locate any specific target for bombing.

I agree that CONELRAD and the whole CD effort, for that
matter, was a total flop. Great PR but a flop never the
less. Growing up just south of Cleveland OH and the later
near Grissom AFB (a SAC base about 60 miles north of
Indianapolis IN I held no expectations of surviving any
nuk attack.

Dave Nagel
WD9BDZ

I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental
documents for Conelrad may still exist and may explain the
choice of frequencies. I think mostly it was to have a
frequency that would be usable for any BC station. I also
don't remember (if I ever knew) the power stations were
supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple of
hundred watts.


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

CONELRAD
 

Richard Knoppow wrote:


I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental
documents for Conelrad may still exist and may explain the
choice of frequencies. I think mostly it was to have a
frequency that would be usable for any BC station. I also
don't remember (if I ever knew) the power stations were
supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple of
hundred watts.

640 was VERY vacant in those days and 1240 was very full. I think the
mindset was to cover both extremes but thats only a guess on my part.

When I was a kid I never quite figured how it was supposed to work. We
had a local station on 1240 but it was not the Conelrad station. I
later learned that it was one of the other stations who kept an
auxiliary xmtr available on 1240 for that purpose.

I was only 10 y/o when the scheme ended in 1963 but I recall a neighbor
ham explaining to me about the Conelrad 'monitor' in his shack.

-Bill

CONELRAD
 

Bill M wrote:
Richard Knoppow wrote:


I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental
documents for Conelrad may still exist and may explain the
choice of frequencies. I think mostly it was to have a
frequency that would be usable for any BC station. I also
don't remember (if I ever knew) the power stations were
supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple of
hundred watts.

640 was VERY vacant in those days and 1240 was very full. I think the
mindset was to cover both extremes but thats only a guess on my part.

Depends on where you were.

KFI in Los Angeles (actually La Mirada) has been on 640 since 1922 and
running 50 KW since 1931.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/kfipix.htm


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

CONELRAD
 

wrote:


KFI in Los Angeles (actually La Mirada) has been on 640 since 1922 and
running 50 KW since 1931.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/kfipix.htm


Thats what I mean about VERY vacant. Look and see what else was on 640
back in the 50s/60s compared to other frequencies.

CONELRAD
 

Richard Kn

I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental
documents for Conelrad may still exist and may explain the
choice of frequencies. I think mostly it was to have a
frequency that would be usable for any BC station. I also
don't remember (if I ever knew) the power stations were
supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple of
hundred watts.



You are right. That's what happens when you depend on memory. Sorry for
the error.

Dave

CONELRAD
 

Bill M wrote:
wrote:


KFI in Los Angeles (actually La Mirada) has been on 640 since 1922 and
running 50 KW since 1931.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/kfipix.htm


Thats what I mean about VERY vacant. Look and see what else was on 640
back in the 50s/60s compared to other frequencies.

Since at that time, it was a clear channel station, one wouldn't expect
any other stations.


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

CONELRAD
 

Richard Knoppow wrote:
There was, I think, only one nationwide test, and a few
local tests. It was quite possible to identify some of the
individual stations by their sound and the key station could
be identified by the higher audio quality. The system was a
failure but contributed to the general panic about a
possible Russian neucular attack.

How was it a failure? The reason it was dropped, IMHO, was that by November
of 1962, it became obvious that the Soviet Union was no longer dependent
upon bombers to attack the U.S.

Missiles had replaced bombers, and they don't need local radio stations
to navigate.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

CONELRAD
 

wrote in message
...
Bill M wrote:
Richard Knoppow wrote:


I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower
frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental
documents for Conelrad may still exist and may explain
the
choice of frequencies. I think mostly it was to have a
frequency that would be usable for any BC station. I
also
don't remember (if I ever knew) the power stations were
supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple of
hundred watts.

640 was VERY vacant in those days and 1240 was very full.
I think the
mindset was to cover both extremes but thats only a guess
on my part.

Depends on where you were.

KFI in Los Angeles (actually La Mirada) has been on 640
since 1922 and
running 50 KW since 1931.

http://www.oldradio.com/archives/stations/LA/kfipix.htm


--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

KFI was a Class 1-A clear channel, not duplicated at
night and with few daytime only stations on the same
frequency and those located in the East.
KFI was the key CONELRAD station in LA. It is one of the
very few stations to operate on the same frequency as it
started on. KFI's original studios and transmitter were in
the Earl C. Anthony Packard dealership at 1000 S. Hope St.
(10th and Hope) this had the original flat top antenna on
top and I believe the original 5KW transmitter was
maintained as an emergency transmitter until ECA's death.
La Mirada is a fairly recently established city. The
transmitter location used to be given as "near" Buena Park.
I it when it was in the sticks, mostly dairy and truck
farms.


