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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

from Green Left Weekly #127/Jan 19, 1994


Calculated US deception on Omega base

By Joe Vialls

The 450 metre tall Omega mast at Darriman, Victoria, is perhaps the largest
US top secret military project hidden in the open, carefully disguised as a
vaguely inaccurate navigation transmitter dedicated to the worthy cause of
maritime emergency services. In reality Omega is an extremely accurate,
strategic navigation system emitting an electromagnetic field so powerful it
poses a health threat to Australian citizens in Victoria and beyond.

The introduction of Omega to Australia took the US government 13 years to
complete. The Victorian transmitter was the last of eight worldwide stations
to begin transmitting during late 1982. US strategy was to deceive the
Australian government and people alike with disinformation aimed at proving
the Omega system was not accurate enough to be used as an aid to nuclear
ballistic missile submarines.

The implication was obvious: if the system was not accurate enough for
ballistic submarine use, then what were people making such a fuss about? The
strategy worked, and opposition to the Omega network died down from strident
calls to stop construction during the 1970s to muted, puzzled acceptance in
the late 1980s.

The deception that Omega was simply too inaccurate for use by US forces was
pivotal in allowing the Victorian station to start transmitting.

The US declared Omega was accurate only to one or two kilometres, then
proceeded to encourage the sale of small (inaccurate) Omega navigation
receivers to fishing and pleasure boats alike. True to US declarations,
these ``single frequency'' receivers provided a fix accurate only to within
one or two kilometres. Hundreds of Australian mariners confirmed the
distorted US claim of limited accuracy.

In order to obtain a navigation fix from a ``hyperbolic'' system like Omega,
the vessel must obtain signals from three different transmitters. For
example, a vessel offshore Western Australia would receive signals from the
stations located in East Gippsland, Tsushima in Japan and La Reunion in the
western Indian Ocean.

The calculated US illusion lay in the fact the small Omega receivers had
access to only one of the five available frequencies transmitted in sequence
by each of those three transmitters. This meant that an ambiguity could
creep in every half wave length, or approximately 13 kilometres.

For important US military aircraft, submarines and fighting ships, an
entirely different receiver was provided, initially with three frequencies
and then with up to five. The addition of the second frequency reduced the
error to once every 38 kilometres, the third frequency to once every 115
kilometres, the fourth frequency to once every 350 kilometres and the fifth
to once every 1050 kilometres.

Equipped with special five-frequency receivers, US military aircraft,
submarines and fighting ships can therefore plot their positions with a
theoretical accuracy of one metre.

For the US government, the only remaining task was reinforcing public
opinion that Omega really was a bit of a $50 million overkill entirely
unsuited for strategic use. The answer was simple: hide the facility in the
open, pat visitors indulgently on the head and hand out bumper stickers.

Such techniques, normally referred to as ``reverse security'', have been
common in Europe for years, where population density is so high that most
installations cannot be surrounded night and day by packs of ravenous killer
dogs and guards armed with submachine guns.

Advantages

Why should the US go to such lengths to install the transmitter at all? At
first glance, it seems that satellites of the GPS variety would be perfectly
adequate for all military usage.

Radio signals from position-fixing satellites cannot penetrate the surface
of the water, so ballistic missile submarines in particular need to surface
in order to receive signals. By comparison, the Omega signals penetrate not
only water but also sea ice to at least 15 metres, making the very risky
business of surfacing completely unnecessary.

Perhaps more importantly, during a thermonuclear war all transistorised
circuits in the navigation satellites would be burned out by electromagnetic
pulses emitted by thermonuclear weapons exploding in the stratosphere,
rendering the satellites utterly useless. The very low frequency (VLF)
transmissions of Omega would be almost completely unaffected by the
holocaust and a retaliatory strike from the Southern Ocean using US Trident
D5 missiles with a range of more than 7000 nautical miles could easily be
achieved. Thus Australia would be dragged unwillingly into a northern
hemisphere superpower thermonuclear war.

