Hi, this is Jessica Rosenworcel, the chairperson of the FCC. Under the authority granted to me by congress, I hearby request you to take down this video immediately.

The FCC may be listening, but they don’t care to do anything beyond that. They only enforce rules if the affected frequency users have good lobbyists.

My friend Scott and I got a tour in the late 1990's at the Allegan facility and a year or so later I was able to visit a similar facility in Grand Island NE. Since they were pre-scheduled, they had all the HF radios (Collins and Icom) set to WWV and the VHF stuff switched off. Fascinating places for sure. Eventually they were closed or set up for remote access as computer connectivity networks improved.

The story I've heard is that they have quietly installed SDRs in thousands of population centers and can easily access them via the internet. They use them to verify that a problem exists and take steps from there.

I have enjoyed following this channel for quite some time, so imagine my delight at seeing the Allegan monitoring station, just a few miles from my childhood home. That obscure site with its antennas, thinly veiled attempt at blending in by looking like a house, and its government warning signs got me started in radio at a young age. My grandparents told me that during WWII they were asked to report any suspicious persons asking questions about the facility or making sketches of it. Interestingly, there was a POW camp full of German and Italian prisoners not too far from that location.

Hi Lewis, I really enjoyed this vid since it started off with the Allegan Michigan monitoring station. I was able to visit there back in the mid 80s when I worked for a company that was contracted to maintain telecommunications systems for the U.S. government. So I got to go on a service call out to Alligan. At the time I went there, there were two tech type people on site. The monitoring room technician was an amateur radio guy like myself so we hit it off right from the beginning. They had Johnson-Watkins receivers which were superb. Although I never got to lay eyes on the antenna, it was described to me and I was able to get a look at the rotating display scope system that showed lobes of signal distribution around the 360 degree compass on which there was a major lobe in the direction of the signal being monitored. So the display scope was synchronized with the electronic “rotation” of the antenna cage but the part that was inside had some kind of motor that did some kind of fancy deflection. He explained that they communicated with other monitoring stations around the country with teletype. They had a large map of the United States with elastic strings that had one end attached to the map at the point where each monitoring station was located with a clear plastic 360 degree “compass” also centered on each station. When they worked with other monitoring stations they would stretch the elastic strings out and stick the loose end to the board so that the string was going in the direction from which they picked up the signal of interest. They did this from each monitoring station involved and where the strings intersected, that’s where they sent the field tech out to “pay a visit”. Funny thing ; I assumed they had some sophisticated receiver for VHF so I asked the tech if he would measure the frequency and signal characteristics of my 2 Meter radio that I had out in my car. I went out and made a transmission on 146.52 MHz. When I returned, he was sitting there with a little Kenwood handheld and he said “Yeah, it looks like you’re pretty much on 146.52 and you sound good” I always enjoy your vids - keep them coming and 73 - de WB8YMV

Brilliant. One day, I wouldn't be surprised if these videos get used for education on the history of radio. It great that you are documenting these antennas before nature reclaims them completely.

Im a trucker and there's a guy who calls himself mud duck radio and has completely hijacked cb channel 19 in the United States with a ham radio. It's really frustrating when you're trying to find out what's going on when you come to a stop in traffic but all you can hear is some jerk talking over everyone. Where is the FCC when you need them? This has been going on for well over a year.

I have been inside the Canandaigua, NY FCC monitoring Station twice. It remained in operation despite of the "downgrading" of its monitoring capabilities. If anything, the operation of this monitoring capabilities were made automatic and became accessible by any FCC field office in the Nation. Do not ever think a monitoring station is "abandoned" because it looks that way. Each station is active by remote control installed in the late Seventies and again in the Nineties as computer upgrades became available. The only time a station is actually closed is if its lands are sold off in government auctions. If you see antennas and fencing, the station is still operating. The advent of barrell sized monitoring "pods" that can be moved and are solar powered makes the traditional stations superfluous as they can be moved at will detecting abuse or interference with frequency blocks (low vhf - high uhf) at will of the FCC and Law enforcement. So, if you think that there is no enforcement in an area that the monitoring station looks abandoned or is closed, think again. Be a "hairy nuisance" on a frequency and they will come to find you. Guaranteed!

It is amazing that it takes someone from the UK to make a video about the USA FCC listening stations. It would be really neat for someone to take a drone and visit each of these stations to get some modern pictures and size up if they appear to still be in use. OR, someone could do a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request about each and see if one gets a response.

