Cosmicfish
Given what you say how does Prime Base, before the ultra kaboom, gather all the electronic signals that it is designed to do? It is collecting radio (everything from CB to Ham to commercial and military) television, microwave and satellite downloads.
There have to be some serious receiver arrays that are active during the everyday period before the war starts, as well as collecting as much as possible until everything goes dark. This means the arrays will need to be wide spectrum, they will need to be able to survive at least some level of EMP and they must be able to send a lot of band with into Prime. They have to pick up signals from every direction. It should be redundant. In addition they must not look out of place in 1982 to a vacationing guy from Bell Telephone driving across the west with his wife Blanche and son little Jimmy. Finally if at all possible the data path should not lead someone to Prime Base, before, during or after the war.
Maybe there are numerous arrays that are connected by by buried land lines to the base, but this seems like it would be a really easy path to follow
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