# Search for Tropospheric Scatter Communication Sites: Amderma, Tiksi, and Dudinka, USSR (CIA/PIR-61041)

Compiled by [Robin Monks](https://coldwar.tech/about), a Cold War archival expert.

*The October 1965 CIA imagery report that searched Amderma, Tiksi, and Dudinka for Soviet troposcatter construction and found nothing, a year before the TRRL Sever line broke ground.*

## Metadata

| Field | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Document Type | declassified |
| Creator | CIA Imagery Analysis Division |
| Date | 1965 |
| Classification | Top Secret (declassified) |
| Document ID | CIA/PIR-61041 |
| Original Language | english |

In October 1965 the CIA’s Imagery Analysis Division went looking for the Soviet troposcatter network and could not find it. Some source (the referenced reports are still redacted) had told Langley that scatter-communication sites were under construction near Amderma, Tiksi, and Dudinka, three Arctic towns. Satellite photography searched a 30-nautical-mile radius around each and reported, in one of the tidiest sentences in the declassified record: “No construction activity which could be related to scatter communications was observed in the search areas.”

The tip was good and the cameras were early. All three towns became stations of the [TRRL «Север»](https://www.trrlsever.org/) trunk line built from 1966; five months after this report, a follow-up briefing (our [next document](https://coldwar.tech/archive/documents/cia-troposcatter-types-1966)) counted fifteen facilities under construction, including at two of these three towns. This is the first page of a three-document arc in which US intelligence watches the Soviet Arctic grow antennas.

Source: [CIA FOIA Reading Room](https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp78t05439a000500350056-1) ([archived](https://web.archive.org/web/2026/https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp78t05439a000500350056-1)). Public domain as a US government work; declassification review by NIMA/DoD.

## Related

- [Tropospheric Scatter Communications](https://coldwar.tech/technologies/troposcatter) (Technologies)

Tags: CIA, troposcatter, TRRL Sever, Amderma, Tiksi, Dudinka, imagery intelligence, declassified

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Canonical URL: https://coldwar.tech/archive/documents/cia-troposcatter-search-1965
Last updated: 2026-07-15