Ground Equipment Facility J-31 (San Pedro Hill Air Force Station during the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

) is a Joint Surveillance System radar site of the

Western Air Defense Sector The Western Air Defense Sector (WADS) is a unit of the Washington Air National Guard located at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Tacoma, Washington. As a state militia unit, the Western Air Defense Sector is not in the normal United States Air Force c ...

(WADS) and the

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

air traffic control Air traffic control (ATC) is a service provided by ground-based air traffic controllers who direct aircraft on the ground and through a given section of controlled airspace, and can provide advisory services to aircraft in non-controlled airs ...

radar networ

for the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center. The facility's

Air Route Surveillance Radar The Air Route Surveillance Radar is used by the United States Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to control airspace within and around the borders of the United States. The ARSR-4 is the FAA's most recent (late 1980s, early 1990s) ...

br>Model 1E
with an ATCBI-6 beacon interrogator system are operated by the FAA and provide sector data to

North American Aerospace Defense Command North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...

. The site provided

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment The Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) was a system of mainframe computer, large computers and associated computer network, networking equipment that coordinated data from many radar sites and processed it to produce a single unified image ...

data to the 1959-66

Norton AFB Norton Air Force Base (1942–1994) was a United States Air Force facility east of downtown San Bernardino in San Bernardino County, California. Overview For the majority of its operational lifetime, Norton was a logistics depot and heavy-li ...

Direction Center for the USAF

Los Angeles Air Defense Sector The Southwest Air Defense Sector (SWADS) is an inactive United States Air Force organization. Its last assignment was with the First Air Force, being stationed at March Air Force Base, California. It was inactivated on 31 December 1994. L ...

. The site also provided

Project Nike Project Nike (Greek: Νίκη, "Victory") was a U.S. Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Laboratories, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft mi ...

data to the 1960-74

Fort MacArthur Direction Center A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

~ away for the smaller US Army Los Angeles Defense Area—as well as gap-filler radar coverage for the 1963-74 Integrated Fire Control area of Malibu Nike battery LA-78 on San Vicente Mountain.

History

The "ADC/FAA joint-use facility" began operations in 1961 with an FAA

ARSR-1 The Air Route Surveillance Radar is used by the United States Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration to control airspace within and around the borders of the United States. The ARSR-4 is the FAA's most recent (late 1980s, early 1990s) ...

C radar. After the April 1, 1961, move of the 670th Radar Squadron (SAGE)--formerly the 670th AC&W Squadron—from San Clemente Island Air Force Station, the

was activated June 1. The squadron was assigned to the "

Fort MacArthur Fort MacArthur is a former United States Army installation in San Pedro, Los Angeles, California (now the port community of Los Angeles). A small section remains in military use by the United States Air Force as a housing and administrative annex ...

AI" (Army Installation) and operated the San Pedro Hill radars which included a General Electric AN/FPS-6B Radar and an

Avco AN/FPS-26 Radar The Avco AN/FPS-26 Radar was an Air Defense Command height finder radar developed in the Frequency Diversity Program with a tunable 3-cavity power klystron for electronic counter-countermeasures (e.g. to counter jamming). Accepted by the Rome A ...

for height finding. In 1964, the station's

Westinghouse AN/FPS-27 Radar The AN/FPS-27 Radar was a Long Range search radar used by the United States Air Force Air Defense Command. Westinghouse built a Frequency Diverse (FD) search radar designed to operate in the S-band from 2322 to 2670 MHz. The radar was desig ...

was installed (removed 1969) and the AN/FPS-6B was modified to an AN/FPS-90. In April 1976 the squadron was redesignated Detachment 1 of Luke AFB's 26th Air Defense Squadron (the AN/FPS-26A was removed in this time frame). The radar station with 18 military & 5 civilians was planned for transfer after the 1978 Base Realignment and Closure Commission. After the station transferred to the FAA when

Aerospace Defense Command Aerospace Defense Command was a major command of the United States Air Force, responsible for continental air defense. It was activated in 1968 and disbanded in 1980. Its predecessor, Air Defense Command, was established in 1946, briefly ina ...

was inactivated, the Air Force continued to operate the AN/FPS-90 height-finder by then modified to an

AN/FPS-116 The AN/FPS-6 Radar was a long-range height finding radar used by the United States Air Force's Air Defense Command. The AN/FPS-6 radar was introduced into service in the late 1950s and served as the principal height-finder radar for the United Stat ...

(removed c. 1988). In the late 1990s, the Air Force terminated the data-tie at San Pedro Hill and established a data-tie with the new Navy-installed ARSR-4 radar at San Clemente Island's Mount Thirst. The Raytheon ARSR-1E Radar at San Pedro Hill was in use by November 2010.

References

{{Aerospace Defense Command, state=collapsed Semi-Automatic Ground Environment sites Formerly Used Defense Sites in California Federal Aviation Administration History of Los Angeles Joint Surveillance System radar stations Military facilities in Greater Los Angeles 1960 in military history 1960 establishments in California 1997 in military history 1997 disestablishments in California