5: 2, Community Relations, 1970: 47323287

Read from the scan by GLM-OCR; expect the odd misread word.

Sophisticated switching centers are located in fairly isolated areas. And there are many of them. In fact, according to SAGE authorities, the communications system of the 21ST NORAD REGION is probably the most redundant and survivable part of the entire complex.

SAGE also maintains its own power plant, and a very large one indeed, twenty-four hours a day. Though a great deal of commercial power is used, wherever this is the case a back-up system exists. Thus, the SAGE power plant can operate on its own in the event commercial power resources either are destroyed or power production falls low.

A word about the individual squadrons. At each radar squadron is a large search radar which is capable of detecting aircraft at altitudes from quite low to very high. This radar rotates through a 360 degree cycle and searches the entire area of sky within its range.

Co-located with the search radar is a height-finder radar which is capable of determining exactly how high an object is after its detection by the search radar. Though the search radar defines an object longitudinally and latitudinally, in order to run an intercept, it is necessary for the height-finding radar to determine whether the aircraft is, say, at five or fifty-thousand feet.

Too, at each site is a series of radio transmitters through which ground-control operators either talk to the interceptor pilots or send coded electronic instructions to unmanned missiles which can be guided electronically from the ground to the target. These transmitters are also tied to the SAGE computer and the two subordinate computers. This allows the weapons controller to control both interceptors and missiles electronically anywhere within the 21ST NORAD REGION area.