Living in the Santa Clara Valley in the 1960s and 1970s, a familiar sight was the radar tower with its spinning radar on top of Mount Umunhum. Not only was it a familiar and comforting sight, but it provided a point of reference. I remember that I could see the tower from my parents’ room, and I would occasionally just stand there watching the huge mounted radar screen spinning around and around. One time on the way home from Santa Cruz we passed very close to the station and I was amazed at its size and the huge red and white checkerboard design on the radar screen.
The Cold War with the Soviet Union was still in full swing, with regular testing of neighborhood air raid sirens and radio and television tests of the Emergency Broadcasting System. When I was younger I had no idea what the radar tower was all about, but by the time I was a teenager I became aware that the radar was an Air Force station (682nd Radar Squadron) that was keeping a watchful eye for threats from abroad. I moved away from home in 1980, and when I returned to rent the house from my parents’ in 1992, the spinning radar was gone from the top of the tower. No longer visible from my parents’ window due to the growth of trees, the tower is still easily visible when outside.
When my son was in high school, he became more curious about the tower and we decided to see how close we could get to it. We got fairly close, but signage prevents hikers from getting as close as the main gate. Currently, the tower’s future is in question and efforts are underway to save it.
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