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Photographed August 20, 2005 by Mike JacobySelect an image to view a larger version
[VA-6] is a fictitious name. AT&T Corporate Security has requested that the names and exact locations of active AT&T network facilities not be published. Accordingly, such facilities are identified on this web site by fictitious names, shown in [brackets].
[VA-6] is one of five "Project Offices" built by AT&T in the 1960s in the mid-Atlantic region. The station is hardened against nuclear blasts, and features an earth-covered underground building with a "drive-through" entrance-decontamination area, a high-powered troposcatter radio communications system with large concrete-backed reflectors, a helipad, blast-resistant terrestrial microwave "dish" antennas, and physical-security measures beyond those used at conventional AT&T facilities.
Detailed information about [VA-6]'s function has never been revealed. The facility housed a switching system for the Department of Defense's AUTOVON telephone network, but that was probably not the station's primary mission. It's likely that [VA-6] supported a highly-classified Continuity of Goverment program and may have served as an emergency relocation site for senior executive-branch officials and/or military leadership.
A troposcatter relay station named Buckingham, of similar design to [VA-6] but apparently smaller and less elaborate, and no longer in service, is located on Spears Mountain in the central Virginia county of Buckingham.
[VA-6] is still an active, secure AT&T facility, and unofficial visitors are not permitted.
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Created on August 27, 2005 at 10:37 by Albert LaFrance