Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine March 2017 - 27

Giannetti
the concrete basements of the great
antenna towers, still visible in the
fields; a few small portions of brick
walls of the new radio building; the
barracks and the quarters of the service staff; surviving WWII's devastation. Unfortunately, it suffered
badly the effect of time and this
historic building fell into disrepair:
what the German troops did not do,
the inactivity and carelessness of
Italian administrations did. Actually, the Ministry of National and
Culture Heritage, which has to manage a huge amount of Italian historical sites, never took care of Coltano
(due to lack of resources and/or interest), while the owner institution,
i.e., the Italian State Property OfFigure 18.
fice ("Demanio dello Stato"), was
Worldwide coverage map of long-range SW service from Coltano (1930-1940). Alphanumeric codes
almost exclusively concerned with
denote target areas served by given frequencies in given time intervals, due to ionospheric propagation.
leaving the site untouched while denying
any
intervention
to
other
institutions. On the other side,
Actually, in 1955 the U.S. Air Force (USAF) established a rauntil recent years, the municipality of Pisa, which is the comdio site in Coltano, about 1 km east of the old radio center [37].
petent authority for the area surrounding the building, did not
In 1962, the U.S. Army built another radio site in the area fordo enough to improve the accessibility of the site or promote
merly occupied by the curtain antenna of Italo Radio in the 1920s
tourism at Coltano.
and installed there a 1 kW tropospheric communication system.
The Pisa section of the Italian Amateur Radio Association
Shortly after, the USAF too moved to the Army's site and installed
(A.R.I.) recently moved its offices into the "Villa Medicea" of
there the Germany Italy Microwave System (GIMS) and a 10 kW
Coltano, an ancient fortified rural residence built by the Medici
tropospheric communication system linking Coltano with Spain,
family of Florence in the late XVI century, located just 800 m away
Greece, and Turkey. In 1973, a marble monument to Guglielmo
from the Palazzina Marconi, and occasionally operates a comMarconi was erected at the U.S. site. In 1976, the 509th Signal
memorative radio station with call sign IY5PIS.
Battalion assumed the responsibilities of the communication acThe current status of the Coltano site can be visited in a virtual
tivities in Coltano. Later, the communication equipments were uptour using Google Maps. The ruined Palazzina Marconi is easily
graded: the Army's GIMS was replaced by the Digital European
found at coordinates 43.643140 N, 10.402751 E, while the baseBackbone (DEB) system, while the USAF installed an Automatic
ments of the large antennas are spotted in the fields (Figures 7 and
Voice Network (AUTOVON) switch. Some satellite terminals in
9 can be of some help in locating the antenna basements).
support of worldwide tactical missions were also installed. In the
In the last decades, several committees and many people, inearly 1990s, the DEB was upgraded to incorporate modern digital
cluding Princess Elettra Marconi, in vain complained about the
radios and multiplexers, and the Digital Switch Network (DSN)
abandonment of Coltano radio center and called for the restoration
replaced the AUTOVON switch. The U.S. communication site in
of what is left.
Coltano was deactivated in 2000 and converted into an NSA/EchThe most effective action for the conservation of Coltano's
elon monitoring station [38]. The site was eventually closed in
memory carried out so far is a permanent exhibition, organized at
May 2008 and the Marconi monument was moved to the Leghorn
the Pisa City Library by Paola Bernardini, the daughter of Pietro
Army Depot in 2012.
Bernardini, a former technician of the radio station. The exhibition
In 1952 the Italian public broadcasting company RAI installed
consists of a set of twelve panels illustrating the whole history of
a MW transmit site in Coltano, in the area formerly occupied by
the the Coltano radio center, with a number of vintage photos, picthe new radio building. Later, the antenna site was moved to antures, drawings, and documents [39].
other location, about 1.5 km southeast of the old Coltano radio
In recent years, a new bill allowed the State Property Office
center. Today the RAI site hosts a MW transmitter carrying Radio
to hand the ownership of the Palazzina Marconi to the municipal1 programme on 657 kHz, with 50 kW, and a 130 m-high mast.
ity of Pisa on condition that a complete (and expensive) recovery
project was proposed. The Coltano radio center deserves to be a
COLTANO TODAY
serious project for restoration and promotion. It would be a toolong awaited act of gratitude to a genius who worked in this place
Only a few vestiges today witness the past splendors of the onceand brought mankind into the modern era.
famous Coltano radiotelegraphic and radiotelephonic center:
MARCH 2017

IEEE A&E SYSTEMS MAGAZINE

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine March 2017