The 450 metre tall Omega mast at Darriman, Victoria, is perhaps the largest US top secret military project hidden in the open, carefully disguised as a vaguely inaccurate navigation transmitter dedicated to the worthy cause of maritime emergency services. In reality Omega is an extremely accurate, strategic navigation system emitting an electromagnetic field so powerful it poses a health threat to Australian citizens in Victoria and beyond.

The introduction of Omega to Australia took the US government 13 years to complete. The Victorian transmitter was the last of eight worldwide stations to begin transmitting during late 1982. US strategy was to deceive the Australian government and people alike with disinformation aimed at proving the Omega system was not accurate enough to be used as an aid to nuclear ballistic missile submarines.

The US declared Omega was accurate only to one or two kilometres, then proceeded to encourage the sale of small (inaccurate) Omega navigation receivers to fishing and pleasure boats alike. True to US declarations, these "single frequency" receivers provided a fix accurate only to within one or two kilometres.

In order to obtain a navigation fix from a "hyperbolic" system like Omega, the vessel must obtain signals from three different transmitters. The calculated US illusion lay in the fact the small Omega receivers had access to only one of the five available frequencies transmitted in sequence by each of those three transmitters.

For important US military aircraft, submarines and fighting ships, an entirely different receiver was provided, initially with three frequencies and then with up to five. For the US government, the only remaining task was reinforcing public opinion that Omega really was a bit of a $50 million overkill entirely unsuited for strategic use. The answer was simple: hide the facility in the open, pat visitors indulgently on the head and hand out bumper stickers.

Radio signals from position-fixing satellites cannot penetrate the surface of the water, so ballistic missile submarines in particular need to surface in order to receive signals. By comparison, the Omega signals penetrate not only water but also sea ice to at least 15 metres, making the very risky business of surfacing completely unnecessary.

Perhaps more importantly, during a thermonuclear war all transistorised circuits in the navigation satellites would be burned out by electromagnetic pulses emitted by thermonuclear weapons exploding in the stratosphere, rendering the satellites utterly useless. The very low frequency (VLF) transmissions of Omega would be almost completely unaffected by the holocaust and a retaliatory strike from the Southern Ocean using US Trident D5 missiles with a range of more than 7000 nautical miles could easily be achieved.

As a critical command, control and communications (C3) facility for the US nuclear ballistic submarine fleet, the Omega station in Victoria is undoubtedly targeted by at least two Russian multi-megaton warheads riding on independently launched missiles.

The US government also forgot to mention another long-term hazard associated with the transmitter: the effect of electromagnetic pollution on Australians. The Omega station transmits in two modes at the same time: the first a weak 10,000 watt sky-wave signal from the top of the mast, and the second an incredibly powerful ground-wave the US government forgot to mention which pumps another 500,000 watts out through the earth, via giant buried copper aerials radiating out around the base of the mast every 10 degrees for a distance of 1100 feet each.

At the entrance to the user-friendly transmitter site in East Gippsland a large sign flanked by pretty gardens declares: "Australian Maritime Safety Authority Welcomes Visitors to the Omega Navigation Facility." But if a visitor tries to stray beyond the building to take closer pictures of the huge aerial, the response is: "Sorry, it's too hot out there" - a direct reference to radio frequency burns that would be suffered by anyone unwise enough to trample across hidden copper earth aerials pumping out half a million watts.