Former Tin City Air Force Station

 military, former air force base, early warning radar

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Established in December 1952 after two years of site construction, the Tin City Air Force Station was a long range radar site and White Alice Communications System site manned by the 710th Aircraft Control and Warning Squadron. Built in two sections, with the "Top Camp" constructed atop a 2,200ft mountain peak hosting the radar systems and support facilities and a "Main Camp" which hosted the WACS transmitter, site airstrip and a single composite building which hosted all dormitory, support and power generation facilities. The two camps were linked by means of a 7,200' aerial tramway, the longest in North America, which provided the primary means of personnel and parts transport between the radar site and the main camp.,

Serving as a ground-controlled interception radar site and reporting directly to Campion AFS outside of Galena, AK, the Tin City Radar station monitored the airspace over the Bering Strait and Western Siberia for Soviet Aircraft for 24 years before the manned mission at the station ended in 1983. Selected to remain part of the Alaska NORAD Region in the Alaska Radar System, the sites radar was upgraded to a minimally attended AN/FPS-117 long range radar in 1984 and saw the majority of its infrastructure largely abandoned. The site remained in this state into the 2000's when the site was environmentally remediated and all nonessential structures demolished as part of the US Air Force's Operation Clean Sweep. Today the site remains active as a Long Range Radar Site reporting to the reporting to the 611th Air and Space Operations Center at Elmendorf AFB.

Site information and history via Radomes.org:
goo.gl/yFja1Q
Google Earth community forum discussion, including a description of the site by a former serviceman stationed at the base: bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/1080812/M...