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

CONELRAD
 

"David G. Nagel" wrote in
message ...
Richard Kn

I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower
frequency. Somewhere, buried in some archive, the
developmental documents for Conelrad may still exist and
may explain the choice of frequencies. I think mostly it
was to have a frequency that would be usable for any BC
station. I also don't remember (if I ever knew) the power
stations were supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps
a couple of hundred watts.



You are right. That's what happens when you depend on
memory. Sorry for the error.

Dave

Memory? What's that?


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

CONELRAD
 

Richard Knoppow wrote:
"David G. Nagel" wrote in
message ...
Richard Kn
I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower
frequency. Somewhere, buried in some archive, the
developmental documents for Conelrad may still exist and
may explain the choice of frequencies. I think mostly it
was to have a frequency that would be usable for any BC
station. I also don't remember (if I ever knew) the power
stations were supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps
a couple of hundred watts.


You are right. That's what happens when you depend on
memory. Sorry for the error.

Dave

Memory? What's that?


I dunno. The other half says it's the second shortest thing I have. I
forget what the other thing is....

CONELRAD
 

"George McLeod" wrote in message
...
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

Monumental failure? Easy conclusion, evidently. However there are still
WMD's pointed
at us, and we still have them pointed at others. Of course CONELRAD is not
an effective scheme any longer, but when WMD's traveled by airplane, and
came from
known geographical spots, CONELRAD was a pretty effective at denying
precision
target identification using simple navigation instruments.
I was always dismayed by having to have our radio or TV turned up so
loud that
it could be heard back in the hall closet that was my "shack". When Wife was
home, the
volume could be turned down, and she was to tell me if the station went off
the air.
(and it did, occasionally, sending a little chill, until determining that it
was not an alert,
but a "technical problem")

Old Chief Lynn, W7LTQ (then and now)

CONELRAD
 

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Richard Knoppow wrote:
There was, I think, only one nationwide test, and a few
local tests. It was quite possible to identify some of the
individual stations by their sound and the key station could
be identified by the higher audio quality. The system was a
failure but contributed to the general panic about a
possible Russian neucular attack.

How was it a failure? The reason it was dropped, IMHO, was that by November
of 1962, it became obvious that the Soviet Union was no longer dependent
upon bombers to attack the U.S.

That's part of why it was a failure. The US invested a huge amount of money
in defending against a bomber attack, and they continued investing that money
years after it became clear that missiles were a more pressing threat.

Missiles had replaced bombers, and they don't need local radio stations
to navigate.

Well, for that matter neither do bombers, if they are equipped with INS
systems much like the missiles would be. In fact, bombers were probably
more effective in an RF blackout, seeing as how they were navigated by
human beings with maps and pilotage as well as by electronic systems.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

CONELRAD
 

Scott Dorsey wrote:
That's part of why it was a failure. The US invested a huge amount of money
in defending against a bomber attack, and they continued investing that money
years after it became clear that missiles were a more pressing threat.

That to me does not make any sense. In an arms race, you pay (or invest)
in something that protects you NOW in the hope that it works while you
invest in something that will protect you in the future.

I'm not fond of the whole concept of an arms race, but sometimes we have
one forced upon us.



Well, for that matter neither do bombers, if they are equipped with INS
systems much like the missiles would be. In fact, bombers were probably
more effective in an RF blackout, seeing as how they were navigated by
human beings with maps and pilotage as well as by electronic systems.

They may not of had good maps, etc at the time. The Soviet Union was not
as well equipped as the USAF.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

CONELRAD
 

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

Well, for that matter neither do bombers, if they are equipped with INS
systems much like the missiles would be. In fact, bombers were probably
more effective in an RF blackout, seeing as how they were navigated by
human beings with maps and pilotage as well as by electronic systems.

They may not of had good maps, etc at the time. The Soviet Union was not
as well equipped as the USAF.

Sheesh, they should have joined AAA.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

CONELRAD
 

"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:

Well, for that matter neither do bombers, if they are
equipped with INS
systems much like the missiles would be. In fact,
bombers were probably
more effective in an RF blackout, seeing as how they
were navigated by
human beings with maps and pilotage as well as by
electronic systems.

They may not of had good maps, etc at the time. The Soviet
Union was not
as well equipped as the USAF.

Sheesh, they should have joined AAA.
--scott

LOL.
I don't think it would take much of a map to find Los
Angeles or New York City or any other major U.S. city.
Conelrad was sort of locking the barn door not only after
the horse was stolen but after horses weren't used any more.
Until about fifteen years ago you could still see where
one of the large stages at Warner Brothers was marked
"Lockheed Aircraft", a left over from WW-2. WB is a few
miles from the old Lockheed plant and looks sort of like it.
Conelrad belonged to the thinking of the same era.


