Artifacts (7 photos)

I was born and raised in aviation, the territory of which 70% are aviation businesses of varying degrees of secrecy. By virtue of age, my childhood and youth held during the full decadence, the apogee of which were, as they are now called playfully, "dashing nineties". One of the strongest impressions of that time - dump aircraft. In my childish mind I do not fit the idea that here's these incredibly beautiful and big cars, will never see the earth from above. I frantically climbed on the remains of the fuselage, wings, risking to break its neck, so "dead", abandoned equipment and the general mood of the local "Fallout" stuck almost in the subconscious.



At older ages, already in college, I had access to virtually all confidential enterprises of the city. Taking a walk on the dead corps, seeing the former and the current scope of desolation - the memories and feelings that I experienced as a child, only to reinforce and complement the new images. Incredibly painful looks empty dusty room with standing in disarray Kuhlmann, scraps of unfinished drawings, rays of light, weak way through the dirty glass and dust flying in the air. Posters on the walls tells how to rescue a comrade in case of bombing or chemical hazards, yellowed photographs on the wall newspaper foremost '89, and of the sounds heard only the echo of his own footsteps. The country that for generations protected, for which invented and sacrificed, no more.



Most recently, I had to experience echoes those emotions again. By the will of service, I again postings in Kazakhstan. I was fortunate to work with wonderful man Vladimir Salyninym. He is head of the DSO "Orbit", which stands for Center for Space Communications. At the station he works for several decades, and saw, in general, all the metamorphoses and progress kosmosvyazi.
In the '68 All-Union launched the project "Orbit", which 70 was completed. Its goal was to spread to TV, now it's hard to imagine, but then "TV" is a 1 channel, the entire territory of the Union. The number of such stations counted in dozens, if not hundreds. The area was totally new, the whole experience had to purchase from scratch. The first satellites were not even geostationary, which meant that the antenna around the clock watching satellites flying by Lightning - 1, 2, 3 and so on.



The system worked as follows, a signal transmitted from the Moscow studios in the center of the transmission space, located in Dubna, and Bear Lake. There, with the help of extremely powerful transmitters to broadcast the signal in space, where he was received satellites. The radiation power was such that the bird fall into the area of ​​the antenna pattern - burns for 10 kilowatts is not a joke. Then the satellite analog transmission covers the entire country. Where it just received such station is already transmitting on the local television station, which in turn broadcast signal for brownies antennas. All the equipment is not difficult to guess it was a tube, and no computers, so that the service antenna enough interesting task.



In '75 companions finally transferred to the geostationary and the antenna no longer prowl, his eyes firmly staring at the sky. Also in this period, there was a complete renewal of equipment at the station have been put amplifiers are cooled with liquid nitrogen! Operating temperature have been in the region of -170 degrees. Then, in addition to one television station through a system began to spread radio signal "beacon". As such, all lasted up to 96 years. Then, all the equipment was dismantled and replaced by a foreign transferor phone signals and ambitious project was finally closed.

Looking at all of these glands, I feel about the same feelings as the archaeologist, looking at the pyramids in Egypt. The builders and inventors of all this, I presented by some demigods, do the impossible - possible. Who can not imagine that you can take like that and start something from scratch. We buy Western equipment, working on their technology, attract foreign specialists.



And then they did everything themselves, invented by the victims of his bike, not to depend on a neighbor who for whatever whim may not want to provide us with more than a wheel and gears. Today we can not even replace ventillyator in the server, because it requires partnerships and internships for repairs. Today, we are completely dependent on foreign technology.
A great nation is dead, as well as its antenna.