Man I love this channel, I came for number stations and stayed for the amazing niche radio education

Interesting history! I'm from Alaska and knew about the "Elephant Cage" antenna near Anchorage, but not the Kenai station. There are quite a few abandoned radio stations along the Alaska coast from Civil Aviation Authority, US Navy, commercial wireless telegraph, etc.

When I see videos of 1 KW, 10 KW, 18 KW linear CB amplifiers demonstrated on KZfaq, I got the feeling that no one is really listening after all. Like the guy said. The amount of enforcement depends on your money and lobbying power. They are a business auctioning off invisible real estate, which is called the E.M. spectrum, otherwise it would be fraud.

Lewis, the work you are doing is priceless and I still don't see anyone else doing it. So I congratulate you and hope that no one will interfere with the production of this work. Greetings from Portugal. Macedo Pinto 73

Kingsville station has a fairly large underground area where the primary equipment is located. Several of the antennas are well camouflaged. They also handle some of the technical work on receiving stations run by the border patrol there. Scan the areas around these sites (0.3-4km) and you can spot the new antennas by looking for very small buildings (smaller than a portapotty) with solar panels.

Uncle Charlie is always listening.

We're always watching. We're always listening. An obedient citizen is a good citizen. And remember. If you see your neighbor behaving in any way that is contrary to the greater good of the State, contact us immediately. Thank you! Be obedient, be productive, and be happy!

I remember the Canandaigua Monitoring post in the 1960-1970 when they had huge elevated longwire antennas all over their property. I always said hello via my homemade CB legally licensed radio when driving by since I am a FCC licensed Engineer myself and have worked with them in the past on interference reports. Great Fun.

These videos are fascinating and your research is unmatched. Keep up the great work!

I worked at Vint Hill Farms Station back in 1990-1991 but now closed. Great post!

Wheels within wheels ....Lewis great series so far and obviously this antenna was a clear choice for all listening and intelligence agencies worldwide

So there were never any crop circles. Only Wullenweber arrays! This series is super interesting Lewis!

I remember the Belfast, Maine, listening sight off route 137, as it was pointed out to me by another coworker in the mid 1990s while driving by this site heading to a jobsite while working for a radio communications service company back then. While I do still live about 45 minutes travel distance away, it has been possibly 7 to 8 years from the previous times that I would have had any reason to take this particular route/road. It is interesting to me, that there doesn't seem to be too many listening sights compared with the huge amount of territory supposedly being monitored.... with the limits of signal propagation within licensed power allowed in the standardly used and licensed bandwidths, along with the narrow banding changes made and pushed which theoretically effectively doubled the number of frequencies they could now issue licensing for within a given band, you would almost expect there to be hundreds if not thousands of FCC monitoring sites... if they are effectively monitoring the airwaves, then things don't appear to add up with this handful of listening stations unless they have a lot of other unlisted monitoring stations or mobile gear operating that we aren't told about, or, are doing the bare minimum just to say they are, or perhaps even, it is also being monitored by other better funded government agency/s as well... but thanks for another interesting video to ponder over...

we know the hawaii monitoring site...its now used by a lawn care service but the fcc hut is on their grounds ...very near pearl harbour and overlooking downtown honolulu

In another life I was a trainee Transmission Engineer for the BBC. The station at Penrith was awesome, again a good flat site. Massive valve amplifiers.

Very interesting. I should imagine staff in the day found their work intriguing. Enjoy the historical images… they paint it all really. Another great episode. ✌️👍🇬🇧

The Douglas, AZ site had 5 Rhombic antennas: N, E, W, S, and one pointed toward (I think) Oklahoma City where a weekly FCC net originated. My brother worked there under a college coop program in the early 1960's. They occasionally had rats get themselves across the feed line switches in the remote shack and take a transmitter down. A stick was kept inside the door to knock their stiff bodies off the lines!

There so many churches in the US that randomly think they can create their own FM radio station without proper authorization. The FCC plays Whac-A-Mole for the past several decades putting an end to them.

