Echo-Fox Antenna Page

The "Echo-Fox"
Air to Ground Telephone System

The photo below is a shot of the Echo-Fox radio telephone system used by the White House Communications Agency to place phone calls to and from various VIP Squadron Aircraft, including Air Force One. There is believed to have been about 30 of these sites around the US located at prime AT&T tower sites. Montana had two of them, one at MacDonald Pass pictured below, the other at the Miles City site in eastern Montana. They operated in the 406-420 Mhz Government Band with the full duplex radio's transmit/receive antenna being the fiberglass vertical antenna in the center of the T-Frame mount. The two small ground plain antennas on the ends of the T were used to test the integrity of the echo-fox system through a remotely controlled system from the White House. The icing on this antenna, as well as our DB420 UHF antenna (originally the AT&T Long Lines Maintenance antenna) also visible in the picture is an example of the "light" icing associated with MacDonald Pass in the winter. It can and does get much worse!