(many pictures - please let page load)

Bob Popper, with two stripes on his sleeve, arrived at Det 150 in August 1967 straight out of Automatic Teletype and Electronic Switching Systems Repairman School, joking nowadays that he was the "know it all, can do it all" technician.

In his e-mail to me with his pictures, Bob said a few things about his time at Sahintepe which echo some frequent threads in all the memories of Det 150 veterans: 

"A few days later I arrived at Sahin Tepesi and although somewhat apprehensive it didn’t take long before I realized I was going to enjoy my stay. The informality (hungry? Check the kitchen for leftovers. Want to see part of a movie again? Just ask who ever happened to be running the projector to rewind it back to the part you want to see again) and the camaraderie we enjoyed more than made up for any drawbacks (which were few) to the assignment."

Bob sent a lot of photos from his year there including some of a cookout the site's recreation area down the mountain in the village of Kumla...

(The gentleman facing the camera with his knee bent is SSgt Bannaster from CRE Maintenance.)

Here are a couple of Det 150 folks setting sail with the site's sailboat...

...and of the site's slot car racing track!

The gentleman on the left in the picture above is SSgt Ron Win, the Supply NCO.

Bob also sent a lot of equipment pictures ranging from the site's power plant...

...to the Mux Room (that's Multiplexor to you non-comm types!).

Bob says the black handset in the photo below was the one used with the patch panel to talk with other sites a the tributaries (further down the circuit from Det 150).

Bob also sent pictures of the CRE Van which provided a separate command and control channel for nuclear forces. 

(Don't have a classified information heart attack anyone; it's long been unclassified that the tropo system, CRE, etc were all established in 1961 by President Kennedy specifically to improve nuclear and conventional force command and control communications. (see these links for details http://nsarchive.chadwyck.com/nh_intr.htm, http://www.usemb-ankara.org.tr/IRC/treaty/32t3323.htm and http://www.sigtel.com/tel_hist_acehigh_main.html )

Bob says this was a five channel voice communications equipment van to be used for emergency "top level" voice communications.  He helped maintain this equipment once it was turned over to the Air Force by ITT technical representatives in late winter 1968.  A SSgt Bob Dion was in charge of the CRE maintenance troops.

(Special note--when Bluejeans got there in August 82, this olive-colored van was gone and a silver one that looked from the outside like a grocer's refrigerated trailer, complete with a rounded, streamlined front end and fluted siding, was in its place--complete with rotted tires from being parked in one place for so long!)

Bob identifies the CRE equipment in the above picture as the card cage on the left and the maintenance and status panel on the right...

...and the power supplies for the CRE van's equipment.

During Bob's tour, the site used a variety of antennas including the small 15 foot mobile dish...

...the 60 foot dish...

...to the billboards which replaced the small dishes.

Bob also sent pictures of the Klystron tubes, which, when I was there in '82, cost over $5,000 a piece!  In the first photo, the Klystron tube is laying next to its shipping crate which is called a "casket".  The tube is about four feet long and provides the heart of the RF transmitters at the core of Det 150's capabilities.

In the photo below, we see the Klystron installed in its transmitter.

Bob also sent along some Christmas 1967 pictures.

That's SSgt Fry from the Power Plant on the right in fatigues without a hat.

In the picture above, SSgt Ron Winn from Supply, is checking out the Christmas wreath.

(Do you recognize any more of these folks?  E-mail me if you do so I can add their names!) 

Bob tried to impress me with his picture of some snowdrifts at Sahintepe like they had a bad winter in 67-68...

...but I think we had him beat in Winter 81-82 with our seven day and seven night snowstorm !

Thanks, Bob, for all these pictures and all the others I need to put on another page!

--Bluejeans