Last updated on May 23, 2023
In the woods about 10 kilometers south of Chernobyl and Pripyat, there is this top-secret site Duga.
The site is named Chernobyl-2, but is popularly known as Daga
Duga was a Soviet over-the-horizon (OTH) radar system used as part of the Soviet anti-ballistic missile early-warning network during the cold war.
The system operated from 1976 to 1989. Two operational Dura radars were deployed, one near Chernobyl and Chernihiv in Ukraine, the other in eastern Siberia.
The systems were extremely powerful. Over 10 MW in some cases, and they broadcasted in the shortwave radio band. They appeared without warning, sounding like a sharp, repetitive tapping noise at 10 Hz, which led to it being nicknamed by shortwave listeners as “Russian Woodpecker” The random frequency hops disrupted legitimate broadcasts like amateur radio, commercial aviation communication, and utility transmissions. lt resulted in thousands of complaints by many countries worldwide.
The radar was abandoned in 1986 because of the accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. At the end of 1987, the system partially shut down and fully shut down at the end of 1989.
I visited the site in 2019.
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