FCC hardly monitors much these days as Government cut backs & FCC got big cut many years ago. If you file a complaint several times + others doing same they may investigate it at their leisure. Most they locate lately is pirate radio stations on AM & FM. They gave up on CB radio as Channel 6 (27.025 MHz) has many operators running illegal equipment & illegal power as much as 10k. You can get a Ham Radio license very easily now as FCC dismissed morse code part & eased on the tech questions as well but very limited interests. FCC has caught many pirates using Ham bands recently as well. FCC not really monitor Shortwave bands & wish they did as many stations jamming others especially Cuba but its out of their zone. FCC mainly concentrates on 5G bands, ATSC 3.0 TV & repacking the ATSC 1.0 TV all the time & selling more of the old UHF TV frequencies to the 5G mobile networks. FCC preparing to open the FM radio frequencies down to 82.1 MHz as analog TV low VHF isn't used but still may have some PBS stations in ATSC 1.0 there & will move them again as low VHF is bad for TV reception & limited range.

Great production skills, fascinating content, clear delivery and great music again, Thank you! 😎

Well done sir! The photos are just incredible. Thank you for your attention to details. The maps & locations are first class.

Wonderful video, though the technical content is very well presented the thing that really got my ears to prick up was "mystifying array of dials, knobs wheels and switches." Who couldn't be fascinated by that? I've been a fan of your content for a while and you never disappoint. Thank you for another great journey.

FM and TV Dxer here but I've been following you for about 2 months now. I didn't know I needed to know about this. Very well researched series and I'm enjoying every bit of it.👍👍

You mentiined Kenai, Alaska. I was there in the summer of 1958, right after I graduated from high school in California. We lived in a trailer court just outside the Army listening post. One of the guys there invited me in for a little tour, and got to see a Collins receiver, probably an R-390. I was impressed at the neat stuff they had there. This might be the same as what you referenced in this video.

there is still american and british activity at the big frankfurt shortwave area known from the CIA and BND number stations .. they are now adding radoms there.. official owner US groundforces in germany

Great channel, high quality content! Maybe at some point it might be interesting to look at coastal radio stations, most of them long gone like Portishead Radio, Wick Radio, Scheveningen Radio, Norddeich Radio and many more. Lots of different frequency bands were used (and some still are), lots of different antennas, transmitter sites as well as reception sites, including methods for triangulation to find the position of a vessel in distress... I'd love to see your take on this subject :)

This is some amazing research, Lewis! It's really interesting that a few of these sites (like the one at Canandaigua) either were reactivated or remain in operation. It's hard to imagine they'd be all that useful nowadays, other technologies being what they are. Cheers!

Thanks for covering this! Cheers from the Midwest U.S.

well you know your area hits big time when ringwaymanchester makes a video about a site... Cheers for another great video.

I know someone who works with a massive radio company and the FCC. His job is to basically find stations that interfere with his companies stations or make sure their stations aren't interfering with others. Sometimes they catch pirate stations and the way they are able to track locations is incredible.

Well, after seeing all those circular impressions in the ground, I'm now convinced there's no such thing as Aliens!. 😂 Great Report.

Looking through old aerial photos Powder Springs, GA also had the same setup although a very small one. The circular pattern is now gone from the ground but you can see that triangular shaped array present at the other ones you looked at.

Drive by the Allegan site every day. Last I was told, it is owned by a local author/historian. The house and a couple little shacks on the property are still intact and appear to be maintained, at least from what you can see from the road. Back in my CB days (late 80s, early 90s), i did go there to get some information, but there was not a lot going on from what i can remember.

TY for all your hard work and content contributions…just appreciating 7:54

Great video. Thanks for the time & effort to produce them 👏

This is fascinating, thank you! (The music is a great match too!) I'll have to watch this again.

Thanks for the historical review. The FCC does have a web page describing their monitoring: Over-the-Air Spectrum Observation Capabilities.

I grew up in Hale-Barns around the corner from Ringway golf course and Ringway airport 😊 Great video by the way :-)

I absolutely loved your choice of background music and narration for this! Top notch video thanks for your hard work!

Never thought my home would be on this youtube channel. Hi SW Michigan!

Many decades ago I owned the GE Service Station franchise in Kingsville, TX. One of my main towers was located less than two miles from the FCC Monitoring Station. I visited the monitoring staff several times each month, until the FCC closed the site permanently. From the top of my tower (585') I was able to see all of their antenna arrays spread out on their very large acreage. 😉

I have lots of information about the Livermore Monitoring Station you mentioned at 8:46 in your video. I also have one of the Hallicrafter receivers that was removed from the site when it was remodeled in the early 80's. It is now restored and operational in my office. The new V arrays are far better than the Wullenweber style circular arrays, that is why the large Wullenweber style arrays were replaced. The FCC now operates almost all of the HF DF remotely and can pinpoint the location of an HF signal to nearly which house on a street the signal source is located. Then they send a DF mobile unit to pinpoint.

