The Omega Station (see Mike's last comment question)

Given that I tend to give long answers and that someone else might be interested, Mike had asked about using the Omega Station in Haiku Valley on Oahu for locations.  I don't have any photos, but I do have a little info--although please correct me as you probably know more if you've done research.  The Omega Station was run by the Coast Guard and was sort of an almost science fiction, 1950's (?) state of the art concept.  Long before satellite tracking, ships and submarine's needed to know where they were on the planet.  This facility generated a huge, ultra-low frequency that could be tracked by ships around the world.  I think it might have been used with 1 or 2 others somewhere for triangulation or something.  Anyway, this large, windowless building built in a (then) isolated bowl shaped valley which used the natural contour like a giant dish.  Somehow they managed to string a cable across the valley and suspend this device above the bowl shape for broadcasting.  The cable is gone, but the "stairs" are still there-- which are actually a 3,000 ft. ladder that makes my palms sweat just looking at it.  It was restored for public use by the public, but there are a few "liability issues" like getting blown off it while climbing or falling a couple of thousand feet down.  

Anyway, there was a bit of secrecy about this place and it was really isolated with a small road up to it.  The very first thing I ever worked on in film was a really crappy movie called "Vacation in Hell" or something like that.  I carved a giant pig statue as they were allowed to cover 2 sides of the Omega Station with fake steps and turn the whole thing into an Aztec Temple in the jungle.  It was probably used at some point in 5-0 and Magnum, but that was before my time.  In the mean time, they built the most expensive freeway ever built through Haiku valley in the 80's and 90's.  It took all of the 80's and 90's to build it. I saw a thing on the History Channel las week that H-3 is considered the "most beautiful" freeway in the world.  We just called it the freeway to nowhere since it connects Pearl Harbor with the marine base in Kaneohe.  Anyway, one of the concerns early on was that the radiation from the Omega Station would be harmful.  At one point they were going to enclose the freeway after it emerges from the giant tunnels on the windward side at a couple thousand feet up with steel mesh.  Well, by the time they got that far, they didn't need the station anymore so the mesh idea went away. 

     I do remember being told that when they used to film there, you could stand on any hill and hold a fluorescent tube in your hand up in the air and it would light up!  So I'm sure there was something to the radiation concerns.

I went through the building remains a couple of years ago on "LOST."  Very sad.  Vandals had destroyed all of this wonderful old "high tech" equipment and controls that had been left behind.  Given that the station generated it's own power to create this huge signal, all of the major copper and reusable things had come out of there.  However, it still retained a lot of controls and guages, switches, and things that had mostly been smashed.  We were able to use some of the damaged things on "LOST" but had to return them since they technically still belonged to the government.  There is just a very small road in and nothing is marked, but there in the middle of this jungle is this huge old building that looks like a Jurrassic Park set.  If you have a death wish and want to see the station from above, you can go slow while on the H-3 while up about 2,000 feet in 70 mile an hour traffic and look down and there it is.  I'm sure it would cost more to tear it down that would be practical so it just sits there.  When I was filming there with "LOST", we didn't actually use the station, but another old wooden warehouse building located further up the hill from there.  They may have since used it, but I haven't watched the show in 2 years.  Are they really battling aliens on Mars now?

So, once again, I turned a simple question into a PhD. thesis, but that's just me.