Why do we call it ‘Radar Hill’?

Built during World War II by the U.S. Army as a defense radar station, Radar Hill was later used by OU and the Air Force as a small-scale defense research facility, according to a Post article from January 1979. It is the highest point in Athens, providing a 360-degree view of the area, including much of the OU campus and city of Athens.

In the 1960s, Radar Hill went through many aesthetic changes. In the early ’60s, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration awarded OU a $13,000 grant in preparation to cooperate with Ohio State University in lunar surface studies. They were designed to provide information for the proposed Apollo project scheduled for the late ’60s, according to the Ohio Alumnus.

The university made history in 1966 when it became the owner of the world’s only privately operated satellite tracking station. The $200,000 Sohio Satellite Tracking Station intended to help OU researchers receive and transmit from the same location. This couldn’t be done previously because the stations had to be separated by at least 50 miles, according to the January/February 1966 Ohio Alumnus.

OU’s Radar Hill project, which is what the site came to be known, also featured a 30-foot tracking dish antenna, a 28-foot fixed antenna, a 70-foot observation tower, specialized computers, transmitters, receivers and the Radar Hill Laboratory, all of which helped track radar waves off the earth’s surface.

A Post article from November 1966 reported that the laboratory was first organized in 1963 for use in moon and satellite tracking programs.

OU’s Engineering Department used the laboratory “like any in the engineering building,” Richard McFarland, then laboratory director and associate professor in electrical engineering, said in the Post article. “It’s not really very glamorous, and people shouldn’t stand back in awe of the place, but dig in and work there.”

Students used the equipment, which was mostly donated to the university, including a 10,000-watt transmitter.

“Dedicated, talented students have the opportunity to experiment and research into space,” McFarland stated in 1966. “There we try to stimulate the creative research that is demanded today.”

Unfortunately, in the case of Radar Hill, technology always changes. In 1969, the Engineering Department moved out of the lab, leaving behind computers, the tracking antennas and other scientific equipment, because they had been overtaken by technological advances and progress, Ralph Burhans, then project engineer and OU electrical engineering professor, stated in the 1979 Post article.

In 1979, the article reported, “elaborate computers lie broken and useless, their parts scattered throughout the rooms of the half-buried building. Government documents and scientific papers are thrown about the floors. Walls have holes knocked in them, outlined by graffiti, signs of many vandals. Once-expensive machines lie in pieces, wasted.”

What used to be a space where scientists could measure the height of grass in fields miles away, then became disused and ignored, is now simply a grassy hill where generations of OU students have climbed and enjoyed the scenery, occasionally building illegal campfires. Still known as Radar Hill, the site remains a mecca for hikers, who park at the old water tower or along Dairy Lane, and walk the mile or so to the hill.

Editor’s note: This article originally was planned for our special history section, “Reflections of the Past,” that came out on Dec. 13. Because of a technical problem, the story had to be delayed.