The NSG maintained a SIGINT facility at Sakata, in Yamagata Prefecture, approximately 300 miles north of Tokyo, facing the Sea of Japan, between 1956 and 1962. It was established in November 1956 as a detachment of the NSG Activity at Kami Seya, but was designated an NSG Activity in its own right on June 26, 1957.
The command was decommissioned on September 7, 1962. In 1962, the town of Sakata was a farm community with an approximately population of 100,000. It was a rural community with heavy harbor and seaport business.