Cloudy and rain-cooled - time to ride

August 2, 2018
Thursday
Texas

We had a light shower in the wee hours of the morning and a break in the temps the last couple of days. It was cloudy and cool and spitting when we rolled out to hook up with Dad who had an early appointment. It wasn't long before we were riding west. We really didn't have an agenda but Dad is leading because he knows about an interesting sight out in the boonies and how to get there. Otherwise it's just ride and enjoy with us... we're easily entertained by a flock of geese, old buildings, trucks the shadow riders and clouds.

Just US hanging loose until Dad could get loose

Geese

Just US and the Shadow Riders following him

So... the interesting sight Is something we had no idea was located anywhere near this area. The pictures aren't great but it is pretty amazing.

Lake Kickapoo Space Surveillance Station Archer City, Texas

The Lake Kickapoo Field Station, located on 180 acres of government owned land approximately thirty miles southwest of Wichita Falls, TX in Archer County is the primary Naval Space Command transmitter. It creates a fan of energy, "the fence", that is narrow in the north-south direction and extends from coast to coast over the southern United States. The Station is aligned on a great circle path inclined to the equator at approximately 33 degrees inclination. In conjunction with eight other field stations it forms the NAVSPACECOM satellite sensor system. Two small transmitters supplement the Lake Kickapoo generated "fence" and six receiver stations collect energy reflected from satellites crossing the beam. Lake Kickapoo is the largest continuous wave (CW) transmitter in the world with an average radiated power of 766.8 KW and operates at a frequency of 216.98 MHz.

The antenna is a single two mile long linear dipole array. The Station was built in two phases that resulted in halves once known as the North Site and South Site. Each had 9 antenna bays that were aligned end to end to form the full antenna array. Now the 18 bays have central control from the original South Site and 2556 dipole elements form the total antenna array.

A new phase reference system using infrared fiber optics replaced the aged RF coaxial system in May 1993. This reference system monitors and maintains phase integrity for the 2 mile long Kickapoo antenna.

Lake Kickapoo Space Surveillance Station Archer City, Texas

We are near Olney - DQ stop right around the corner

And here we are - ice cream all around!

I love old trucks

What a great ride. Cool and comfortable and interesting. We turned the rides toward home after the DQ stop. The clouds went away a few miles outside of Wichita Falls. We rode in just on the edge of HOT which is very good timing.

94.6 s'miles with Dad