Mt. Umunhum Radar Tower, 2002 - a photo on Flickriver

Mt. Umunhum Radar Tower, 2002

The radar tower on Mount Umunhum is an important artifact of Cold War history, as well as a familiar landmark on the skyline of the southern San Francisco Bay Area.

I took this photo in August 2002 during a tour of the tower with a ranger who has since retired from the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (MROSD).

The tower is the largest structure built for the former Almaden Air Force Station (AFS) on Mount Umunhum, south of San Jose, California. Built from reinforced concrete, the tower is 84.5 foot (25.8 m) tall. Almaden AFS was operated by the 682nd Radar Squadron, United States Air Force, from 1958 to 1980.

MROSD opened the summit to the public in 2017. The tower is sealed, and its interior is not accessible to visitors. For more information about the summit, see:

www.openspace.org/what-we-do/projects/mount-umunhum-summit

The tower was built to support a very large AN/FPS-24 search radar. This site was one of 12 similar installations built to detect potentially hostile aircraft approaching the United States during the Cold War. These radar sites were integrated into the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) air defense system.

For a view of what this tower looked like when it was operational, see: flic.kr/p/ddnuKL

The tower is an important historic artifact. It serves as a monument to the Air Force personnel who served with vigilance at this site and others, and to all US military personnel who served and sacrificed throughout the Cold War.

Additional information about Mount Umunhum and the Almaden Air Force Station is available on Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Umunhum

AN/FPS-24 Radar (Wikipedia):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/FPS-24_radar

SAGE Air Defense System (MIT Lincoln Laboratory):
www.ll.mit.edu/about/History/SAGEairdefensesystem.html

Some rights reserved

Taken on: August 1, 2002

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Sets appears in: • Mount Umunhum

Groups appears in: • Silicon Valley Photographers • Any Derelict Building more » • Abandoned, Neglected, Weathered, or Rusty « less

Camera: Sony CYBERSHOT, f/5.6, 1/400 sec, 8mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Sony CYBERSHOT
Aperture:	f/5.6
Exposure Time:	0.003 sec (1/400)
Focal Length:	8mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	0 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Program AE
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Elements 20.0 (Macintosh)
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