Prime Base communications array

[tsofian]

I was at Meremac Caverns this weekend. They had a two story motel there. It dawned on me that such a motel might serve as part of the Prime Base cover. In the late seventies satellite TV was becoming a going concern. I could see a motel (perhaps even a chain of motels) offering "A Dish for every room! Enjoy your own SATELLITE FEED! TWENTY CHANNELS IN EVERY ROOM!" Sure by the late eighties all this technology is totally obsolete but how many roadside motels are littered with dead technology that they just haven't bothered to remove. If not a motel than am RV park where every pad has a dish.

If the site(s) is near a microwave tower they can backdoor that feed and get into that data stream as well. In fact having a microwave tower near enough to prime base is hardly unlikely.

http://long-lines.net/places-routes/maps/MW6003.jpg

If AT&T was part of the council of tomorrow there is no reason why the towers couldn't be integrated into MorrowNet

[mmartin798]

There are some post war obstacles to this plan. I have taken the map you linked to and superimposed it over the map I made with all the 4th edition US targets. The result can be gotten here:

https://1drv.ms/i/s!Al7j9i_hmlNFpnTHxYlGsjogoP84

The high bandwidth telephone and television links get severed many major cities. There are a number of the telephone only links that survive, but they are still large regional areas and I have not found a single link that connects East and West coast. I did not include the lines that were listed in the legend as planned or under construction. If we were to assume that AT&T was a member of the Counsel of Tomorrow, then perhaps these planned and under construction links were completed using an accelerated timeline as the war approached, since that is known to the Counsel. They may have even put in additional links to add redundancy and work around the major choke points. This could mitigate the problem and give you the genesis of Morrownet.

But all this metal and wire just sitting on a pole or mast would quickly be scavenged in the first decade after the war if it is not near any population center that worked to preserve it. In my campaign, I have two college campuses that have a microwave relay network connecting their campuses. Granted the link is reasonable short and only comprises towers along a trade route and is a recent construction. This map shows 14 exiting AT&T towers along a route close to the trade route I made. So I don't think that is it impossible, just unlikely that any long routes would have survived.

[dragoon500ly]

It's an interesting idea, but not a very useable one. Since the end of the Cold War, a lot more information has become available, satellites in the 1970-1980s were vulnerable to EMP, there was even a fear of one side detonating a large nuke in the upper atmosphere in order to disable the other sides communications. With such a possible scenario, would the Project depend download of key communications by relying on such a link?

Microwave communications were also considered to be equally vulnerable at the time. While there is a possibility that the Project might include replacement equipment to restore a microwave link, again, would the command bases have depended on such a vulnerability?

IMHO the Project would have used radios in the UHF, VHF, LF and FM bands with encrypted voice as well as Morse code. These at least can be shielded from EMP.

[tsofian]

Sorry, I suspect I was not clear. This would be for the pre and during war mission of recording events and such. This system would absolutely be destroyed by the war. In the post war the base will need to do things like loft balloons as antennae, or have a number of prefabricated towers.

Again this is only for use before and while everything is going to hell

[mmartin798]

This would be for the pre and during war mission of recording events and such.

If this is pre-war, then it is a case of data speed versus operational security. But this may also help explain the presence of Krell forces so quickly at Prime Base. Since microwave relay is directional, if you have a network of these relays you will eventually have a number that intersect with the location of Prime Base, or at least its receiver array. This is a security risk, but it makes for a nice hook.

You can imagine a case where it was reasonably close to the start of the war when Krell operatives discovered what looked like abandoned equipment still powered and operating. They then begin to map the relay network. As some point, they find one relay leg pointing off into the high desert. They continue their mapping and find at least one more pointing off into the desert when the war starts. Once the smoke clears, sun shines and snow melts, they send agents to begin investigating the area around the intersecting relay legs.

[cosmicfish]

There are better ways to conceal antennas, including AESA options that provide a directional antenna whose pointing angle is not physically apparent.

Surveillance and SIGINT also require the kind of wavelength and angular flexibility that make the dishes described all but useless - they are fine for picking up a wide-broadcast satellite signal at a specific wavelength, but there would be little of interest on such a channel.