South Texas ROTHR Transmitter, Texas

The Navy uses a shortwave radio radar system known as ROTHR (Relocatable Over the Horizon Radar), similar to the Air Force’s now de-activated OTH-B shortwave radar. The system was developed to track aircraft and ships, and has a few land-based locations in the USA, including a testing location on Amchitka Island, in Alaska, which closed in 1993, and a site in Puerto Rico. The transmitter site near Kingsville, Texas, built by Raytheon, is coupled with a receiving station near Freer, Texas, fifty miles away. There is another site in Virginia. The facilities are used extensively for anti-drug surveillance, and can track aircraft as far south as Colombia.