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Savona / Finale Ligure Relay Site
Wideband Italy

Looking for more information from military/civilian personnel assigned to or associated with the U.S. Army in Germany from 1945 to 1989. If you have any stories or thoughts on the subject, please contact me.


History

59th Sig Co



 
Savona / Finale Ligure Relay
 

Savona Relay - Site 046, c. 1970 (DCS_Coltano Yahoo Group)
 

Savona Relay - Site 046, c. 1970 (DCS_Coltano Yahoo Group)
 

Savona Relay - Site 046, c. 1970 (DCS_Coltano Yahoo Group)
1969
(Source: Email from Willard Schoenberger)
First, I would like to that my recollections are based upon memories that are nearly 50 years old and subject to some amount of error.

I served at Site 046 from about late 1969 to Feb 1971.

Technically it was a challenge. The tropospheric scatter shot north to Feldberg, Germany, we called it Schwarzwald, was a knife edge diffraction shot off of some mountain in Switzerland. The shot south to Coltano was, as I remember, actually bounced off the surface of the Med. Sea to the receiving antennas at Coltano.

The system was inherently unstable. There were actually 4 receivers and transmitters, two vertical and two horizontal, I spent countless hours trying to synchronize the receivers so that data passing through was not garbled. It was kind of like throwing tennis balls at a surface trying to bounce the balls into the baskets (antennas) at Coltano and Schwarzwald. Unfortunately, the surface we were throwing at was undulating and the bounces tended to go anywhere other than in the baskets at Coltano.

The shot north to Feldberg (Schwarzwald) was pretty unstable also depending upon atmospheric conditions. We had good days for reception and transmission and then we had terrible days when the data being carried was severely garbled. We would get nastygrams from far up the chain of command inquiring what was the problem?

When I arrived at Site 046 there was MUX gear that broke the signal down but it was removed shortly after I arrived and 046 became essentially a repeater station. I can remember that an ITT representative was sent to the site to determine what “Our “ problem was. He was there about a week to 10 days and was more than ready to get back to civilization. The guy was driving us all crazy. I finally told him we had a receiving crystal oscillator in a transmit crystal oscillator slot or visa versa . He grab onto that and wrote up the problem as solved and was gone the next day. We gave him one hell of a rough ride in the Snow Cat down below snow line.

Site 046 was good duty because nobody bothered you with the typical military BS. There was a master sergeant who ran the place and as long as you showed up for your shift and the communications flowed as well as could be expected under the inherent problems with the system he did not hassle you.

Winters could be hard because we were often confined to the Site for weeks at a time. We ran short on fresh food several times because we could not get down below snow line, even with the Sno Cat, to get fresh supplies from Camp Darby or the town market at Finale Ligure .

I can not remember the unit designation other than the Strategic Communications Command, Signal Group Med. There was a headquarters company at Camp Darby but I can not remember its designation.


(Source: Email from Paul Pasichnyk)
In 1969 after MOS Training at Fort Monmouth New Jersey I was assigned to Camp Darby outside of Livorno, Italy.

In less than (2) weeks I learned of a Site in Northern Italy, Site 046. I met the Master Sergeant assigned there and asked if I could be assigned there and he agreed to accept me and then arrived at Microwave Tropospheric Scatter Relay Site for duty.

There were at least (5) Microwave qualified personnel there. In addition (2) US Army Generator trained enlisted men, however not attached to Strategic Communications Command, Sig Group Med like enlisted Microwave Operator/Maintainers like me.

In addition there was a contingent of Italian Semi-Military people called 'Carabinieri." (Webmaster note: actually, they were military police.) This consisted of about (6) lower ranked personnel and their job was to provide Site Security especially at the main entrance.

There were Italian civilians who drove up the mountain in order to also provide Generator Maintenance.

A First Lieutenant was the Officer in Charge of the Site. We also had a small number of Army NCO's and I could never understand their duties. The total was about (2).

I'm not going into detail concerning our job except to say we were in Communications. I enjoyed my duty there - in the Winter it snowed so much that we needed to use a Track-Driven Snow-Cat. We also had other vehicles.

Life on the Site was relaxed, we received (5) movies played on a Reel-to-Reel Projector. As far as Military Life there, we had no inspections or formality like on a regular Army Post.

Several months prior to leaving the Site, the Master Sergeant assigned me as Radio Chief, in Charge of the Microwave Operators.

If you have more information on the history or organization of the 509th Signal Battalion, please contact the webmaster (email address at top of page).

Related Links:
  59th Signal Company - 1988-1991 - Facebook Page for former members of the 59th Signal Company who served at Coltano near Pisa, Italy. Anyone who served at nearby Camp Darby is also welcome.