Date: Sun, 21 Mar 1999 05:55:22 -0500
To: "Mark Foster" <[email protected]>
From: John Warne <[email protected]>

Took a 12-hour trip from Gainesville, FL, to Monticello, GA, and back to
look for the AT&T facility there. Comments indicated it was an underground
facility similar to Ellisville, FL, and Windermere, FL.

Coordinates are N 33 20 16, W 83 34 59 for the site.
Finding the site was simple with the coordinates. Drove right to it, some
10 miles outside of Monticello.

Drove up onto the crest of a hill, and there it was - a nuclear blast
detector sitting in a field. Then, the characteristic squat, pyramide
screens over the air shafts!

Oh, yes, a big microwave tower and horns, but there are *lots* of those around.

The underground site is pretty much a carbon-copy of the others. One large
building with the AT&T deathstar, a large paved area, and another smaller
building (the large building at Ellisville is the main entrance, the
smaller building the backdoor to the molehole.

Standard remote-controlled security gate - TV camera, small proximity
detector outside the gate just where a car would stop, and a telephone
handset inside a call box.

Automatic ringdown when the receiver is lifted. "Monticello," he said.
I introduced myself and explained I wandered around looking for/at the AT&T
underground sites constructed back in the late 1960's and would he answer a
few questions for me.

Giving him no time to say "yes," or "no," I plunged ahead asking if any of
the equipment, racks, or panels that were originally spring-mounted still
existed in his facility. "All gone." Other questions were prefaced with
info I already knew, such as "Did the nuclear blast detector system ever
really work." He confirmed the system was never actually in an operational
mode.

He was reluctant to answer some specific questions about current
operations, but I did get him to admit to having a #4ESS (after I told him
of the #5 at Ellisville). He said "No Autovon." He flatly refused (in a
nice way) to tell me where Monticello fiber connected to these days (except
for Ellisville, especially since I told him that was one connection!)

I asked about the next underground facility north that connected with the
L-4 carrier system. He said it used to be a place he *thinks* was called
Stanfield (or Stansfield), NC, but was bypassed when the fiber was installed.

All microwave has been turned down and fiber is the only link with the
other stations. There were no radio antennas on the tower, not even the
8-bay I've seen on other AT&T sites.

Asked about any National Command Authority radio systems, specifically
saying Echo/Foxtrot and Combat Ciders and GEP. He said they do not have any
of that and didn't think they ever had.

Stanfield, NC, is about 30 miles East of Charlotte on what looks to be a
small country road (fits the profile), but is also some 230 miles or so
from Monticello, GA (more than the +/- 150 miles).

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