NAVCOMMSTA Puerto Rico (NAU)

NCS San Juan - estab. 1904, Originally in San Geronimo, then Carolina-Isla Grande
Comm Center moved to Fort Allen in 1970

• Page 1
• Page 2

Cayey Puerto Rico - from 1922 Radio Broadcast magazine thanks to Google

Stop 7-1/2 2007, looking north
"U.S. NAVY RADIO STATION"
- thanks to LCDR Gallardo

2006 photos of station buildings

2008 photo after building restoration

2010 photos after building restoration

Fort Allen  - transferred from US Army and est. 1963 as NRS Ft. Allen - became NCS Puerto Rico in 1970
Transmitter Site was at Fort Allen, Receiver site was at Salinas - Comm Center moved to Roosevelt Roads in 1980

Fort Allen Transmitter Site

Info from Pete Premo (ET 1963-65) -  
    We had 15 AN/FRT-22 40KW transmitters driven by Collins OA-2180 twin sideband suppressed carrier exciters. We received up to four channels
of encrypted tty which we combined into two channels with TD-97 multiplexers. The FRT-22's used an FRT-26 as an IPA. Each channel contained up to 16 messages. We ran two mark space tty circuits to Trinidad. The receiver site used R-390A receivers and TD-98 demultiplexers to recover the four channels to send to the Com Center.
  The transmitter and receiver site used four tower rhombic curtain arrays for all the main circuits. Once in a while we would do fleet communication using rotatable log periodics, one of which can be seen in the background of the "Cookie" picture that I sent you. We had two circuits each to Washington DC, Balboa in the Panama Canal Zone, Trinidad, Asmara Ethiopia, Heidelberg Germany and one more that I can't remember.
    The transmitter site had a backup power station that consisted of four 750 KW Diesel driven generators, two of which could power the xmtr site and when we did a test alert the other two would backfeed the rest of the base excluding the comm center which had its own facility. The units ran so smooth that a nickel would stand on edge on the engine base while the unit was running.

  October 1970 Flood Article
    - thanks to LCDR Gallardo

• page 1
• page 2
• page 3

Salinas Receiver Site

Roosevelt Roads - NCSPR est. 1980, NCTSPR 1991

NCTS shared site with AFWTF & TSC
- thanks to LCDR Gallardo

Carolina receiver site 1944-52 (then moved to Sabana Seca)

• Carolina History - part 1
• Carolina History - part 2

Sabana Seca receiver site NavRadSta (R) 1952-71 (became all NSGA then?)

Martin Peña transmitter site - 1944-1963 - Please send e-mail if you have more info, photos, or want to contact Leo Ross

Isabela transmitter site - 1960's?-?? - turned over to Collins 1976

Gary Gramke's Isabela web site

Watch section - Jim Van Horn, Paul Andrews, George Chorvat

Aguada VLF transmitter site- what dates?

As 2003 comes to an end, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Puerto Rico will begin celebrating 100 years of service in Puerto Rico. To commemorate the anniversary of the oldest military installation in the Caribbean, this is the story of NCTS. "One thing is sure," said Rear Adm. Alfred Mahan, known as the father of all modern navies, "the Caribbean Sea is the strategic key to the two great oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific, our own chief maritime frontiers." His sentiment on the importance of the Caribbean region shaped Naval strategy and U.S. foreign policy during the early 1900s and gave birth to the growing need for Naval communications in the Caribbean.

In May 1904, less than five years after the end of the Spanish-American War and the transfer of ownership of Puerto Rico to the United States., Naval Radio Station San Juan was established. The Navy purchased transmitting, receiving and associated ancillary equipment for Key West, Fla., Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; San Juan, P. R. and the Canal Zone for about $58,000, and by late 1905, Puerto Rico was on the air supporting the communications requirements of the ships policing the waters of the Caribbean.

The year 1906 was pivotal for communications and the Caribbean. President Theodore Roosevelt embarked on a 17-day trip, becoming the first president to make an official visit outside the United States, touring Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Panama, emphasizing the relative importance of the Caribbean region. With the opening of the Panama Canal timed coincident to the start of World War One in 1914, the Caribbean became a strategic pivot area in discussions of fleet deployment. The Navy commenced to build the communications infrastructure necessary to support the Caribbean region. Additional communications capabilities were added which included Port Au Prince, Haiti; St. Thomas Virgin Islands; St Croix Virgin Islands, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and an additional transmitter at Cayey in Puerto Rico.

