The SPY-6, The Fan and the 50 year look back

Long-time Townsend Brown inquirer Jan Lundquist – aka 'Rose' in The Before Times – has her own substantial archive to share with readers and visitors to this site. This forum is dedicated to the wealth of material she has compiled: her research, her findings, and her speculations.
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Jan Lundquist
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The SPY-6, The Fan and the 50 year look back

Post by Jan Lundquist »

I just watched an interesting video on the SPY-6, the USN's most advanced radar .

Look at the antenna. It's flat and thin and looks very Fan-like.

Inside the World’s Most Advanced Radar Factory https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xzmr0nUFe0

If my 50 year lookback theory is correct, technology we hear about today was born in secret research decades ago. This SPY-6 technology would date from at sometime in the seventies, so it is possible that we are looking at Son of Fan.
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Re: The SPY-6, The Fan and their commonalities

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If you don't have time for the story linked above, the TLDR is that the Spy-6 fills a role as a universal receiver on all comms channels.

Further evidence for my Son of Fan theory is that "Morgan" was told about this feature of the Fan on the day he met Townsend.
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Re: The SPY-6, The Fan and the 50 year look back

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Look at the antenna. It's flat and thin and looks very Fan-like.
Hmm. I've watched the video, but I'm not sure I quite see the resemblance.

To me, the SPY-6 looks much like any other Phased Array antenna: a flat sheet of metal. Eg. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array

What I'm not seeing is the telltale grid of wires that mades for the Fan design.
the TLDR is that the Spy-6 fills a role as a universal receiver on all comms channels.
Again: Hmm. Not sure that that's what I'm seeing in that video. "All comms channels" is a very large window when we're talking about the electromagnetic spectrum. I would imagine that the SPY-6 only sends radar frequencies, which I would assume to be microwaves (probably not millimeter wave, though those are getting popular now in things like airport scanners).

The Fan, on the other hand, allegedly put out audio frequencies, which are way down in the kilohertz level. And in the absence of any other evidence I would expect that it sent out those audio frequences quite normally through the air, not through electromagnetic radiation, though I would be very happy to be corrected about that.

I'm also a little dubious about Morgan's claims that the Fan/Speaker could act - without modification - as a microphone. Yes, maybe it could, technically all speakers can act in reverse. But just like with heat pumps, generally an audio to electrical transducer is much more efficient acting in one direction than another, and generally needs to be physically redesigned to work in the other direction.

Obviously sending and receiving audio would be a very useful thing for submarines, so I can see that the Fan could well be doing its job there.

Perhaps I've missed something obvious, and I'm not an electrical engineer, but that's my 10 non-inflation-adjusted cents.

Regards, Nate
Going on a journey, somewhere far out east
We'll find the time to show you, wonders never cease
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Re: The SPY-6, The Fan and the 50 year look back

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Nate,your thoughts may well be correct, but I will leave a couple of notes. The fan was described by Townsend as one of his ashtray products. During the cold war, ashtray products were listening devices that could be hidden in other products.

This antenna is for receiving communications from the different coms systems carried by the different weapons platforms, (IE, if not all available comms systems, at least all mission relevant ones) not for sending the signals a phased array antenna uses to detect objects in an air space.

The antenna does not look like a flat sheet of metal to me, but composite materials laid in a grid pattern, but I am in the midst of having my eyeballs remodeled (cataract and astigmatism corrections), so perhaps I will see it differently, once I see better.
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Re: The SPY-6, The Fan and the 50 year look back

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Hi Jan!
During the cold war, ashtray products were listening devices that could be hidden in other products.
That's an interesting idea - I hadn't thought of that association with the phrase "ashtray product" before! I thought it just meant "disposable consumer-level money maker with no real military value".

I do know that Morgan/Twigsnapper kept talking about (presumably) Caroline Group projects being "piggybacked" on other projects.... and wouldn't you know it, that very allegation (things hidden inside various SAP projects that aren't related to the overt purpose of the project) seems to be coming to the surface right now with the David Grusch complaint. So I am rethinking my assessment of what Morgan was telling us and how credible his claims were. (His credibility is rising a little with me.)