Grand Island Ne, I live a couple miles out of town, never knew there used to be an antenna system here! Cool! Built in 1927 is WAS 6 miles west of town. In 2023, its literally 1 mile west of town. I'm gonna go see it :)

As usual, very well done! W5HLM - Texas

When I was young, I lived near Cincinnati. The nearest FCC monitoring station was Chillicothe Ohio, located a few miles northwest of town. Decommissioned quite a while ago. Google earth shows no trace of where it might have been, and the only address I can find is a PO Box.

hi, I am the chairman of the federal munchies commission and I hereby order you to order us all a pizza. No pineapple!

I love the series Lewis!!!!!!! Great job OM!!!

Remember! Big Brother is listening!!

Omg, I grew up in Allegan! I went past there all the time and had no clue! I still drive out that way from time to time but I live a bit further north now. And yeah, there’s not much out there beyond trees and farmland.

If the Belfast ME site is retired, I think the FCC probably moved to monitoring higher freqs perhaps at Hatchet mountain in nearby Hope ME. There is a very well made high budget mutitenant style tower and building with fiber optics and just one tenant with a few omnidirectional antennas and no cell or microwave carrier equipment.

The advent of Software Defined Radio equipment, computers and networking whether on the internet or governments own private networks, have resulted in all of these manned sites to go automated. Plus with the transition from analog to digital, they now can use AI to listen to all broadcasts for trigger words and phrases, as well as recording them all 24/7. For those talking about enforcement ratios, you are correct about not having enough resources, except you left out one thing they will enforce. That is if they want to make an example of someone who truly pisses them off, or to assist in other investigations. And keep in mind FCC is civilian primarily. DoD has a whole plethora of facilities similarly used and automated. Charlie is always around.

The "Oakland Mills" location is the FCC's OET laboratory (Office of Engineering & Technology). Inside are many individual labs that do all kinds of engineering and research work for the FCC regulators. They do everything from FCC Part 15 testing, broadcast interference testing, to test & evaluation of future spectrum usage plans. Anytime you see an FCC study with lots of engineering and test data, odds are pretty good that the work was done at this location. I have no idea if they still use it for actively monitoring off-air signals. I kind of doubt it. The FCC is mostly reactive, not proactive when it comes to spectrum monitoring these days.

I talk to the FCC every day on my Citizens Band Radio. Full disclosure on the FCC, that’s why they are so smart. They listen to channel 19, frequency 27.185, and hear doctors, lawyers, financial advisers, etc…. all the time on that channel giving tips and advice.

The radio waves are closely monitored by the cellular telephone companies because they have many receiving locations and sophisticated monitoring equipment to locate interference.

4:15 Donald passed away in 2007 from cancer. Kind of cool that one of his buddies has him and a photo of Don together when they were teens. Only photo I could find of him.

I live very close to the Belfast station, had no idea that thing was there. I could probably get some pictures of the property and see if anything seems current.

The photos of the inside of the brand island one took me back to when I went to a telescope near there very similar feel in the construction

Interesting bit of radio history. Thank hyou.

And on the flip side: Warrenton, Brandy Station, Vint Hill, Mt. Weather and my fav assignment, Kunia.

I've known a few hams that have received those letters for their on-air transgressions. One I remember very well got a letter from the FCC in which his drunkin antics were monitored by the Powder Springs, GA site. This was the early 90s when this happened. He spent about an hour on 75 meters reading his letter to us line by line accusing us of paying off the beauro to send that letter. His real problem was the bottle + microphone. It was then that work began on retrofitting a lockout device attached to an automobile for those who drink and drive to an armature radio.

We have a monitor station in Antwerp, Belgium, it's integrated in one of the apartments from a building, we had an FM radio station and our 4 dipoles stack were right in their direction. So you can say, we had to look out what we did with our power settings from the transmitter. Although, we never heard from them. So I assume they listen or measure discreetly to what is going on. But we were technically in line with regulations. But such thing is still on your mind, in mid 90s we closed down our station, it becomes way too expensive to maintain.