In 1916, the pre-war build up hastened the advent of reliable two-way voice communications made possible by a variety of improvements and accelerated the electronic development needed to support the war effort. In 1917, the United States entered the war on the side of the Allies and by 1918, with the war over, huge advances in radio communications were on the verge of going public in the form of radio broadcasts. In 1934, President Franklin Roosevelt visited Puerto Rico and one year later, he created the Puerto Rican Reconstruction Administration as a Great Depression recovery tool. PRRA provided for agricultural development, public works and electrification of the island.

The Navy’s shore communications facilities in the Caribbean region kept pace with the burgeoning field of electronics with modest improvements. Puerto Rico specifically benefited from the infrastructure improvements initiated in 1935. In 1936, Naval Radio Station San Juan relocated its mountain top transmitter in Cayey to a more convenient site in Isla Grande, which was next to the receiver site and communications center in Old San Juan.   In 1941, Rear Adm. Raymond A. Spruance assumed command of the newly-created Tenth Naval District headquartered in San Juan. Also in the 1940s Naval Radio Station San Juan was re-designated Naval Communications Station San Juan to more accurately reflect the changing technology and the mission supported. The transmitter site at Isla Grande was moved to Martin Pena, with the receiver site moving to Carolina.

In the 1940s, Roosevelt Roads was developed as the "Pearl Harbor of the Caribbean," with supporting installations at St. Thomas, Culebra, Antigua, Guantanamo Bay, Trinidad, Jamaica, Bahamas, St. Lucia and British Guiana. Unfortunately, most improvements would not even begin until after the devastation at Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941. When war did descend on the Caribbean in 1942, the Navy was initially unprepared to adequately counter the German U-boat threat. In 1942 alone, the German U-boats sank 250 ships totaling 1.3 million tons.

The dividing line between the closing days of World War Two and the beginning of the Cold War is hazy at best, but communications advances of the 1950’s are clear; computers, computer code, integrated circuits and the conception of a distributed computer network called Advanced Research Projects Agency, which laid the foundation for the modern day internet all were created at this time. To support growing requirements, Naval Communications Station San Juan was reorganized once again, moving its sensitive receivers to Sabana Seca in 1951 to support intelligence collection. Naval Facility Ramey was established in 1954 to provide a state of the art Sound Surveillance System to monitor the Soviet submarine threat. The importance of the Caribbean region was reaffirmed by President John F. Kennedy’s visit to Puerto Rico in 1961, following the Bay of Pigs. In 1962, the Cuban missile crisis proved projection of naval power in the Caribbean region had never been more important. That same year Navy communications found a new home on the southern coast of Puerto Rico. Fort Allen, a former Army base, was re-designated as U.S. Naval Radio Station Fort Allen in 1963. Also in 1963, the Arecibo Observatory opened as the world’s largest radio telescope.

In the 1970s, Naval Communications Station San Juan was relocated to Fort Allen and re-designated Naval Communications Station Puerto Rico. The communications center remained at Fort Allen throughout the next decade and operation and maintenance of the Navy’s high frequency transmitter site in Isabela, on the northwest coast of Puerto Rico was contracted out to Collins International Service Company in 1976.

Two terrorist attacks in 1979, one in Isabela and one in Sabana Seca resulting in one death, two injuries and minor damage to equipment caused a relocation of Naval Communications Station Puerto Rico to a new, state-of-the-art communications facility at Naval Station Roosevelt Roads. The 1980s marked an incredible period of advances in computers and telecommunications causing the communications mission in Puerto Rico to expand with the growth of the fleet toward a 600-ship Navy, reactivation of the low frequency transmitter in Aguada in 1984 and a corresponding increase in message processing. NCSPR processed more than one million messages in the first eight months of 1989. The Defense Communications System, the pre-cursor to Defense Information Systems Agency, bestowed communications excellence awards on Naval Communications Station Puerto Rico in competitive categories. NCSPR achieved first or second place recognition from 1986 through 1989.

Naval Communications Station Puerto Rico became Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Puerto Rico in 1991. Greater importance placed on secure, capable and survivable communications required NCTSPR and DISA cooperation to upgrade connectivity in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rico Area Wideband System, along with many other infrastructure improvements in the 1990s, provided the robust capability required to support the Navy’s Network Centric Warfare mission as the millennium approached.

As its centennial celebration approaches, Naval Computer and Telecommunications Station Puerto Rico is proud to honor the legacy of the communicators, technicians, engineers and craftsman that came before. The station proudly carries the rich tradition of 100 years of communications excellence in the Caribbean and into the future.

November 2004 - Disestablishment of NAVCOMMTELSTA Puerto Rico