I think Morgan claimed that there was something "piggybacked" on GRAB, for instance, meaning that satellite for instance had maybe three missions? 1. The "scientific" cover project of "galactic radiation". 2. The military SIGINT/ELINT mission of scanning for Russian radars. 3. .... something for the Carolines. Or did he not go so far as to claim this, but just suggest it as a possibility for other satellite missions?
This antenna is for receiving communications from the different coms systems carried by the different weapons platforms, (IE, if not all available comms systems, at least all mission relevant ones) not for sending the signals a phased array antenna uses to detect objects in an air space.
Ah right, I see it! AESA antennas can do radar, comms, SIGINT and electronic warfare all in one unit. Very cool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SPY-6
The AN/SPY-6 is an active electronically scanned array[1] 3D radar under development for the United States Navy (USN).[2] It will provide integrated air and missile defense for Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyers.[3]
Although it was not an initial requirement, the SPY-6 may be capable of performing electronic attacks using its AESA antenna. Airborne AESA radar systems, like the APG-77, APG-81, and APG-79 used on the F-22 Raptor, F-35 Lightning II, and F/A-18E/F Super Hornet/EA-18G Growler, respectively, have demonstrated their capability to conduct electronic attack. All the contenders for the Navy's Next Generation Jammer used Gallium Nitride-based (GaN) transmit-receiver modules for their EW systems, which enables the possibility that the high-power GaN-based AESA radar used on Flight III ships can perform the mission. Precise beam steering could attack air and surface threats with tightly directed beams of high-powered radio waves to electronically blind aircraft, ships, and missiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Next_Generation_Jammer
One unique aspect of the NGJ is that its AESA array combines EW, coms, radar, and signals intelligence. AESA is known to perform EW and radar, but also handling SIGINT and serving as a communications array are new capabilities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_el ... nned_array
The AESA is a more advanced, sophisticated, second-generation of the original PESA phased array technology. PESAs can only emit a single beam of radio waves at a single frequency at a time. The PESA must utilize a Butler matrix if multiple beams are required. The AESA can radiate multiple beams of radio waves at multiple frequencies simultaneously. AESA radars can spread their signal emissions across a wider range of frequencies, which makes them more difficult to detect over background noise, allowing ships and aircraft to radiate powerful radar signals while still remaining stealthy, as well as being more resistant to jamming.
Since each element in an AESA is a powerful radio receiver, active arrays have many roles besides traditional radar. One use is to dedicate several of the elements to reception of common radar signals, eliminating the need for a separate radar warning receiver. The same basic concept can be used to provide traditional radio support, and with some elements also broadcasting, form a very high bandwidth data link. The F-35 uses this mechanism to send sensor data between aircraft in order to provide a synthetic picture of higher resolution and range than any one radar could generate. In 2007, tests by Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, and L-3 Communications enabled the AESA system of a Raptor to act like a WiFi access point, able to transmit data at 548 megabits per second and receive at gigabit speed; this is far faster than the Link 16 system used by US and allied aircraft, which transfers data at just over 1 Mbit/s.[13]
Actual literal WiFi over the radar!


Meanwhile on the first link:
The transmit-receive modules will use new gallium nitride (GaN) semiconductor technology,[8] allowing for a higher power density than the previous gallium arsenide radar modules.[15]
THAT'S interesting! I remember GaAs chips being a huge deal during the 1980s - and then they just vanished by the 1990s. The Strategic Defense Initiative was hogging GaAs technology, while the Strategic Computing Initiative wanted to pry GaAs out of SDI's hands so they could be used for supercomputers. But then ordinary silicon got faster and cheaper so GaAs stopped being of commercial interest.

But GaAs apparently lived on in radar and electronic warfare. That explains that.
The antenna does not look like a flat sheet of metal to me, but composite materials laid in a grid pattern, but I am in the midst of having my eyeballs remodeled (cataract and astigmatism corrections), so perhaps I will see it differently, once I see better.
My strongest hopes for your eye surgery and recovery. May it all go smoothly.

Yes, it looks like the AESA is modules in a grid pattern, but I'm not sure that tells us anything about the physical principles by which each of those gallium-nitrate computer chip modules operates. What I specifically don't see is a large analog array of wires like the Fan. I'm sure it is possible that the Fan could have been one of many influences that fed into classified US Navy phased-array radar design in the 1970s through today -- but I'm not sure that it's a necessary inference that it was such an influence.

Except for Morgan's hints, I suppose, but I still don't understand where those are meant to lead us (and even if they are meant to lead us to some conclusion, whether they lead us there in good faith).


Regards, Nate
Going on a journey, somewhere far out east
We'll find the time to show you, wonders never cease
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Re: The SPY-6, The Fan and the 50 year look back

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Nate,
things hidden inside various SAP projects that aren't related to the overt purpose of the project) seems to be coming to the surface right now
This is why I think Townsend's project slid into an ongoing GE/DoD contract. He told Jo is was going to happen and when I was looking at the relevant contract history for that year I saw an innocuous-looking funding bump added to it.

GRAB was hidden under the public Discoverer mission. We know it was tracking ELINT from the earth, but possibly/likely also cosmic radiation from the Galactic Center. I have read in some oral history of the time, that some sort of optical (navigation, IIRC) device was piggy backed on it, or on to one of the subsequent CORONA missions, If so, perhaps this what gave rise to the optical reconnaissance introduced in the next gen KEYHOLE satellites.
What I specifically don't see is a large analog array of wires like the Fan.
After decades of innovation and miniaturization and materials innovation, it would surprise me greatly to see that.
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