--

--
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL

CONELRAD
 

Geoffrey S. Mendelson wrote:
Scott Dorsey wrote:
That's part of why it was a failure. The US invested a huge amount of money
in defending against a bomber attack, and they continued investing that money
years after it became clear that missiles were a more pressing threat.

That to me does not make any sense. In an arms race, you pay (or invest)
in something that protects you NOW in the hope that it works while you
invest in something that will protect you in the future.

I'm not fond of the whole concept of an arms race, but sometimes we have
one forced upon us.



Well, for that matter neither do bombers, if they are equipped with INS
systems much like the missiles would be. In fact, bombers were probably
more effective in an RF blackout, seeing as how they were navigated by
human beings with maps and pilotage as well as by electronic systems.

They may not of had good maps, etc at the time. The Soviet Union was not
as well equipped as the USAF.

Geoff.

Geoffrey;

You should know that there is no such thing as a temporary governmental
project. And that's what these amounted to.

Dave

CONELRAD
 

LOL.
I don't think it would take much of a map to find Los
Angeles or New York City or any other major U.S. city.
Conelrad was sort of locking the barn door not only after
the horse was stolen but after horses weren't used any more.
Until about fifteen years ago you could still see where
one of the large stages at Warner Brothers was marked
"Lockheed Aircraft", a left over from WW-2. WB is a few
miles from the old Lockheed plant and looks sort of like it.
Conelrad belonged to the thinking of the same era.

Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles
WB6KBL


Now we have Google Maps that can be used for pin point targeting by pesky
salesmen, paparazzi and any other nefarious character. The threat is more
real now.

CONELRAD
 

JB wrote:
Now we have Google Maps that can be used for pin point targeting by pesky
salesmen, paparazzi and any other nefarious character. The threat is more
real now.

You have no idea. Hamas has been using them to target rockets.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

CONELRAD
 

"Geoffrey S. Mendelson" wrote in message
...
JB wrote:
Now we have Google Maps that can be used for pin point targeting by
pesky
salesmen, paparazzi and any other nefarious character. The threat is
more
real now.

You have no idea. Hamas has been using them to target rockets.

Geoff.


--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

It's just simple math once you have the co-ordinates and elevations.
Not counting wind drift and thrust variations. You all have my prayers.
Pray for us too. We are besieged by idiots who don't seem to connect
what they want to any sense of reality. History has no meaning for them.

CONELRAD
 

David G. Nagel wrote:

Richard Knoppow wrote:

"David G. Nagel" wrote in message
...

Richard Kn

I'm afraid that 640khz _is_ the correct lower frequency.
Somewhere, buried in some archive, the developmental documents for
Conelrad may still exist and may explain the choice of frequencies.
I think mostly it was to have a frequency that would be usable for
any BC station. I also don't remember (if I ever knew) the power
stations were supposed to use, I think quite low, perhaps a couple
of hundred watts.


You are right. That's what happens when you depend on memory. Sorry
for the error.

Dave


Memory? What's that?


I dunno. The other half says it's the second shortest thing I have. I
forget what the other thing is....

This should bring back some memories for those over '50' here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I

CONELRAD
 

SX122 wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0K_LZDXp0I

A higher quality version of this can be downloaded from the Internet Archive.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

CONELRAD
 

"Lynn" wrote in message
...

"George McLeod" wrote in message
...
Would anyone have a circuit, or know where to find one, for the Conelrad
device as marketed by Motorola and Heathkit.

Monumental failure? Easy conclusion, evidently. However there are
still WMD's pointed
at us, and we still have them pointed at others. Of course CONELRAD is not
an effective scheme any longer, but when WMD's traveled by airplane, and
came from
known geographical spots, CONELRAD was a pretty effective at denying
precision
target identification using simple navigation instruments.
I was always dismayed by having to have our radio or TV turned up so
loud that
it could be heard back in the hall closet that was my "shack". When Wife
was home, the
volume could be turned down, and she was to tell me if the station went
off the air.
(and it did, occasionally, sending a little chill, until determining that
it was not an alert,
but a "technical problem")

Old Chief Lynn, W7LTQ (then and now)


Last night, BBC 4 TV over here in the UK aired a compilation of Bob Dylan's
performances at the Newport Folk Festivals in the 60's. I was amused to
hear, in "Talkin' World War 3 Blues", the lines:-

"Well, I remember seein' some ad
So I turned on my Conelrad
But I didn't pay my Con Ed bill
So the radio didn't work so well!"

I often wondered what Conelrad was, thanks to this thread I finally know!

