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IFC Updates

New - this 20 page booklet Allied Supportability Program is an introduction to the major upgrade of Nike Hercules from vacuum tube technology to solid-state technology. But don't you believe the Mean Time Between Failure it gives of the old vacuum tube technology - they lie worse than politicians trying to say how much they will improve things.

The Nike system is still (as of 2000) in service. The Nike sites in the U.S. were de-activated in 1974 because the threat of ICBM missiles seemed much larger than the threat of long range bombers. However, in many parts of the world, the threat of aircraft attack continued to be very real, and Nike was retained in service.

Over the past 45 years many changes were been made. In the early 1950's, when the Nike Ajax was designed, the transistor was an expensive, unreliable, fragile laboratory curiosity. In the mid 1950's when the Hercules update was made, most "transistorized" radios still used tubes in the RF section. "All transistor" radios were very expensive, a status symbol. Computer engineers were studying methods of adapting this promising (but still very expensive) technology to replace vacuum tubes.

During the 1960's, the semi-conductor revolution roared on. Transistors became fast, tougher, and cheap. All new computers and radios were "all solid state". World conditions changed, and Nike production stopped. Nike systems worked very well - even though the transistor revolution would have made many Nike electronic components many times smaller, lighter, less expensive, and more reliable.

From Vasilis Bourantanis (December 1999)
COMPUTER
The following hardware has been added with BLOCK III
  1. New solid state Power supplies with O.V.P.s (over voltage protector)
  2. Dot Matrix Display
  3. Keyboard
  4. Printer
  5. Disk Drives (2)
  6. Disk Controller
  7. T.O.Y. Clock (time of year)
  8. P.W.B.s (printed wiring board) to Interface with BCVAN and RCVAN
  9. P.W.B.s to interface with the Plotting Boards
  10. C.P.U. (central proccesing unit) which contains the Core Memories
  11. Expantion Unit which helps the C.P.U. to interface with the whole system
  12. New T.C.I. (tactical control indicator) located on the B.C.C. (battery control console)

TYPES OF DISKS

  • TACTICAL DISK: Contains the operational software (program) and the Site data (non-recordable disk)

  • MISSION DISK: Contains the mission data (recordable disk)

  • DIAGNOSTIC DISK: Contains the diagnostic program used only by technicians (non-recordable disk)

MODES OF COMPUTER OPERATION
The computer has three modes of operation
ACTION - STANDBY - DIAGNOSTIC

  • ACTION: When the operator switches to ACTION the computer starts the operational program and by having Target track and Missile track gives to the BCO the " READY TO FIRE ". From now on, the BCO can fire a missile at any time, as long as he has a "READY TO FIRE" lamp ON. ( once we have TARGET TRACK the computer proccesses the interseption equalization )

  • STANDBY: When the operator switches to STANDBY, he is able to choose to run a program. He can check computer's or VAN's hardware and incoming/outgoing data.

  • DIAGNOSTIC: When the technician switches to DIAGNOSTIC he can perform specific higher level checks to solve computer's malfunctions.

From Carl Durling
In March 1961 boxes of equipment arrived at our IFC Herc site at Naha Air Force Base. These boxes contained transistorized components and instructions for installation. We transistorized the MTR, TTR and Computer, and it did reduce by one-third to one-half the cabinet space. And, your artical is absolutly right, we could hot start in 10-15 seconds. No warm up required. In fact the speed increase of most operations was noticable. There were improvements made to the Radars also, but this was done by the WO and Top Sgt.
Carl Durling

During the 1970's, Nike oriented vacuum tubes were basicly out of production, and getting hard and expensive to obtain. Analog components, such as the large potentiomenters, were wearing, and the replacement production a dying art.

So, since then,"drop-in" replacements for Nike sub-systems were designed and installed. The analog computer cabinets were almost empty after a digital computer replacement. In the Radar Van, cabinets that had been full of nice warm glowing tubes were suddenly cold and almost empty after being "transistorized". "Warm-up" and electronic checks were reduced from 10 minutes to tens of seconds. Stability and reliability of electronic components - never a big problem - increased greatly.

The following is a growing account of the story of the modernization of the Nike system.

from Rolf Dieter Görigk
By the way, in Europe the ageing NIKE System was constandly modified. Tubes and stuff like that were running out of stock (supply). Remember the old quicksilver tubes in the pwr supplies.

Oh yes - the most unreliable part of the system. When the weather turned cold we would have to replace 3 or 4 of the things. Flicker- flicker - voltage jumping around, AH - FINALLY settled down - change that one as soon as possible.

You still remember that! It must have been important to you. For me it was important because every time a tube failed the maintenance man came, pulled the tube and shook it like hell to get the mercury back to the anode-region. Once in a while he lost control and smashed the tube. I, as a young operator, had to clean up the mess. I still remember how hard it was (and funny) to pick up all the mercury pearls!!! Then it was disposed in a normal trash can.....!?

So, besides of the REAMOD (Range Angle Encode Modifications), the range pot in the radar set group was totally re-designed to solid state. The modification was done by Sierra Research Corporation (USA).

After almost 20 years of wear and tear and 24 hours of operation each day, all the so called "pots", azimuth, elevation and range, were at there "physical" end. Because of the modification, the data was digitized in the antenna and transmitted via coax-cable to the RCT. The range data was developed within the modified range unit. No tubes on top anymore. Actually the "pot" was filled up with electronic cards, had a self-test circuitry and was very reliable. I`m trying to get more reliable information about the MWO`s.

And of course no spilling of Bayol-D oil anymore. I gues that stuff was toxic too.

It was quiet normal that all the dial-indicator were exchanged and digitized.

We completed NSP 1 to 3. NSP = National Support Plan. All the computer cabinets were almost empty. The Dicke Fix receiver in the LOPAR aux cabinet was modified to solid state. All the dials indications were digital.

The LOPAR maggi was changed to a coaxial magnetron. {Coaxial magnetron, Magnetrons.}

Solid state front end in the LOPAR rcvr and MTI. The CDG was allready replaced by the BTE (Battery Terminal Equipment) in the 70`s and and........

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Updated November, 2008