Perm ID	Sage ID	Unit	Location	Early Equip.	Final Equip.	Oper. Date	Inact. Date	Notes
P-45	Z-45	773	Montauk AFS, LI, NY	FPS-3, FPS-20; FPS-5; FPS-35; FPS-6; FPS-26 *	FPS-35; FPS-6; FPS-26	1948	31-Jan-81	BUIC-II. Located at Camp Hero. TT-3 was an Annex. Had ALRI receiver. * Early equipment also included TPS-1B, CPS-5; TPS-10A; and FPS-8/GPS-3. Had the first FPS-20 search radar. Site replaced by Riverhead/Suffolk, NY, JSS site. GATR retained until JSS switchover.
P-45A	Z-45A		Manorville, NY	FPS-14		Jun-57	Jun-68	Gap-Filler Annex. Building is still extant. Radar site is near the center of Long Island.
P-45B / P-10E	Z-10E		Chilmark, MA	FPS-14		Jun-57	Jun-68	Gap-Filler Annex. Atop Peaked Hill, on Martha's Vineyard island (site of former WWII U.S. Army shore defense installation and Air Warning Station No. 6 {AWS #6}).
P-45C			Middletown, CT **	(FPS-14 planned)				Gap-Filler Annex. ** Listed in the early ADC plans, but was never was built. Possibly would have been located on the highest hill in the Bald Hill Range, 916 feet above MSL, just northeast of Middletown, where a fire lookout tower once stood.

History of Montauk AFS, LI, NY

An AN/TPS-1B long-range search radar was activated at this site in June 1948. This site fed into a primitive control center established at Roslyn. This site was incorporated into the Lashup (as site L-10) and subsequent permanent network (as site LP-45, P-45) with the 773rd AC&W Squadron overseeing the facility. In 1951 AN/CPS-5 and AN/TPS-10A height-finder radars were placed on the site. A year later AN/FPS-3 and AN/FPS-5 radars were operating. Between 1955 and 1956 an AN/FPS-8/GPS-3 made an appearance at the tip of the Long Island site. In the spring of 1957, this site received the first AN/FPS-20 search-radar unit, along with a pair of AN/FPS-6 height-finder radars. During 1958 Montauk AFS (Z-45) began SAGE operations. In December 1960 the first production model of the frequency-diversity search radars, an AN/FPS-35, became operational at Montauk (the prototype was earlier installed at Thomasville AFS, AL, for field evaluation). This powerful radar caused radio interference problems in the vicinity. These problems caused this radar to be taken out of service in 1961. With the problems resolved, the radar was operational again in 1962, and by 1963 an AN/FPS-26 frequency-diversity height-finder radar had replaced one of the AN/FPS-6 height-finder radars. In 1963 the site also had become an FAA/ADC joint-use facility. Around 1965 the site was removed from joint-use status when the FAA moved into a new long-range radar site at JFK IAP. Montauk AFS came under TAC jurisdiction in 1979. The 773rd Radar Squadron was deactivated on 31 January 1981, and the radar station ceased operations. A new JSS site at Riverhead (Z-315/J-52) assumed coverage. The AN/FPS-35 radar ? the last one in the Air Force inventory ? was abandoned in place, and in 2002 was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

References: "Searching the Skies"; misc. ADCOM documents; eyewitness accounts.

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Information for Montauk AFS, LI, NY

Latitude: 41-03-46 N, Longitude: 071-52-26 W

Call Sign(s): Powder, Anatomy

History of Montauk AFS, LI, NY