Communication with submarines is difficult because radio waves do not easily travel through salt water.
Another solution is to use a buoy carrying the antenna that is floated to the surface.
The buoy is tethered to the submarine which remains well below the surface.
Before long engineers figured out another technique.
The trouble was the size of the antenna required.
Obviously, an antenna of such dimensions is physically impossible to build.
So engineers use antennas that are only a fraction of the wavelength long.
The Goliath site overlaid with location of the antennas and the transmitter & control building.
It was the most powerful transmitter of its time.
These guy wires not only provide support, but are part of the antenna itself.
Umbrella antennas are some of the most efficient antennas in the low frequency spectrum.
Aside from military communication, these antennas are commonly used in medium-wave and longwave AM broadcasting stations.
The Goliath used three 210-meter-tall steel masts arranged in a triangle and guyed to the ground.
The antenna system also had anextensive systemof buried ground radials whose total length was at least 350 km.
The Goliath transmitter in Nizhny Novgorod.
Photo credit:Eugene Katishev/Wikimedia
