"The kitchen has asbestos floor, painted hardboard walls and ceiling, and stainless steel cabinets, counters and dishwasher. The station uses the walk-in cooler, but the walk-in freezer is not in operation. "The bathroom has asbestos tile floor, sheetrock walls and ceiling and contains 10 white fixtures, including 3 sinks, 2 urinals, 3 toilets and 2 showers.
"The dormitory rooms have asbestos tile floors, hardboard walls and ceiling and double hung metal windows with storm sash.
"The boiler room has painted concrete floor, hardboard walls and ceiling and contains the oil-fired hot water boilers that heat the entire building.
"The main equipment wing of the building has an asbestos tile floor, and hardboard walls and ceiling. It has double hung metal windows with storm sash. Off the equipment wing is a warehouse annex, the exterior walls and roof being corrugated fiberglass. It interior finish is similar to the equipment wing.
"The power plant room has painted concrete floors, hardboard walls and ceiling, and double hung metal windows with storm sash. This room houses four Chicago Pneumatic 6-cylinder diesel engines with 150 KW GE generators.
"This building is 21 years old (in 1978), well maintained and shows little deferred maintenance.
"The Auto Maintenance Shop measures 41 x 51, m/l , for a total floor area of 2,050 sf. This building has a concrete foundation with a concrete slab floor. it is a steel, I-beam constructed building with insulated corrugated aluminum walls and roof. The interior has painted plywood walls and ceiling. Embedded in the floor are six steel strips for track vehicles. The building is heated with a National-US Radiator boiler, oil-fired, 486,000 BTU, with an enclosed antifreeze system, to six suspended heaters. The boiler room is lined with sheet asbestos on the walls and ceiling. This building has an overhead crane and two truck doors measuring 14 x 16 and 12 x 14, both chain operated. This building is 14 years old, in good condition and shows little deferred maintenance (in 1978).
"The Water Fire Pump Station Building measures 13 x 17, m/l , for a total floor area of 228 sf. It has a concrete foundation and concrete floor, wood frame construction with asbestos shake siding and flat built-up hot tar roof. It has insulated walls lined with hardboard wainscot and ceiling. This building houses a 6-cylinder Continental gas engine to operate the fire pump. It is heated with a 10 KW electric heater. It has double solid core wood exterior doors.
"Adjacent to this building is an insulated water storage tank with a capacity of 216,000 gallons. These facilities are in good condition and show little deferred maintenance.
"The Quonset-type Warehouse Building measures 15 x 22, m/l , for a total area of 330 sf (the computer printout shows 594 sf). This building has steel frame with hardboard exterior and interior with a wood floor and a sliding wood access door. It is wired for light. The building is in poor condition.
"The Water Pumphouse Building is located near the base of Pedro Dome and houses the water well and diesel engine that pumps the water up the hill to the station. This building measures 12 x 12, m/l , for a total area of 144 sf. It has a concrete foundation and floor, corrugated steel siding and a flat built-up roof with double metal doors and insulated walls and ceiling lined with hardboard. This building has suffered some vandalism, and at the time of inspection (1978) was in fair condition.
"The station has two above ground diesel storage tanks with a capacity of 470 barrels. There is also a 1,000 gallon mo-gas tank with dispenser. The vehicle parking lot is 220 sq. yds. The station is not fenced" (Follett and Associates 1978: 205-207).
Beyond these improvements, tropo stations are practically defined by their huge billboard antennas. There were three sizes of antennas. The smallest was the 30 circular dish. The mammoth 60 and 120 antennas were "billboard" or "movie screen" shaped. Photographs of all types are found at the back of this report. While they may have appeared flat at first glance, they were actually parabolic. The 30 antennas operated at 1 KW, and the 60 and 120 antennas operated at 10 KW and 50 KW, respectively. In front of each antenna was a "feedhorn" which directed the signal onto the antenna where it was then projected out and up. Tropo antennas were always found in pairs and sited slightly one behind the other. This was because the altitude of the troposphere varies, and depending on the position of the bottommost layer, either one transmitter or the other, depending in turn on its distance relative to the receiving antenna, would carry the signal more effectively than the other at a given time. A single 60 antenna weighed 15 tons.
The TD-2 microwave facilities were much smaller and are simpler to describe. Most generally consisted of one power and equipment building and one microwave tower topped by cornucopia shaped antennas. The towers beamed telephone and telegraph signals by line of sight. Each tower was constructed only as high as necessary to see the station antennas adjacent to it in the network. To ensure the two antennas were of compatible height, they were suspended from helicopters until the signal beamed from one to the other. Only then were the cornucopia antennas placed on the towers. The following extract describes the improvements at the Rabbit Creek Radio Relay Station:
"The station consists of a one-story, steel frame, concrete block building that measures 24 x 51, m/l (measured length), for a total area of 1,246 sf. It was built in 1957. Other facilities include one diesel storage tank with a pipeline to the diesel powered standby generator, a sanitary latrine, chain line fence and vehicle parking.
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