Mysterious "Hi-Fix" Stations Along the Boston Coast

[+pgrig]

OK, maybe some of our resident wizards can help me solve the mystery of the two "Hi-Fix" stations I have stumbled across here on the Boston coast.

 

My report on MY4410--STRAWBERRY POINT HI-FIX 1968--tells the story of what I think I know. These marks (MY4410 and MY4900) were apparently part of a planned (or actual?) installation of the Decca Hi-Fix radio navigation system here in the Boston area.

 

I found an extremely detailed report on the Decca Hi-Fix Navigational System out on the Web. It suggests that the radio stations for a Decca Hi-Fix installation were set in "chains", and that there were ordinarily four stations to an installation, so I'm wondering if there are others to be found in the Boston area. As I reported, an NGS name search for PIDs with "hi fix"in their names didn't even return find both the stations I know to exist near here and which are pictured on the Boston map with my MY4410 report. I would love to find out why these two geodetic stations were set in 1968.

 

So who's our Resident Expert on this? [shirley probably has a Decca Navigator receiver on her kitchen table! ]

 

-Paul

 

Update: Alan Cordwell, author of the referenced Decca system website, has suggested that these disks may have been set in conjunction with a survey of the ocean floor in the Boston area. (Cool!) He also suggests that a third station, at least, would have been needed--he suggests perhaps in the Nahant area. I may have to start searching through the Scaredy Cat map pins by hand...!]

Edited November 25, 2009 by pgrig

[2oldfarts (the rockhounders)]

[shirley probably has a Decca Navigator receiver on her kitchen table! smile.gif ]

 

I do not, I do not have enough room, what with my desktop and John's Laptop and our phone there already, thank you very much.

 

That is a great find though. I do not remember anyone else posting a picture of that kind of mark before. It very interesting. Thank you for posting the link to your log and the other link about the Hi Point Decca system.

 

Shirley~

[DaveD]

The other HiFix site is station DEER ISLAND HIFIX (MY4584). These two sites were established by a field team from the U.S.C. & G.S. ship PIERCE which was primarily a hydro survey ship, so it's most likely these stations were established to control the position of the vessel as it conducted nearby on and offshore hydrographic and bathymetric survey operations.

[+pgrig]

You're great, Dave! So the chap in England was right--those contours we look at on the Google undersea maps may trace back to these stations! Cool!

 

Unfortunately, it looks like the Deer Island station has been paved under a big roadway, and I'd be 99.44% sure (given the way the MWRA works) that the HI FIX station is now scrap metal. But if I ever run the gauntlet to get out there, I'll check!

 

Do you know if these sorts of stations were unique to Boston, or were they used in other locations for survey work?

 

Also, is there some reason that the "HI FIX" part of the station names doesn't bring two of them up in a PID soundex search?

 

-Paul

[NGS Surveyor]

Interestingly, I was Operations Officer on the PEIRCE a few years later. By 1981-83 we were using different electronic positioning systems, namely ARGO (long range) and Mini-Ranger(short range).

 

GeorgeL

NGS