Ground Air Transmit Receive

Not to be confused with SAGE radar stations or SAGE uplink stations for BOMARC FDDL guidance.

Ground Air Transmit Receive (GATR) control sites[1] were the radio stations of a Burroughs 416L SAGE Defense System of the United States Air Force.

They were deployed to automate ground-controlled interception using crewed interceptor aircraft. Generally located near or, in some cases, on an Aerospace Defense Command radar station, a GATR site was used for the Ground to Air Data Link Subsystem to communicate command guidance via HF/VHF/UHF voice and TDDL[2] to vector F-106 Delta Dart and other suitably equipped aircraft[3] that had been dispatched by teams in Weapons Direction rooms of SAGE Direction Centers. Maintenance was done by the 304x4 Ground Radio Maintenance career field,[4] with initial technical training at Keesler Air Force Base.[5] The sites included the RCA AN/GKA-5 Time Division Data Link (TDDL) equipment,[6] that fed a two-channel AN/FRT-49 Electronic Guidance Signals Transmitting Set,[7] employing Varian klystrons[8] to deliver 20 kilowatts output power (early sites used the 100 watt, single-channel AN/GRT-3 instead.[9] The aircraft receivers were either Hughes AN/ARR-60 or SLI AN/ARR-61 Airborne Radio Receivers[10] of the Hughes MA-1 Fire Control System.[11]

Most GATR/SAGE sites are now Formerly Used Defense Sites (e.g., the 6-acre (2.4 ha) site supported by Oakdale Air Force Station, Pennsylvania) that were closed by the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.[12]

  1. ^ "USA Support Oakdale". epa.gov. Archived from the original on 2012-06-25.
  2. ^ "Re: Speaking of AUTOVON". Yahoo.com. September 21, 2007. Archived from the original (coldwarcomms message) on April 12, 2013. Retrieved 2013-02-18. A previously referenced AT&T training manual on SAGE/BUIC/AUTOVON phone systems does list all the AUTOVON/SAGE Switching Centers & includes their General Purpose (AUTOVON) NNX, their SAGE NNX, and … For example, Delta, Utah had 890 for AUTOVON, 764 for SAGE
  3. ^ "Topsham AFS". Cold War Relics. 2009. Archived from the original on 2010-06-12. Retrieved 2013-02-19. the SAGE block house was bulldozed in 1985. (image of entrance sign with arrow: "Bangor North American Air Defense Sector")
  4. ^ "Minot GATR, ND Personnel Roster". radomes.org. Retrieved February 5, 2022.
  5. ^ Blackburn, Charles A (2012-06-23). "[anecdote posting]" (PDF). AFdasf.org. Retrieved 2014-02-24. Keesler for 304x4 training; GATR sites in Cut Bank, MO and Hastings, NE…last assignment to Andrews AFB GAR site at Brandywine, MD
  6. ^ "AN/GKA-5 TDDL". www.radomes.org.
  7. ^ "AIR FORCE - MIL-T-26439A - TRANSMITTING SET, ELECTRONIC GUIDANCE SIGNALS AN FRT-49( ) | Engineering360". standards.globalspec.com.
  8. ^ "QRZ News July 2010" (PDF). k3ir.org. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2018-04-25.
  9. ^ "Makah GATR 1977". www.radomes.org.
  10. ^ Cite error: The named reference Des-Sys was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  11. ^ "F-106 Delta Dart Automatic Flight Control System". www.f-106deltadart.com.
  12. ^ "Federal Register/Vol. 63, No. 91/Tuesday, May 12, 1998/Notices" (PDF). gpo.gov. Retrieved February 5, 2022.