Ground Air Transmit Receive

Ground Air Transmit Receive (GATR) "control sites"^[1] were the radio stations of a Cold War communications network in the Burroughs 416L SAGE Defense System deployed to automate ground-controlled interception using manned interceptors. Generally located near or, in some cases, on an Aerospace Defense Command radar station, a GATR site was used for the Ground to Air Data Link Subsystem to communicate command guidance via "HF/VHF/UHF voice & TDDL"^[2] to vector F-106 Delta Dart and other equipped aircraft^[3] that had been dispatched by teams in Weapons Direction rooms of SAGE Direction Centers. GATR maintenance was by the 304x4 Ground Radio Maintenance career field^[4] with initial radio training at Keesler Air Force Base,^[5] and GATR sites included the RCA AN/GKA-5 Time Division Data Link (TDDL) equipment providing output to an AN/FRT-49 Electronic Guidance Signals Transmitting Set with Varian klystron and 20 kilowatt output (or earlier 100 watt, single-channel AN/GRT-3). The aircraft receivers were either Hughes AN/ARR-60 or SLI AN/ARR-61^[6] "Airborne Radio Receivers" of the Hughes MA-1 Fire Control System.^[7]

Most "GATR/SAGE sites" are now Formerly Used Defense Sites such as the 6-acre (2.4 ha) site supported by Oakdale Air Force Station, Pennsylvania, and that were designated for closure by the 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission.^[8]

Sites

References

• Differing from Manual Air Defense Control Centers that networked Permanent System radar stations, NORAD Control Centers had simpler C³ equipment (e.g., for the "austere SAGE area" in the Zone of the Interior) than the Direction Centers' AN/FSQ-7s such as the General Electric AN/GPA-37 Course Directing Group with AN/GPA-67 Time Division Data Link equipment through transmitters to the AN/ARR-39 "SAGE Datalink Receivers" used in the F-86L Sabre Interceptor, which was the SAGE variant^[6]—an F-86D Sabre Dog with equipment for day/night/all weather operations. For example, by 1965, "Hamilton AFB and Richards-Gebaur AFB…operated as Remote Combat Centers (Hamilton had remote input from Reno Sector and Richards-Gebaur from Sioux City Sector)".^[14]