PDA

View Full Version : Can you tell me what this is?



Bob
08-25-2014, 01:57 AM
As I have stated, I worked on pile drivers for a period spanning 1958 to 1967.

See if you can tell me what this is? I worked on it and it was then top secret.

It was used by the Navy. It was located at Skaggs Island Naval base. The running joke was it was a Dinosaur cage. The steel pipes sticking up are what we drove into the ground. I think they are sticking up over 50 feet.

I recall being there during a World's Series and we tried to hear it on radio over the noise of the pile driver. I almost got into a serious fight with an Ex Marine named Don. Don loved to rumble and was a very big man. My father was the job boss or Don might have knocked me out. He worked on a job in San Francisco where he knocked out the driver of a concrete truck.

I never liked Don at all.

8662

Captain Obvious
08-25-2014, 11:10 AM
You actually don't know something?

Say it ain't so...

PolWatch
08-25-2014, 11:21 AM
I don't know what it is...but its a big whatever. I was always amazed at how much of large construction was under ground where no one ever saw it.

PolWatch
08-25-2014, 11:25 AM
This is my husband on the last big bridge job.

8664

del
08-25-2014, 11:26 AM
what bridge?

Captain Obvious
08-25-2014, 11:27 AM
what bridge?

Have you seen the bridge?

Cigar
08-25-2014, 11:27 AM
Looks like this country don't work on bridges anymore ...

Hummm ... I wonder why not.

del
08-25-2014, 11:29 AM
Have you seen the bridge?



i may have burned and/or jumped off one just like it

actually, the crane in the background looks familiar

PolWatch
08-25-2014, 11:34 AM
Its the Cochran Africa-town Bridge over the Mobile River. This was in the mid-80's. (that bridge bought me a beautiful Matador Red 1989 Camaro) He quit bridge work after that project. (thank goodness!) Between driving sheet pilings in the river 100's of feet deep and a span over 200' over the river...it scared me. The tower cranes on the span construction were so high that they were hidden by low fog in the mornings. He tried to get me to up on the cranes & I told him he couldn't get me drunk enough!

Captain Obvious
08-25-2014, 11:35 AM
i may have burned and/or jumped off one just like it

actually, the crane in the background looks familiar

http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/my+joke+skyrocketed+over+your+head+not+even+a+clos e+_66815b942ee838e07bfa07bfe5342939.jpg
:biglaugh:

del
08-25-2014, 11:38 AM
http://static2.fjcdn.com/comments/my+joke+skyrocketed+over+your+head+not+even+a+clos e+_66815b942ee838e07bfa07bfe5342939.jpg
:biglaugh:

i need a chart

Captain Obvious
08-25-2014, 11:43 AM
i need a chart

http://files.sharenator.com/funny_graphs_a_fro_chart-s400x400-19451.gif

PolWatch
08-25-2014, 11:45 AM
chart? omg...I'm still trying to get the white-out off my screen from my last typo (not to mention the sweet tea I spewed on the keyboard the other night!)

Don
08-25-2014, 01:56 PM
Its an antenna.

http://www.navy-radio.com/frd10.htm

CreepyOldDude
08-25-2014, 04:53 PM
As I have stated, I worked on pile drivers for a period spanning 1958 to 1967.

See if you can tell me what this is? I worked on it and it was then top secret.

It was used by the Navy. It was located at Skaggs Island Naval base. The running joke was it was a Dinosaur cage. The steel pipes sticking up are what we drove into the ground. I think they are sticking up over 50 feet.

I recall being there during a World's Series and we tried to hear it on radio over the noise of the pile driver. I almost got into a serious fight with an Ex Marine named Don. Don loved to rumble and was a very big man. My father was the job boss or Don might have knocked me out. He worked on a job in San Francisco where he knocked out the driver of a concrete truck.

I never liked Don at all.

8662

Not sure what it is, but I believe it's at Skagg's Island, in California.

Matty
08-25-2014, 04:57 PM
Looks like this country don't work on bridges anymore ...

Hummm ... I wonder why not.
Because obummer pissed away all the shovel ready jobs money!

del
08-25-2014, 04:58 PM
elf antenna

Cigar
08-25-2014, 05:02 PM
Because obummer pissed away all the shovel ready jobs money!


Maybe you should Educate yourself on who authoried spending in your state :rollseyes:

PolWatch
08-25-2014, 05:03 PM
elf antenna

ya need a special antenna to speak to elves? whodathunkit?

del
08-25-2014, 05:05 PM
ya need a special antenna to speak to elves? whodathunkit?

not elves, elf :)

so you can talk to subs

PolWatch
08-25-2014, 05:06 PM
not elves, elf :)

so you can talk to subs

I know...but I just could not resist! my bad....

Peter1469
08-25-2014, 05:08 PM
Anyone figure out what the OP is?

Bob
08-25-2014, 05:18 PM
Its the Cochran Africa-town Bridge over the Mobile River. This was in the mid-80's. (that bridge bought me a beautiful Matador Red 1989 Camaro) He quit bridge work after that project. (thank goodness!) Between driving sheet pilings in the river 100's of feet deep and a span over 200' over the river...it scared me. The tower cranes on the span construction were so high that they were hidden by low fog in the mornings. He tried to get me to up on the cranes & I told him he couldn't get me drunk enough!

When I drove piling, our crew drove many of them.

Sheet piling for those who do not know, are what makes up cofferdams. A cofferdam is the finished product. They can hold off water as if you created a structure with water inside it that is then pumped out. The sheets are designed to link together and are nearly watertight. Where the BART tracks now enter underground in Oakland, CA, we drove sheets to create a place we could dig all the dirt out of and later drive piling that became part of the BART track bed.

Here is what i am talking about.

8672

Bob
08-25-2014, 05:30 PM
Its an antenna.

http://www.navy-radio.com/frd10.htm

Yes, when we built this enormous antenna, it was not only used to talk to our submarines, it was used to detect Soviet union submarines and for that reason was top secret. The antenna is actually under the soil.

America had them around the coasts. This one at Skaggs, Island, Ca, next to Vallejo Ca for instance was paired with one in the state of Washington. I never saw that one.

We were told they were on the east coast as well. Anywhere the Navy wanted them, they were found.

They worked by triangulation. The submarine was the point of the triangle. The base at Skaggs Island one part of the base and Washington's site the other end of the base. Simple trigonometry could tell where the submarine was located. When it transmitted, it was quickly located. It could of course be used to talk to our own Submarines. I was looking at the Google map and it seems it is now gone. Peter1469 who asked what it is.

Thanks to the poster named above who figured it out.