Surface to Air (SA) radar sites are distributed around the ranges during Red Flag. They are basically "roland" radar units without the missile hardware. [Thanks to "aeroframe" for noticing the word "roland" in some Red Flag related radio transmissions, which helped to identify this hardware.] Some information on rowland radar can be found here. The units can be truck mounted, or permanently mounted on tank-like transporters.
Audio clips that mention roland (very short):
Note that "mike" units are the mobile SA launchers and "golf" units are the AAA (anti-aircraft artillery) guns.
Yes, those are rain drops.
This is a feeble attempt to photograph the badges on the back of the unit. The badges on the door are in one vertical strip. The set below was divided in half to make it fit on the page better. The photographs are perspective corrected from a side view, that is, I didn't hop on the back of the trailer (just in case the contractor is reading this).
Dyncorp (now part of CSC) has the contract to run the surface to air threats (or at least the mobile Rowands). [More Dyncorp photos can be found on this page.] The trucks and hardware are white, but may look reddish since the photos were taken near sunset. [Manned units are white.] This particular unit was "Mike81", and got virtually killed later in the Red Flag exercise. This unit was located along the road to the back gate of Area 51, not far from the ET Highway. The small object at the far right of the photograph is the stop sign at the end of the road.
Some inert missile tubes were added to the Rowland for unknown reasons. Well, at least unknown to me.
The Cohu camera is not part of the targeting hardware, but it used to video tape the planes as they are targeted.
This is a close up of some sort of optical targeting hardware. The surface is reflective like a mirror, so the color isn't all that significant.
The contractor in charge of running the Roland radar was testing his truck in the parking lot of the Little Alien. Of course, once the unit is on the ground, it is easier to photograph the hardware. This is the previous truck, i.e. not the one used by Dyncorp. There is no reason to believe the Rolands are any different.
Note the video camera on the right side.
Reading the information on the lens, the focal length is probably a zoom from 16mm to 160mm. The aperture is probably 89mm, i.e. the F1.8 is at the 160mm focal length. An 89mm lens is rather large, i.e. bigger than most photographs lenses and about the size of a small refractor telescope. There is quite a bit of theory and/or folklore that apertures between 3 inches and 4 inches are best for long distance terrestrial viewing. [Metric dimensions from 75mm to 100mm.]
There is a GPS antenna mounted on the units. It is from a Magellen NAV DLX-10 gps.
The cable leads to a patch bay on the side. It connects to (ta da) a port labeled GPS.
The Antenex antenna is probably not a stock item on Roland. Such Antenex antennas are heavily loaded, so it is hard to predict the frequency based on the size.
The surface to air "threats" generally are found around Cedar Pass road, though to find one along the road to the back gate would not be very unusual. The AWACS call them out as "SA's". One SA was parked pretty close to the road, unattended, and you can guess the rest....
You can click on any photo for a higher resolution image.
Similar hardware located on public land along the road to the back gate of area 51.
These "SA's" were parked by the road in Tonopah.
This device may be a military version of a dome light. The cables head towards the back of the cab.
As an aside, a "threat" that is probably similar to the ones shown on this page recorded a UFO on the range. You can read about it at http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mjpowell/Nellis/Part1/Part1.htm