AN/UCC-4

Last updated November 23, 2019

The AN/UCC-4, or UCC-4, was a solid state frequency division multiplexer manufactured by Lenkurt in 1969. It was used by the United States Air Force to provide voice frequency communication to the Department of Defense.

Automatic Electric Company (AE) was the largest of the manufacturing units of the Automatic Electric Group. It was a telephone equipment supplier for independent telephone companies in North America, and also had a worldwide presence. With its line of automatic telephone exchanges, it was also a long-term supplier of switching equipment to the Bell System, starting in 1919.

A voice frequency (VF) or voice band is one of the frequencies, within part of the audio range, that is being used for the transmission of speech.

The United States Department of Defense is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national security and the United States Armed Forces. The DoD is the largest employer in the world, with nearly 1.3 million active-duty service members as of 2016. More employees include over 826,000 National Guard and Reservists from the armed forces, and over 732,000 civilians bringing the total to over 2.8 million employees. Headquartered at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, just outside Washington, D.C., the DoD's stated mission is to provide "the military forces needed to deter war and ensure our nation's security".

Description

The UCC-4 comprised 12 voice frequency channels in the range of 300 to 3000 hertz, which made up a group. Five groups formed a supergroup and ten supergroups formed a mastergroup, thus making it expandable to 600 voice frequency channels or more, and compatible with the contemporary L-carrier of AT&T Long Lines.

The L-carrier system was one of a series of carrier systems developed by AT&T for high-capacity transmission for long-distance communications. Over a period from the late 1930s to the 1970s, the system evolved in six significant phases of development, designated by Bell System engineers as L-1 through L-5, and L-5E. Coaxial cable was the principle transmission medium in all stages, initially lending the system another descriptions as the coaxial system. It was the successor to a series of previous carrier systems, typically identified by capital letters. In the 1960s the system was hardened against the dangers of the cold war using complete placement of all terminal and repeater equipment in hardened underground vaults.

The UCC-4 was connected to a microwave radio that operated in the band of 4.4 to 5 GHz gigahertz, which was transmitted via either line-of-sight or tropospheric scatter to the next communications station.

Line-of-sight propagation is a characteristic of electromagnetic radiation or acoustic wave propagation which means waves travel in a direct path from the source to the receiver. Electromagnetic transmission includes light emissions traveling in a straight line. The rays or waves may be diffracted, refracted, reflected, or absorbed by the atmosphere and obstructions with material and generally cannot travel over the horizon or behind obstacles.

Repair and maintenance

The technology and maintenance of the UCC-4 was taught to airman of the career field 304X0 at Keesler Air Force Base, Mississippi. The UCC-4 was unique because all of the modules were hermetically sealed. The technician maintaining the piece of equipment merely had to take out the faulty module and replace it with a functional one, and this was the start of what became known as black box maintenance. Before the development of this technology, technicians would be required to troubleshoot and repair the faulty unit. The black box technique of maintenance meant the equipment was put back on line quickly, and the faulty module was sent to a depot where it was repaired by a team of technicians.

Keesler Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located in Biloxi, a city along the Gulf Coast in Harrison County, Mississippi, United States. The base is named in honor of aviator 2d Lt Samuel Reeves Keesler, Jr., a Mississippi native killed in France during the First World War. The base is home of Headquarters, Second Air Force and the 81st Training Wing of the Air Education and Training Command (AETC).

Mississippi is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. Mississippi is the 32nd largest and 34th-most populous of the 50 United States. Mississippi is bordered to the north by Tennessee, to the east by Alabama, to the south by the Gulf of Mexico, to the southwest by Louisiana, and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mississippi's western boundary is largely defined by the Mississippi River. Jackson is both the state's capital and largest city. Greater Jackson, with an estimated population of 580,166 in 2018, is the most populous metropolitan area in Mississippi and the 95th-most populous in the United States.

In science, computing, and engineering, a black box is a device, system or object which can be viewed in terms of its inputs and outputs, without any knowledge of its internal workings. Its implementation is "opaque" (black). Almost anything might be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, or the human brain.

Usage

One unit that used the UCC-4 multiplexer was the Electron Maintenance Workcenter in 2045 Communication Group, based at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. The Electron Maintenance Workcenter comprised Radio Relay Equipment Repairmen, who later became known as Wideband Maintenance Equipment Repairmen who maintained the UCC-4, teletype equipment, radio equipment, modems, and other ancillary pieces of equipment to support the communications effort.

Andrews Air Force Base is the airfield portion of Joint Base Andrews which is under the jurisdiction of the United States Air Force. In 2009, Andrews Air Force Base merged with Naval Air Facility Washington to form Joint Base Andrews. Andrews is the home base of two Boeing VC-25A aircraft with the call sign Air Force One when the president is on board, that serve the President of the United States.

Maryland is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east. The state's largest city is Baltimore, and its capital is Annapolis. Among its occasional nicknames are Old Line State, the Free State, and the Chesapeake Bay State. It is named after the English queen Henrietta Maria, known in England as Queen Mary, who was the wife of King Charles I.

Associated links

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