Dixon Transmission Station, California

During World War Two, the Office of War Information ordered the rapid construction of two shortwave transmitters on the west coast, in addition to the one in Bethany, Ohio, to broadcast federally produced radio programs, especially the Voice of America, to targeted nations around the world. After the war, the programming continued, and expanded through the Cold War, using five powerful shortwave transmitting plants in the USA, boosted by relay stations overseas. NBC built and operated this one for the government in Dixon, California, west of Sacramento. It went online in late December 1944. After the war, the site was updated with more transmitters, and ultimately had ten in operation, each capable of transmitting programs simultaneously through dozens of antenna arrays. Transmissions were directed to the Pacific Rim, including Japan, Australia, and the Philippines. The facility was mothballed in 1979, but broadcast Spanish programs intermittently until 1988, when it became the first of the five continental VOA transmission stations to close. The facility was declared surplus in the 1990s, and was sold at auction in 1998 for $160,000. Since then it has been used by private companies for aircraft communications, but is currently, apparently, inoperative. The Navy has maintained a large transmission facility next to it, broadcasting at very low frequencies to communicate with ships and submarines in the Pacific.