Demo Time

One aspect of my job that I love is getting out of the building from time to time to demonstrate and test our system. Luckily for us - builders of radar detection systems - we have a ready made test facility called San Francisco Bay right near by. Every day there are commercial and pleasure craft with radars fired up on the bay as well as air traffic, weather and other airborne radars present. It's a great place to play.

So, from time to time we pack up our system and head for the bay. All we need is a mobile home (to provide shelter, power and a bathroom) and trailer (to hold our stuff) and off we go. The location we set up in is called Fort Baker; a former military base located just past the northern end of the Golden Gate Bridge. As you can see from the first couple pictures our setup site is just opposite from and provides a beautiful view of San Francisco. And from the pictures you can see we picked an awesome day for the trip.























This next picture shows the trailer where our system resides as well as our antenna (at the top of that portable mast unit on the left). The details would bore you to tears.. but all you need to know is that the antenna is like a really good radio antenna and the stuff in the trailer is a really good radio for listening to radars. The software stuff I do simply tells the listener exactly what they are listening too. Simple huh!? Oh.. and you can see the Golden Gate Bridge in the background which I'll talk about next.



















It's hard to show pictorially, but we are just down the road from the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge. This picture is taken just around the corner from where we park and is a unique view of the bridge. In this picture San Francisco is in the far view (far or south side of the bridge) and Marin (the north side) is nearest. You can literally keep walking down the road I was on when I took this picture and walk underneath the bridge. At the bottom of the hill is the primary Coast Guard facility used to monitor activities on the bay and to provide search and rescue resources (and additional targets for our testing).





























Here's a picture of a container ship (target) that entered the bay through the Golden Gate and now is passing underneath the Bay Bridge (SF on the right end - Oakland/Berkeley on the left end) bringing the west coast lots of stuff to buy. There's also a smaller commuter ferry (target) just crossing it's wake (behind it).















Fort Baker was originally the location of canon encampments used to protect the SF bay from enemy naval attacks. You can see some of the original canon-mounts (they would have been mounted on top of the buildings, and powder rooms (below) at the top of this next image.















Recently, Fort Baker was de-commissioned or turned over from the military to the public sector. As part of that, the old military housing has been beautifully restored by a private company that now runs a resort and spa called Covella Point. The next couple pictures give you a snapshot of the historic buildings that were restored. These are now either split into individual rooms that can be rented - or some remain as guest houses that can be rented in their entirety. The insides are as wonderful as the outsides.




























Here's a picture of the old enlisted barracks that now includes a restaurant and bar (where we took our client for a nice post-demo debriefing (or drink as we non-military types call it). Not at all an unpleasant way to end a work day.















This is kind of random.. but when I was down by the base of the Golden Gate a helicopter appeared very near the northern bridge tower. It was literally loitering right next to the tower for a relatively long period of time. I don't know if they were conducting some type of visual inspection of the tower or what.. but they were way closer than I would have liked to be. Though, they got a most unique view of the bridge!