Former Smugglers Cove WACS Site

 tropospheric scatter station, closed / former military

 Upload a photo

Established in 1960 as a terminal station on the White Alice Communications System (WACS), the Smugglers Cove tropospheric scatter communications relay site (callsign SCC) was the Southernmost station along the Rearward Communications System of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS). Equipped with a pair of 60ft antennas for its transmissions, the site operated as part of the "A" or Alpha Route of the Rearward Communications System which originated at Clear Air Force Station outside of Fairbanks, AK and used troposcatter communications to cover the vast distances down the Southeast coast of Alaska.

As the terminal station, the Smugglers Cove site was linked to the WACS system by means of a 130 mile shot to the Duncan Canal site to the North, while itself being linked by landline to the BC Tel transmission site on the opposite side of Anette Island. The BC Tel link continued down the coast to Port Hardy where it was connected to landside and subsea communications lines that stretched to the mainland US and eventually to NORAD Command in Colorado.

The site was idled in the late 1970's after the WACS system was rendered obsolete by satellite communications, and had its antennae razed in the late 1980's and the site environmentally remediated by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation in the 1990's. The former transmission building/dorm is now used by local interests.

www.whitealice.net/