Roger Basford/G3VKM

CONELRAD
 

The original question was whether someone had a circuit diagram of a
Conelrad device marketed by Motorola or Heath. I do not hink anyone
answered the question, although there were wonderful distractions.

Specifically, the Heath catalog of 1959 (and other years) contains
schematics of many of the Heath products, along with a description. I do
have that catalog so I could scan the schematic. Although copyright
protection has now been asserted as to Heath manuals, I do not believe it is
being exercised as to those schematics.

I still have my Morrow Conelrad receiver in my shack. It still functions as
intended and I often listen to the basketball or football game.

As to how an invasion works, I was down in Grenada the year following the US
invasion and spoke with many of the "invadees". It turned out that the US
did not have any good maps of Grenada, because they had not planned to
invade that country. They entered St. Georges and went to the local travel
agency and bought all of their maps of the island and used those to continue
their invasion. The "bad guys" had occupied a school on the top of a hill
right next to the ocean. The US gunships sat off shore and took potshots,
with their big guns, at the school. I remember examining a Russian
motorcycle that had been the victim of a direct hit. Not a lot of science
involved. The inhabitants of St. Georges were treated to a good show. The
local sandwich shop did well selling sandwiches to the US troops. The local
radio station still had lots of bullet holes in it and I recall the radio
station went off the air fairly quickly. Not sure if it was either 640 or
1240, though.

So, it seems that the best invasions, with the least loss of life, occurs
when the country invaded is basically peaceful, with no arms and no ability
to fight back. The entire process can be finished in a weekend. The
inhabitants get a good show, make a profit selling supplies to the invaders,
then get aid to rebuild after the invaders leave.

73, Colin K7FM

CONELRAD
 

One of the persistant legends of the Grenada Invasion was that several
times more medals were given out for that campaign than for people
actually invading the island. I had a peripheral (and not terribly
important) role in that invasion while in Washington all the time and
I got a medal for it...and I was a DOD civilian!!!

One story I know to be true was that two joint commands, one was
called COMFORCESCARIB and another one whose name I do not
remember, one based in Puerto Rico the other based in Key West had
Grenada within their area of responsibility. Both were headed by two
star admirals. Neither command knew anything about the invasion and
neither were involved in the planning or execution of it. They
learned about it in the news. Grenada was in their Area of
Responsibilites.

Some of us in Washington, not directly involved with the command
structure, had problems figuring out which command was in charge of
what. My office had a support function and we never knew who to
support with what.

What they did get was two very ****ed off admirals. Both admirals,
realized in how high of esteem they were view in the Pentagon and both
retired shortly thereafter. Since neither command played a roll in
the invason, it was also realized that neither command had a real
function (one was known as a sort of dumping ground for old colonels
and captains awaiting retirement.) Both commands ceased to exist
shortly thereafter.

Jon, W3JT



On Sat, 7 Feb 2009 07:33:55 -0800, "COLIN LAMB"
wrote:

The original question was whether someone had a circuit diagram of a
Conelrad device marketed by Motorola or Heath. I do not hink anyone
answered the question, although there were wonderful distractions.

Specifically, the Heath catalog of 1959 (and other years) contains
schematics of many of the Heath products, along with a description. I do
have that catalog so I could scan the schematic. Although copyright
protection has now been asserted as to Heath manuals, I do not believe it is
being exercised as to those schematics.

I still have my Morrow Conelrad receiver in my shack. It still functions as
intended and I often listen to the basketball or football game.

As to how an invasion works, I was down in Grenada the year following the US
invasion and spoke with many of the "invadees". It turned out that the US
did not have any good maps of Grenada, because they had not planned to
invade that country. They entered St. Georges and went to the local travel
agency and bought all of their maps of the island and used those to continue
their invasion. The "bad guys" had occupied a school on the top of a hill
right next to the ocean. The US gunships sat off shore and took potshots,
with their big guns, at the school. I remember examining a Russian
motorcycle that had been the victim of a direct hit. Not a lot of science
involved. The inhabitants of St. Georges were treated to a good show. The
local sandwich shop did well selling sandwiches to the US troops. The local
radio station still had lots of bullet holes in it and I recall the radio
station went off the air fairly quickly. Not sure if it was either 640 or
1240, though.

So, it seems that the best invasions, with the least loss of life, occurs
when the country invaded is basically peaceful, with no arms and no ability
to fight back. The entire process can be finished in a weekend. The
inhabitants get a good show, make a profit selling supplies to the invaders,
then get aid to rebuild after the invaders leave.

73, Colin K7FM

CONELRAD
 

I forgot to mention that the Navy and the Marines could not talk to each
other during the Grenada invasion, even though they were within eyesight.
They resorted to telephones. The local travel agent told me the Marines
came in and made long distance telephone calls to the states. I assume
things changed because of what they learned.

73, Colin K7FM