Two United States missile silos have made radio contact with one another for the first time since the 1960s. This time, however, it was a contact between civilian.

The Atlas F Missile silo in Plattsburgh, New York, possessed the kind of military readiness in the 1960s that reflected an American nation poised for war. Among those sites decommissioned by the US military in 1965, one silo within a mile of the border with Canada showed a different kind of readiness on the 19th of August. On that day, the activation was for an amateur radio contact. Despite difficult band conditions, a successful QSO was logged - and it was with another deactivated missile silo, this one in Texas.

Members of the Champlain Valley Amateur Radio Club originally wanted to simply test the club's equipment - but after the club learned about a ham radio test scheduled that same day at a deactivated silo in Texas, they modified their plan.

The northern New York club's second vice president Matt Pray, W2UXE, told the Press-Republican website that all the hams decided to try for a contact between the two silos. Their effort delivered the brief but hoped-for result: Matt's call was logged in Texas by Robert Grabowski, KB5RG, at the Dyess Air Force Base in Texas

The day presented another link to history: Dick Somerset, a retired member of the US Air Force, was there in Plattsburgh. In the '60s, he had been a launch crew member stationed at the Dyess base in Texas and had also worked in Plattsburgh with the silos' Quality Control. More than a half-century later, he was pleased to see radio contact between the two silos - this time with peace in mind.

Source - Amateur Radio Newsline