South Texas ROTHR Receiver, Texas

The Navy uses a shortwave radio radar system known as ROTHR (Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar) developed mostly by Raytheon, to track aircraft and ships. It has a few land-based locations in the USA, including a testing location on Amchitka Island, in Alaska, which closed in 1993, and active sites in Puerto Rico, Virginia, and Texas. The system uses a transmission plant, and a receiving station, some miles away from one another. At the south Texas ROTHR facility, the transmitter site is near Kingsville, Texas, and the receiving station is here, near Freer, Texas, fifty miles away. The facilities are used extensively for anti-drug surveillance, and can track aircraft as far south as Colombia.