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facilities:military:cheyenne_mountain_complex [2026-04-04 21:53] – J. B. Crawfordfacilities:military:cheyenne_mountain_complex [2026-04-04 22:49] (current) – J. B. Crawford
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 Because of CMC's importance as a military control center, and its hardened design, it had multiple redundant connections to AUTOVON and the general telephone network. These included microwave hops directly from north and south microwave sites, and two L-1 coaxial cables. Because of CMC's importance as a military control center, and its hardened design, it had multiple redundant connections to AUTOVON and the general telephone network. These included microwave hops directly from north and south microwave sites, and two L-1 coaxial cables.
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-CMC is sometimes described as having a "ring" of facilities around it for redundancy, a common strategy for both the military and AT&T. These facilities were not all coaxial; CMC's two coaxial cables connected it to one coaxial transcontinental and one microwave station. Microwave links would complete a ring. 
  
 ^ Destination ^ Direction ^ Carrier | ^ Destination ^ Direction ^ Carrier |
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 | [[facilities/microwave/beulah|Beulah CO]] | | TD-2? | | [[facilities/microwave/beulah|Beulah CO]] | | TD-2? |
 | [[facilities:radio:corral_bluff|Corral Bluffs CO]] | | TD-2 | | [[facilities:radio:corral_bluff|Corral Bluffs CO]] | | TD-2 |
 +
 +==== "Ring" Network ====
 +
 +A [[https://coldwar-c4i.net/CMC/BLR1065/387.html|1965 BLR article]] describes CMC as surrounded by a ring of microwave sites for redundancy, called the "Close-in Automatic Route Restoral System." It's surprisingly difficult to match up this "ring" with known sites, perhaps beacuse of changes over the years. CMC is depicted in the article as having four coaxial cables and two microwave paths linking it to this ring. We know the two microwave paths (to Beulah and Calhan) and two of the coaxial cable (to Boone and Westcreek), but two of the cables remain unidentified. They head west from the site, rather than east like the other connections, at least if the simplified map is to be trusted.
 +
 +That said, the article says "eventually" and describes only two of the spokes as operational. That suggests that the two unexplained spokes may have simply never been constructed. Similarly, the outer "ring" routes may not have been completed, since the existing microwave sites do not quite form a ring.
 +
 +It is an interesting detail that CARRS is described as supporting 600 message channels and a two-way monochrome video channel.
  
 ==== Coaxial ==== ==== Coaxial ====