Return to H-4
We have received a series of photos (shown below) taken by Ragnar Sverrisson on October 22, 2022.
Hello. My name is Ragnar Sverrisson and am a technician for 112 emergency services in Iceland. I travel to the abandoned H-4 radar station at Latrar annually and just finished such a trip today. It is very interesting to browse the photos on your webpage and compare them to the ruins at Straumnes as they are today. Just writing to say thank you for keeping history alive. If you are interested, I have various photos of the site as it is today, I just returned from a trip with the Coast Guard to H-4 a couple of hours ago.
Here are some of the photos I took yesterday.
1: Approaching to land at H-4, seen from the east.
2: Looking into the building situated at the southwest corner of the cluster of buildings. Unfortunately this represents the state of most of the buildings today.
3: The gymnasium, at the northeast of the cluster.
4: A transmitter house rests on top of the platform that used to house the smaller of the two radar bubbles that I believe were at h-4. Technicians from ICEWIND are installing a new windmill in the background, on top of the staircase that led to the housing of the main radar at H-4. The windmill and the solar panels along with a backup diesel generator (inside the hut) are there to solely power one small AIS transmitter which the icelandic coast guard uses to monitor shipping traffic. The site is run by 112 Emergency Services in collaboration with the coast guard. As a tower climber / technician for 112 my job is to maintain the transmitter and the antenna as well as refuel the generator. I built the metal structure for the solar panels in 2016.
5: Looking into the building at the southeast corner of the building complex.
6: A beautiful sunset at Straumnes. This was a (very) rare great weather day at the site.
7: Looking at the gymnasium from the north. The main radar bubble housing would be at the right of this picture, out of frame.
Hope these photos provide some insight into what H-4 looks like today. If interested, my colleagues at work have many more photos from recent years. Sadly, the state of the buildings is very bad as pictured in photo 2 and 5.
Best regards,
Ragnar
In the 1990's some veterans of H-4 took a trip back to Iceland to visit their old site and meet with some of the others closely involved in H-4's operations from years ago and others with an interest in the history of H-4. Then again we have another group that visited the old site in 2006, including an Icelandic gentleman who was familiar with the site from its very beginnings and provided us pictures shown here There was also a Navy man who took several pictures we show here.
The latest set of pictures is from Gary Galonek who visited H-4 in 2018. Gary has a full dialog of his journey available by going to the Documents page and clicking on the his link . Shown here are pictures from these visits.
