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An earlier version of this article appeared in the Northern Observer,
a Canadian newsletter for VLF
experimenters, Issue 22, Nov. 1990.

          THE LAST RADIO NETWORK
           Long Waves from the Cold War

by Bennett Z. Kobb, KC5CW

The broadcast had that mechanical sound one associates with the
spy-and-numbers stations on HF.
But this one seemed all the more eerie to me because it was on 179
kHz, loud and distortion- free.
Time ticks in the background, and a continuous announcement: "Good
evening. This is station
WGU-20. Eastern Standard Time nineteen hours, ten minutes, ten
seconds. Good evening. This is
station WGU-20. Eastern Standard Time nineteen hours, ten minutes,
twenty seconds. Good
evening. ..." No schedule, purpose, address or other information ever
was announced. After
midnight it switched to "Good morning."

I recognized the callsign as typical of federal government stations,
and occasionally saw it show up in
logs in various monitoring publications. What I had heard was a test
transmission from an RF
zombie, a relic of an elaborate, lost scheme to use longwave to warn
the public of nuclear attack.

The station's QSL card appeared a few times in radio newsletters. It
read: QSL Defense Civil
Preparedness Agency / Radio Station WGU 20 / 179 Kilohertz / 1st 50 kW
/ All Solid State AM
Transmitter / Chase, Maryland. What grabbed me was the illustration on
the card: A silhouette of
gallant Paul Revere on horseback, waving his hat, alongside a
transmitting tower; and the initials
DIDS.

I knew that the Defense Civil Preparedness Agency is now known as the
Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA). It is responsible for federal assistance in
emergencies such as natural
or man-made disasters or defense-related incidents. A visit to the
FEMA library in downtown
Washington revealed more about DIDS and WGU-20.

DIDS stood for Decision Information Distribution System. A vast
network of LF broadcast and
feeder stations, DIDS was supposed to deliver audio messages directly
to the public within 30
seconds after activation. In case of attack, DIDS was supposed to save
10- 17 million additional
lives in its initial deployment (by 1979), and as many as 27 million
more if developed further.

Other systems exist. The CONELRAD (CONtrol of ELectromagnetic
RADiation) procedure of the
1960s required radio stations to broadcast special announcements, turn
on and off, and vary their
schedules. This was supposed to warn the public while confusing
missiles that might home in on
broadcast signals. CONELRAD was eventually scuttled when targeting
methods became more
sophisticated.

NAWAS, the National Warning System, is a sometimes noisy, partyline
telephone that connects
federal authorities with state and local emergency centers. It is
still in use today. The Emergency
Broadcast System (EBS) uses the press wires and major networks to
distribute warnings over radio
and TV. The annoying two-tone EBS signal, intended to trigger special
receivers in broadcast
stations themselves, elicits a Pavlovian "change the channel" response
in almost anyone who hears
it.[1]

DIDS' creators in the Pentagon regarded these systems as prone to
human error and delay. DIDS
was envisioned as an automatic, fool- and spoof-proof supersystem that
could switch on sirens
across the country and convey information to officials via RTTY. DIDS'
unique selling proposition,
however, was that it would actually speak to citizens in their cars
and directly in their homes, even
waking each family from sleep.

WGU-20 was built for $2 million in 1973 as the prototype of ten DIDS
"distribution stations". These
were to operate 50 kW at 167, 179 and 191 kHz with 700-foot towers.
Besides the Maryland site,
candidate sites for distribution stations were Maynard, MA; Mount Joy,
PA; Gray, ME;
Morristown, TN; Starke or Chiefland, FL; Mazomanie, WI; Carthage,
Marshal, or Seagoville, TX;
Alcova or Riverton, WY; Mendota or Selma, CA; Winslow, AZ; Hermiston,
OR; and Wallula,
WA.

These ten stations were to cover the 48 contiguous states. Alaska and
Hawaii were to have special,
unspecified arrangements. All DIDS stations would be partially below
ground level and protected
against blast and electromagnetic pulse effects.

The distribution stations would be activated by two "control stations"
at 61.15 kHz, in Ault, CO and
Cambridge, KS. These two stations would run 200 kW from 1,260-foot
towers. Federal authorities
would send the "go" signal by microwave and landline to the control
stations. The ten distribution
stations would then sign on and play taped messages to the public.

