What did I just buy??? S-711 Shelter???

[USAFSS-ColdWarrior]

Sweet -

Ref pic 5 above.... is that the "bunk" in the upper right side or is it a shelf?

Congrats on the score.

 

[zen314]

is that the "bunk" in the upper right side or is it a shelf?

Yes, and yes. I think it is the bunk, but I might use it as a shelf.

 

[3dAngus]

I have a S-788 shelter that might be appropriate for that. It is 608lbs empty and made from aluminum honeycomb material. I thought about hanging it from aircraft cables attached to 4 trees by the 4 hooks at the top, and attaching eyebolts all the way through the trees. I think the trees should support the weight, but I wouldn't want to be in there in a high wind. Has anyone ever actually pulled off something like this?

If you ever do put eyebolts through a tree, make sure it is in winter after a freeze or two when you are certain the sap isn't flowing. Otherwise, it won't last but a year. January or Febuary is about the only time you can pull that off.

 

[LanceRobson]

Good looking shelter. Here's some info that may help.

There have been a number of manufacturers and some of the internal framing has varied based on the intended application and where the penetrations were but Gichner probably made most of them.

Here is a link to their site.

GICHNER Shelter Systems

It has the specs and under the "DOWNLOADS" tab there is a scale drawing of the internal framing. If you get it printed on C size blueprint paper it will give you a 1:1 scale drawing of the different framing members and be a big help in modifying the shelter or hanging heavy things off of it. I had one copy laminated so it would survive being used in the shop.

Here's the TM on the AC/heater units:

TM-5-4120-384-14 Air Conditioner Horizontal Compact 18 000 BTU/HR 208 Volt 3 Phase 50/60 Hertz Model F18H-3S Manual

Here is a link to a downloadable and searchable copy of the TM for the S-280 itself. It discusses repairs and the different style and lengths of rivet and riv-nuts for installing stuff in the shelter.

TM-10-5411-206-14 Shelter Electrical Equipment S-280B/G S-280B/G (Shielded) Manual

The bare shelter weight is about 1,400 pounds and those AC units are 265 pound each. Add a good guess for the pallet and the interior stuff and I'd guess the shipping weight to be around 3,000 pounds or a little bit less.

Lance

 

[Wile E. Coyote]

I know this is a two year old post, and someone touched on it with "basically a ham radio" but the TRC-179 Regency Net 'Force Terminal' setup was much more than that. They had these systems in duece-mounted shelters and the 'Team Terminal' component which would be dismountable, and typically housed in an M1009 CUCV Blazer, M151A2 1/4 ton or M998 HMMWV. Basically you had a completely EMP-hardened HF emergency communications system which had EMP-proof HF radios, data terminals, amps, UPSes, and so forth which was meant to be the communications system to fall back on for command and control in the event of nuclear Armageddon in Europe.

"Regency Net" replaced the older (poorly named for the purposes of morale) "Cemetery Net" (or 'Cemetery Talk') which, in time of War, became "Flaming Arrow Net" (a function mostly served by satellite now.) Because the system was set to be fielded just as the Cold War ended, all the Regency Net assets went more or less straight into storage after some wide area testing in CONUS, Europe and Korea/ Japan. (EDIT - nearly 12 yrs later - but Regency Net and Flaming Arrow Net were different - with Flaming Arrow Net a UHF satcom system vs. the Regency Net HF system. There was an interface capability between the two in the RN Force Terminal configuration however. See TB 11-5895-1218-12-2 )

Two or three of the rack systems have shown up over the years (I think that's one of the racks less components lying down in one of the shelter pics), and FEMA wound up with an apparently large number of the backpack transceivers from the system (AN/GRC-215), but the bulk of it all seems to have been gutted from the shelters and shredded...despite the fact it was new/unissued. I know a few of our members have some Team Terminal components as well (I have the screen/ data entry component) but to my knowledge nobody has a complete Team Terminal with rack and components yet.

The Regency Net gear had a frequency hopping component meant to be used in nuclear-meltdown mode, and whatever gear was surplused had the hopping card removed. Fair Radio got some of the Force Terminal components years and years ago, and Mike Murphy had a bunch as well. Documentation is *very* spotty on the system, though there's a system overview manual out there from Magnavox, and radionerds.com has a couple of the Force Terminal manuals showing shelter setup/ parts details and the BII list courtesy of the HR pam.