As a critical command, control and communications (C3) facility for the US
nuclear ballistic submarine fleet, the Omega station in Victoria is
undoubtedly targeted by at least two Russian multi-megaton warheads riding
on independently launched missiles.

High power

The US government also forgot to mention another long-term hazard associated
with the transmitter: the effect of electromagnetic pollution on
Australians.

A 1978 Australian document describes the power of the Omega signal as 10 kW,
``about the same as a typical ABC broadcasting station''. Unfortunately the
US government had been lying through its hind teeth, and the environmental
impact statement was fraudulent due to the inaccurate information provided.

The power input to the Omega station is shown in a 1978 Australian document
as consisting of two 450 kW transformers drawing power from a dedicated
substation fed by the national grid, backed up by a huge 750 kW stand-by
generator driven by a V12 diesel. All this to transmit ``a radio signal of
10 kW in power''?

Of course not. The Omega station transmits in two modes at the same time:
the first a weak 10,000 watt sky-wave signal from the top of the mast, and
the second an incredibly powerful ground-wave the US government forgot to
mention which pumps another 500,000 watts out through the earth, via giant
buried copper aerials radiating out around the base of the mast every 10
degrees for a distance of 1100 feet each.

The ground-wave mode is of special interest to ballistic missile submarines
because, unlike the sky-wave, it has no inherent ambiguities.

It should be noted that one of the declared primary requirements for the
Omega site was ``high soil conductivity'' - the ability of the ground to
transmit electromagnetic fields for long distances. East Gippsland soil is
highly conductive all the way to Melbourne and beyond. Last year a radio
expert living more than 100 km from the transmitter detected an ``earth''
electrical potential so strong he was able to listen to Omega's ground-wave
pulses by plugging his high impedance headphones directly into the dirt of
his back garden.

At the entrance to the user-friendly transmitter site in East Gippsland a
large sign flanked by pretty gardens declares: ``Australian Maritime Safety
Authority Welcomes Visitors to the Omega Navigation Facility''. But if a
visitor tries to stray beyond the building to take closer pictures of the
huge aerial, the response is: ``Sorry, it's too hot out there'' - a direct
reference to radio frequency burns that would be suffered by anyone unwise
enough to trample across hidden copper earth aerials pumping out half a
million watts.

Dangers

There is a very real danger to the people of Victoria from the massive
ground-wave travelling through that state's highly conductive soil. Dr
Robert Becker, MD, an expert of great renown in the specialised field of
electromagnetic pollution and twice a Nobel Prize nominee, has published
alarming information about increased incidence of cancer, cataracts,
developmental defects, genetic effects and mental illness due to powerful
electromagnetic fields emitted by low frequency transmitters, allied
equipment and systems.

Becker in his book Cross Currents made the following general observation:
``All abnormal, man-made electromagnetic fields, regardless of their
frequencies, produce the same biological effects. These effects ... deviate
from normal functions and are actually or potentially harmful.''

Omega has been transmitting continuously for at least 10 years. Health
statistics in Victoria need to be compared with others in New South Wales
and Queensland on a ``before'' and ``after'' basis, especially within 700
kilometres of the Omega transmitter. Statistics are already revealing an
increase in the incidence of Victorian cancers over those in Western
Australia, but a lot more work needs to be done in order to establish the
actual level of danger. Many forms of cancer take up to 15 years to appear,
and by then it may be too late to save some of the people affected.

It is currently unknown what levels of electromagnetic pollution the other
large bases at Pine Gap and Nurrungar may be generating, but it seems
unlikely there will be any noticeable concern about Australian public health
on the part of the US government.

Six-month airmail subscriptions (22 issues) to Green Left Weekly
are available for A$60 (North America) and A$75 (South America,
Europe & Africa) from PO Box 394, Broadway NSW 2007, Australia


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