But most Americans do not own longwave receivers. "The acquisition of
home warning receivers
would be a voluntary decision on the part of the individual citizen,"
says one DIDS manual.
Therefore, the federal government had to persuade manufacturers to
market and the public to buy
radios whose sole programming would consist of either tests or actual
Armageddon.

This was hardly a prescription for an attractive consumer product.
Nevertheless, DCPA
commissioned Westinghouse to develop prototype units. One of them
would attach to, or be
installed inside, a TV set. If the TV was turned off when DIDS was
activated, the DIDS circuit
would deliver the message at "greater-than-normal volume" through the
TV speaker to wake
sleepers. The basic home receiver looked like any attractive radio for
the kitchen. There was even a
converter to attach to your car radio.

Marketing DIDS to the public required some kind of user-friendly
package. Paul Revere and the
military-sounding "Decision Information Distribution System" were
adopted for internal use. But Mr.
and Mrs. America required a homey, more comfortable logo. Pentagon
semioticians hit on Public
Emergency Radio (PER) and PERKI, its puppy mascot, as the soft sell
for Nuke Radio.

Appropriately enough, the dog in the logo appears to have just
awakened and is still confused. A
vigilant watchdog he isn't. Behind PERKI is a family briskly walking
to a country home. This Leave
It to Beaver imagery probably came from the same government department
that gave us the "duck
and cover" films and jingles of the 50s (brilliantly portrayed in the
movie Atomic Cafe).

In case PERKI didn't warm Americans' hearts, military planners came up
with a more persuasive
hook. The Safeguard antiballistic missile system was designed to
connect directly to DIDS. The
Safeguard radar network could continuously track the flight paths of
incoming enemy missiles. While
the network dispatched ABMs to destroy the enemy missiles at high
altitudes, its computers would
automatically and instantaneously furnish a prediction to DIDS as to
where an enemy warhead would
land and explode if it was not successfully intercepted by an ABM.
Your PER radio would then tell
you exactly which area to "avoid." Sure beats morning traffic reports!

Despite their obvious utility and sure-fire marketing prospects, DIDS,
PERKI and the Radio Paul
Revere eventually ended at the bureaucratic equivalent of a swapfest
table. According to a letter
from John Sullivan, FEMA telecommunications chief, the system "would
have proved very costly to
build, maintain and operate the number of simulcast stations required
to blanket the continental U.S.

"Secondly, it would have been a strictly one-way system. With all the
information going down and
nothing coming back up the line, it would not have been possible to
obtain the necessary status
reports, damage assessments, required actions, etc. Lastly, due to
budget constraints, funding was
discontinued.

"Regarding WGU-20, the station has been deactivated, equipment removed
and sold, and the land
lease terminated. At this time there are no plans to pursue the
program further."[2]

Still, in my nightmare, I tune to 179 kHz and hear, "Good morning.
This is not a test."

                                    Notes:

1. EBS was later changed to EAS, the Emergency Alert System, using
data transmission and a
mercifully shorter Attention Signal.

At this writing, EAS is enmeshed in a patent dispute, with the FCC
requiring all broadcasters to use
EAS and the apparent patent holder requiring license fees from all
broadcasters.

EAS failed miserably at the FCC's ceremonial public unveiling of the
system, though this fact was
underreported. No actual EAS messages were successfully transmitted
and received at the event.
Instead, exhibiting vendors merely activated a cacophony of sirens and
lights by manually switching
them on.

2. I dimly recall somewhere in the literature that NOAA Weather Radio
(NWR) was declared the
successor to DIDS.

In some respects NWR is similar to DIDS. The National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration
uses NWR to broadcast warning messages directly to the public in the
VHF band.

NWR officials perennially, if privately, complain that not enough NWR
receivers are being sold.
Radio Shack is probably the most visible NWR receiver supplier.
Thunder Eagle (www.
thuneagle.com) of Vienna, Va. makes a very sophisticated NWR receiver
for use by emergency
authorities.

Vice President Al Gore has declared a desire to make NWR receivers
ubiquitous in American
homes.

                                    * * *

Bennett Kobb is a lifelong radio enthusiast, activist and journalist.
He is the author of
SpectrumGuide: Radio Frequency Allocations in the United States, 30
MHz-300 GHz. On his off
hours he tunes the shortwave bands and works out with the U.S.
Department of Juggling, a
Washington, D.C. society for the circus arts.