Cudjoe Key Radar Balloon

These are pictures taken from our RV window. We see the balloon raised and lowered, depending on the weather. Cudjoe Key is the Key immediately over the bridge at our campground. The balloon helps guide us home when we travel on Highway 1. Thought you would be interested in knowing this little tidbit of trivia.

Tethered Aerostat Radar System
The Tethered Aerostat Radar System is a balloon-borne radar. The primary aerostat mission is to provide radar data in support of other federal agencies involved in the nation's drug interdiction program. One aerostat, located at Cudjoe Key, Fla., transmits TV Marti, which sends American television signals into Cuba for the U.S. Information Agency. The air drug interdiction program consists of land-based aerostat radar detection ballons along the U.S. southern border and in the Carribbean, and a series of airborne surveillance assets such as P-3 AEW, interceptor aircraft, and apprehension helicopters. The purpose is to seal off the border to illegal drugs coming in by aircraft. The program has been expanded to interdict the narcotic flow before it gets to the U.S. border.
The Federal Aviation Administration first advised Customs to begin looking for aerostat sites on the Southwest border and the gulf in 1981. Major General Piotrowski, in hearings before the House in 1983, urged consideration of the use of aerostats in the war on drugs. The requirement for the Tethered Aerostat Radar System network was established in 1984 by the U.S. Customs Service to help counter illegal drug trafficking. The first antidrug aerostat went operational in 1985 at High Rock Grand Bahama Island. The second site was built at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., in 1986. Customs began seeking proposal requests from contractors for these balloons in 1987. Overall responsibility for the program fell to Customs and the Coast Guard, until congressional language in 1991 and 1992 transferred management to the Defense Department, with the Air Force as executive agent.