Oilton FAA Radar Site

Oilton FAA Radar Site (1969-Active) - A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Long Range Radar (LLR) site first established in 1969 near Oilton, Webb County, Texas. The site is used to identify and track military and civilian aircraft movements within a 200-mile radius and to provide air-ground radio communication with those aircraft. Assigned a SAGE System ID of Z-242, a JSS ID of J-16 and an FAA ID of QZA. Active FAA Radar Site. History The contract for construction of this site was let in October 1968 to Dale Kettle for $114,669 to be completed in 150 calendar days. The site became an FAA radar site in 1969, furnishing radar track data to the FAA ARTCC's and to USAF Direction Centers. The initial FAA FPS-66A search radar was replaced with an ARSR-4 3D radar in the mid-1990s. In 1972 a USAF FPS-6 Height-Finder radar was installed on a nearby site to provide height information to the newly formed Southern Air Defense Sector (SADS) operated from the Houston Manual NORAD Control Center co-located with the Houston ARTCC. The FPS-6 height-finder was maintained and operated by Detachment OL-AB of the 630th Radar Squadron from Houston and later Detachment OL-AA of the 678th Air Defense Group at Tyndall (BUIC). The FPS-6 later became an FPS-116 before being removed circa 1988. A FYQ-47 Common Digitizer was probably placed in service by February 1973 when the USAF/FAA FST-2 to FYQ-47 replacement program was completed. By 1990 the site was equipped with an FPS-67B search radar and a CD-2A Common Digitizer. The Oilton CD-2A was scheduled to receive an upgrade kit to implement three level weather data processing in August 1992. The FPS-66A search radar was finally replaced with an ARSR-4 3D radar between 1996 and 1999. The radar site data is now available to the USAF/NORAD Battle Control System-Fixed (BCS-F) operations centers (EADS & WADS) as well as the FAA Houston ARTCC (ZHU) and adjacent ARTCCs. Other federal agencies have access to the data under the Homeland Security umbrella. Oilton FAA Radar Site Major Equipment List Search Radar HF Radar Data Systems Scopes Comm IFF/SIF/Beacon FPS-66A ARSR-4 FPS-6 FPS-116 FYQ-47 CD-2A GPA-127 Single Chan (6) Multi Chan (1) GPA-127 ATCBI-5 ATCBI-6M Current Status Active FAA facility near Oilton in Webb County, Texas. {"selectable":false,"height":"-500","width":"-500"} Location: Near Oilton in Webb County, Texas. Maps & Images Lat: 27.49900 Long: -98.96935 Multi Maps from ACME Maps from Bing Maps from Google Elevation: 890' GPS Locations: 27.49900, -98.96935 ARSR-4 27.49558, -98.97278 Height Finder Tower See Also: Houston ARTCC JSS System FAA Air Route Traffic Control Centers US Radar Sets Sources: Airport, The Brownsville Herald (Brownsville, Texas), 13 Oct 1968, Page 16. Department of Defense Appropriations for 1974: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, Ninety-third Congress, First Session, United States. Congress, pt. 5, U.S. Government Printing Office, Google Books 1973 Pages 770-773 Southern Air Defense Pages 774- Retention of one active BUIC and 11 semi-active Winkler, David F., Searching the Skies: the Legacy of the United States Cold War Defense Radar Program, USAF Hq Air Combat Command, 1997, 192 pages, Pdf, page 158. FAA - Site Listing of Legacy Radars as of 23 Dec 2016. U.S. DoT - Recommendation on Transition from Primary/Secondary Radar to Secondary-Only Radar Capability 1994. FAA - Three Level Weather For ARTCC Displays - Project Implementation Plan, FAA Order 7110.14A, 14 Feb 1990. FAA - SSR/DMTI Modification - Project Implementation Plan, FAA Order 6340.20, 6 Jul 1988. ADTAC Communications Digest, July 1982, Tactical Air Command, page 50. Links: Bad Links Oilton%2C+TX+FAA+site Oilton FAA Radar Site] Wikipedia - Joint Surveillance System Visited: No