The U.S. Naval Receiving Facility (NAVRADRECFAC) Imperial Beach maintained and operated a high frequency direction finding (HFDF) facility and provided communication support to Navy and other Department of Defense elements.
The communications facility that was located at Imperial Beach included an operations building located in the center of an AN/FRD-10A Circularly Disposed Antenna Array (CDAA), also known as a Wullenweber antenna array. Installed in 1967, this CDAA was the last Navy Wullenweber to be installed in the vast world-wide HFDF network. The CDAA ceased operations on September 9, 1999 and the NAVRADRECFAC site at Imperial Beach closed on September 30, 1999. The CDAA was left abandoned until 2007 when structure was dismantled. Today, the property belongs to the Silver Strand Training Complex and is the premier training facility for the military’s special forces.
History
On July 1, 1957, the Communications Technician school at Imperial Beach was redesignated NAVCOMMTRACEN (NCTC) Imperial Beach, CA and moved from Imperial Beach and became NCTC Corry Field, Pensacola, FL in March, 1960.
The Navy made San Diego part of its first radio communications network by establishing the Naval Radio Station, Point Loma on May 12, 1906, with a 5 kw transmitter in a small wood building on the Point Loma Military Reservation.
In 1922, the Naval Radio Station headquarters and message center moved to the Naval Base Headquarters in downtown San Diego, at the foot of Broadway on Harbor Drive, co-located with the command center of the new Eleventh Naval District, which was established in 1921.
In 1941, the Navy took over 145 acres in Imperial Beach around the old Fort Emory artillery station, and in 1943 built a new radio receiver that took over the job from Point Loma. In 1947, the Imperial Beach receiver site became Naval Communications Station, Eleventh Naval District, and in 1953 became Naval Communication Station (NAVCOMSTA), San Diego, Imperial Beach, CA. The Point Loma site became the U.S. Navy Radio and Sound Laboratory in 1940 and the Navy Electronics Laboratory in 1945. In 1977 it was merged into the Naval Ocean Systems Center (NOSC), San Diego, CA.
Communications Technician (CT) training “A” school commenced in U.S. Naval School,
Imperial Beach, CA, on October 1, 1949. Courses of instruction included both a basic and advanced CT courses. U.S. Naval School, Communications Technician (Supplementary Training) was established at Bainbridge Island, WA in October, 1951 and was closed in December, 1953. When the school closed at Bainbridge Island, only the Imperial Beach Communications Technician schools remained.
Sources:
navycthistory
cnic.navy.mil
Station HYPO 
25 September 2017 at 12:46
My father (LCDR Clyde E Wilson, Jr., USN, Ret.) was an instructor at IB from (I think) 1957 until the school house was moved to Pensacola. We moved there and dad was instructor in Pensacola until he was commissioned in 1962.
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26 January 2019 at 16:00
I attended the Communications Technician (now Cryptology Technician) school at Imperial Beach in 1956 after a couple of months of basic communications schooling at the Naval Training Center in San Diego. The base was in stark contrast the one in San Diego! It was located on a barren stretch of land adjacent to the Pacific ocean, and the barracks/buildings were wooden, cheaply-constructed, and very drab looking.
The barracks to which my class was first assigned (in February 1956) were located just inside the main gate (off Palm Avenue). To reach the chow hall and school buildings, we had to walk 0.25 to 0.50 miles, past an underground facility known as “the tunnel” (with accompanying radio antennae). Some weeks later, we were moved, up the hill, to similar barracks near the school buildings, chow hall, and administration building.
On weekends, I often hitch-hiked up the “Silver Strand” to reach a ferry boat docked in Coronado and rode it across the bay to San Diego where I had my “civies” stored in a locker at the Servicemen’s YMCA on Broadway Avenue. Sometimes, in order to go in to “Diego”, I rode the bus line which, I remember, made a stop inside the old Ream Field Army base which had then been renamed the Naval Auxilary Air Station.
After four months of schooling at “I.B.”, I received orders for more advanced schooling back on the east coast at the Naval Security Headquarters in Washington (D.C.). It was a welcomed assignment for me because I was then only 75 miles away from my home in Virginia! And the rest, as they say, is history.
Robert Gibson Corder (former CTR3)
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18 April 2020 at 13:01
I never will forget my time at IMPERIAL BEACH (early 1959-mid 1960) basic and advanced school…The triangle bar just outside the gate, Sara’s Coffee Shop on 1st (I believe) and Jack in the box on Palm Ave, and of course the WHITE SPOT CLEANERS, just down the street….I met a nice girl in IB, and when school was nearing an end, I asked my instructor who was a chief to hold me back for a couple of weeks so I could stay a bit longer, but he was having none of that….But probably all for the best, as I got orders for the PI (Philippine Islands) the best duty you could ever ask for, and the rest is history….But then after completing my 18 month tour in the PI, the Navy in its infinite wisdom sent me back to COMSEC in Imperial Beach once again to finish out my 4 year tour…Some people bitch about being in the service, but not me….I had a four year tour that I really enjoyed, including a couple of TAD on carriers…
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18 December 2021 at 20:24
I worked there for nearly 2 years, 1985-1987
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10 April 2022 at 02:05
I enjoyed my time at Imperial Beach and was blessed to be able to go back there after it had closed. I remember so many things, but mostly the weather that I wasn’t used to, being an old Nebraska boy. Every day was just beautiful, and I became spoiled waking up day after day to it. The Triangle Cafe, grunion hunting, and most of all the CT training I received there. I went to advanced training at IB to Goodfellow AFB, San Angelo, Texas, and then became a “T” Brancher. From there to the PI, back to CONUS to get even more training at NSA, then to Japan, and then to Cheltenham, MD. My last tour of duty was aboard the USS Liberty. I was POIC of the body recovery down below after the attack. Changed my life forever.
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19 August 2022 at 02:16
My Father was stationed at IB from ‘65-‘70. We were fortunate to live in the first of four houses as you entered the gate by the beach. The weather was beautiful and the sky was the most beautiful, crystal clear blue. I associate the combined fragrance of asphalt and the ocean with IB because they were perpetually paving roads on base.
We didn’t see much of my Father given the circumstances at the time. I well remember the strange, tall circle that I never knew what it was. Like an invisible fortress.
IB will remain one of my favorite Military bases.
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