While driving the ET Highway and band scanning the federal UHF band [see note for the radio impaired] , I came across the frequency 408.025MHz.. The signal carries some sort of digital information. The funny thing is the signal was directional, that is, it must come from a beam antenna. On the ET Highway, it was strongest at coordinates N37 31 05.2 W115 34 30.0 [I bet the scanner impaired are GPS impaired as well.] Since Area 51 radio signals are not easy to hear on the ET Highway due to the hills blocking the base, the signal probably comes from Bald Mountain. Now if you draw a line from the peak of Bald Mountain through this coordinate on the ET Highway, you miss the peak to the east by about 3 miles. OK, radio direction finding is not an exact science, at least to the skill level I practice. Most likely, this signal is being beamed toward Mt. Irish, where the is a large radio facility. This map should make things a bit clearer. There are two waypoints on the map on the ET Highway: BALDRD and the 408.025, as mentioned earlier.[ BALDRD is where you get the road that leads toward Bald Mountain. If you take the road, beware the limit signs are poorly marked. Coordinates N37 31 20.8 W115 34 54.4 Only the first 3 miles are suitable for an auto. Beyond that, A high clearance 4WD should be used, though you won't find it challenging.]
The radio geeks (AKA HAMs) have probably come up with two questions at this point. One, how do I know the signal isn't being sent from Mt. Irish to Bald Mountain? Well, I don't know. You would have to get close to one of the peaks to determine where the signal is stronger. [An experiment I should have tried.] The other question is why bother with a beam antenna at all since the distance is under 23 miles and there is perfect line of sight. Beam antennas (i.e. Yagi or log periodic) are used for weak signals since the beam antenna has gain over a simpler vertical antenna. There are some other reasons to use a beam link up between the sites. First, a beam antenna means less transmitter power is required for the same quality of signal. If one of the sites was powered by solar cells, a beam would mean less solar cells are required. Another reason to use a beam would be to localize the signal so that the same frequency can be used elsewhere, i.e. other hills not along this line between the two mountains. FM radios will lock on the stronger signal (investigate FM capture ratio for more info), so if you have a few of these set up, you could run them all on the same frequency if beam antennas were used.
Here are two photos of the Mt. Irish facility, about 4 miles away. They were taken in the afternoon heat, so thermals degraded the quality, not to mention being a bit over exposed.
Obviously, there are large solar cells to power the site. Beyond that, who knows. There are references to the hill being hiked on the net, but no photographs of the equipment. Most of the hikers are geologists or paleontologists
The government shares the Mount Irish site with the Lincoln County Telephone System, Inc. This data is from the FCC database.
| Additional | Callsign | Issued | Expires |
| SITE / PATH | WBA780 | Mar 06, 2001 | Feb 01, 2011 |
| Type Entity | Licensee | Service | Attn |
| C | The Lincoln County Telephone System, Inc. | CF | John W. Christian, III |
| Street | PO Box | City | State |
| 25 Main Street | P.O. Box 150 | PIOCHE | NV |
| Zip | Status Code | Class | Eligibility |
| 89043 | A | FXO | |
| Contact | Phone Num | Transmitter Street | Transmitter City |
| Jackson, Robert M | (202) 828-5515 | ALAMO | |
| Transmitter County | Transmitter State | FAC ID | |
| LINCOLN | NV |
| Site # | Tower ID | Site Name | Lat Deg |
| 3 | MT IRISH | 37 | |
| Lat Min | Lat Sec | Lat Dir | Long Deg |
| 39 | 8.8 | N | 115 |
| Long Min | Long Sec | Long Dir | Elev |
| 23 | 49 | W | 2548.1 |
| Hgt to Tip | Additional | Radius Op | Hi Lat Deg |
| 11.6 | SPECIAL CONDITIONS | ||
| Hi Lat Min | Hi Lat Sec | Hi Lat Dir | Hi Long Deg |
| Hi Long Min | Hi Long Sec | Hi Long Dir | State |
| County | |||
Click on http://www.dreamlandresort.com/area51/mount_irish.html for a bit more information on Mt. Irish.
Band scanning is simply taking a radio scanner and scanning between two frequency limits. Generally, you use some logical limits, such as for UHF Federal, use limits of 406MHz to 420MHz. While there are plenty of published frequency lists on the internet, not all the good frequencies are published, so you need to band scan to discover them for yourself.
The Mount Irish range has some mining history. You can find all sorts of cabins and mines out there. I found this fixer-upper for sale near one of the photo locations:
The Crescent Mine is one of the better preserved sites, though preserved is a relative term. Whenever I approach any mine, I generally don't drive right up to it. Who knows if the ground underneath has been dug? Better to get out and examine the area first with binoculars, then poke around on foot. In the photo below, you can see this chimney has a whopper of a crack in it, which would explain why I took the photo out of the fall zone. Now in reality, the thing has stood like that for years so its not going to suddenly collapse.
The BLM is studying the site, as indicated by this marker.
