The Beginning of Ku-Band Satellite Use at WHCA (1985 to Present) by Ken Barbi

 

WHCA’s Ku-Band Satellite Use
Generic 13 meter Ku-Band Gateway Antenna
Type Of Activity	Establish communications link
Location
Location	Bonn Germany to Washington DC
Date of Activity	May1985
Coordinates	38° 54′ 17″ N, 77° 0′ 59″ W

Ku-Band Satellite Use at WHCA - - The Beginning 

by Kenneth W. Barbi, (WHCA Trip Officer 1983 - 1986)  kenbarbi@verizon.net 

White House Communications Agency (WHCA) personnel have been on the front lines of challenge supporting our President with leading-edge technologies for over 80 years since we were formed as the White House Signal Detachment (WHSD) by the War Department on 25 March 1942. During my tour in the mid-1980's, we were using copper wire, analog unsecured POTS (plain old telephone service), Kleinschmidt teletype writers, unsecured VHF/UHF radio, and bulky STU-1 secure encrypted voice passed through MODEMS over analog circuits at 2,400 - 4,800 BPS. That was state-of-the-art in the 1980's.

That all changed when the new Reagan era White House staffers brought their personal Radio Shack TRS-80 Model-100 Portable Computers along on trips using them to pass important traffic back home without encryption.

 We were at a definite turning point driven by our times.  For our Commander, Col Larry Schumann, a new day had dawned.  The traffic had to be secured.  He commissioned a new start-up company - - GRiD - - to build laptop computers with an amazingly large (in that day) 10 MB hard drive. We commissioned NSA to develop PCM voice coding encryption for secure calls built into a standard desk telephone set.  Portable deployable AFSAT and DSCS satellite terminals, Mobile Communications Vehicles called Road Runners, and DES encrypted VHF/UHF handheld radios that had to be re-keyed every day soon followed.

Today in 2023, the WHCA has a unified digital architecture seamlessly integrating secure voice, data, and video over multiple transmission media into a mix of Internet Protocol (IP) networks.

 As one of President Reagan's trip officers, my one man team in the Plans Division developed the first Presidential usage of Ku-Band satellite service.  In May 1985 (during a European swing to Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal in commemoration of the 41st Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion), we set up our first international commercial Ku-Band link from Bonn, Germany, to Washington, DC.  We did a "down and dirty" deployment going from the drawing board to the field.  The entire effort was a joint collaboration between WHCA and COMSAT General.  This was one of my projects dependent on commercial assets rather than military assets like my other AFSAT and DSCS  projects. 

The deployment was not without challenges.  This is a picture (Figure 1) of us on the roof of our hotel in Bonn, Germany, after we block and tackle hosted the dish from the street.  I am immediately to the right of the dish with a camera around my neck.  Inside the hotel, our terminal equipment (Figure 2) provided  two encrypted T1 (1.544 Mbps) circuits to the hotel  trip site comm center from Washington.

.  Figure 1.  Official 1985 White House Photo-Ku-Band Dish on Bonn Hotel Roof 

 

Figure2.  Official 1985 White House Photo-Ku Band Terminal Equipment inside Bonn Hotel Comm Center

 This was not the original dish I traveled over with from Andrews AFB on a C-141.  That dish got strapped down on top of a pallet loaded with equipment by an Air Force load master (named Murphy of Murphy’s Law fame).  It arrived deformed having the shape of the equipment containers under it.  Surprise - - that the antenna wouldn’t focus!!  Only two of these hand crafted dishes existed at the time so we had a back-up.  We got an emergency delivery of antenna number 2 a couple of days later pictured here. 

It was a memorable trip for me since our aircraft was contacted by CROWN (White House Communications Control) close to arrival by HF radio on the aircraft and was told not to land in Bonn.  We had to go somewhere else because anti-US demonstrations were happening there.  My pilot and I figured out where to land instead before we ran out of fuel!  Ah - - the trials of a WHCA trip officer. 

Soon after we came up on the air at a very low look angle to the US, we discovered periodic interference on our frequency.  Knowing spread spectrum transmission techniques (which appear like background noise) were used on 1980's commercial satellites, I contacted the National Security Agency (NSA) Watch Officer in the middle of his night shift for help identifying the source.  In about an hour, a Deutsche Bundespost monitoring van (like what the FCC uses to track non licensed transmitters in the US) arrived at our hotel with a team of technicians and a senior Bundespost official.  Shortly after that, the interference disappeared for the duration of the trip.  We had no problems when we moved on to Madrid or Lisbon. 

In Lisbon, Portugal, we set up our antenna outside of the Coyote Comm Center Coach seen here in Figure 3 with the terminal equipment inside the Coyote.

Figure 3: Author’s Photo Ku-Band Terminal outside of Coyote Comm Center Coach in Lisbon, Portugal

Since 1985 when the President travels away from Washington, DC, Ku-Band has become a WHCA staple, along with military satellite, and commercial leased digital circuits for getting digital signals back to the White House.   

Figure 4. Generic 13 meter Ku-Band Gateway Antenna

    

WHCA has an approximately 13 meter Ku-Band Gateway Station antenna on the grounds of the Naval Support Facility Anacostia, DC, (Joint Base Anacostia/Bolling) which can be seen driving along I-295 or from Google Earth. Figure 4 is a picture of a similar gateway antenna.

At distant end trip sites, WHCA uses small transportable Ku-Band terminals (about one meter in diameter) shown below in Figure 5 operated by our personnel.  Nowadays, WHCA joins other Ku-Band systems on various rooftops around the world when deployed - - a long way from the naked roof tops of the 1980's! 

The current system is off-set fed and neatly packs into manageable transport cases.  WHCA is replacing these portables in 2023 with smaller center fed terminals.

Figure 5. Official 2022 White House Photo WHCA Technicians Setting Up Trip Site Small Portable Ku-Band Terminal