Yet again Lewis another fascinating video.👍

Hi Lewis love the videos keep up the good work

I have been to the one in Vero beach, Florida 30 years ago. Last I heard it is still active but it is a remote facility.

The FCC is so infamous that Eminem uses it in one of his songs 😂 “the FCC won’t let me be , they tried to shut me down on MTV, but it’ll be so empty without me “ 😂

If the FCC is indeed listening, why is the Mud Duck still on the air annoying people?

Reminds of the radio station of Marconi in the park of coltano, Pisa in Italy in the natural area of San rossore

There is a really cool 6 antenna USB antenna thing I saw. Just like the antennas that they have on police cars for tracking LoJack Except these are magnet Mount and you have a very precise layout that you have to print the template for and put them on top of your roof and using the software it tracks the signal level and direction for each antenna and provides a very accurate directional map to show where any signal is originating from and it goes right down to the street and each house and you can track the source down to a couple feet I don't know what it's called or how much it costs but I have seen this recently in videos with people showing how they found where towers and antennas are for different radio sources

I live just a few miles from the Washington State FCC site on Loomis Trail Road. Local folks told me it was manned until the mid-1990s or so IIRC.

Found a small bit of Info about WA7WOC on QRZed: "Donald R Lehto (1958 - 2007) was born on January 2, 1958. He was born into the Lehto family. He died on August 16, 2007 at 49 years old."

I'd driven by the Canadaguia site loads of times - never had any idea what was there. Interesting enough I often ride my bike close to the Powder Springs, GA station - one day I'll have to stop by for some photos.

Well done Sir! Well Done!

Very interesting and informative! Thanks!

I live a few miles away from the MI location. Somehow I learned about it from some guy in the UK before hearing about it locally.

Nice video as always Lewis. One to watch out for: Some bloke from a channel that makes video's about motorways has been filming the antenna site in Heaton Park. He'll be stealing your lunch if you don't watch it.

Digging the video series dude! Also that song for the montage is super sick, something tells me it either fell into your lap while going through the audio library, or it took about two days to find.

Great video, I did not know the listen stations were still opened. I might drive by and check one out since I live about 1 1/2 hours away from one.

Nice research mate, nice to know where all the super secret monitors are, went by the one here in Michigan!

And yet people still meow on 121.5

As an American Ham. Thanks for this video.

Super cool video, thanks! I live right next to San Leandro, I'll look for the old station location. Found the Livermore one on Mapcarta.

Brilliant video - this is such complusive enjoyable watching - thanks so much for what must be incredbly hard work to pull all these videos together, they are absolutely brilliant ! Thank you so much for your continual input to such fantastic information ! 73s

You should make a video on Sugar Grove Station and the National Radio Quiet Area. Sugar Grove is veru interesting as it is officially shut down and sold to private use but further research shows the signals intelligence base is still active.

No pictures but I have been to the Maryland site sometime in the last 6 years. They seem to be operating on a pretty tight budget. Old office interior we removed trash furniture and put in cubicles and other furniture donated from another agency. It was not great stuff. I didn't really notice much but they were working on installing something related to their work there.

Very nice. Thank you. I drove past the Allegan office 35 years ago. I had just earned my ham licence so I felt kind of creepy. 🥺

thank you. I'm a local LVK resident

Another great video Brother, you mellowed my chill, though. I live near the Allegan site and have been slowly researching it. I haven't been able to determine the current owner from online plot lists. Suppose I should make visit to the County for some in person inquiry. If I find anything fun I'll let you know. Keep up the great work. 73

That was a great video. The NY cite is about 2 1/2 hour drive from me. the only thing i knew about the cite was US government land. and looks to be maintained. someone cutting the grass etc. is not well maintained . but enough to show may still be in use. I am in Boston NY . Canandaigua is more towards NY state fair grounds . after 9-11 those FCC sites may be also used by outher government agencies like NSA CIA or DHS just to name a few. 73's

Another interesting one, well done Lewis. Have you thought of doing a series on VLF/ELF submarine communications stations? Maybe look at the Russian ZEVS, it would be interesting to know how deep the boreholes are at the end of the feeders for the different frequencies used.

Hi, FCC! Boring old me over here on a Friday Night. Hope you are having a Good Friday where ever you are listening in.😊