Ocean Cape WACS Site (Yakutat, Alaska)

 demolished, Cold War 1947-1991, tropospheric scatter station, closed / former military

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Also referred to as Ocean Cape Radio Relay Station. Established in 1958 as a White Alice Communications System (WACS) tropospheric scatter communications relay site along the Rearward Communications System of the Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS), the Ocean Cape WACS site (call sign OCC), relayed communications between the WACS stations at Yakataga to the North and Hoonah to the South via 97 and 186 mile shots respectively.

Equipped with four 60ft antennas for its transmissions, the site operated as part of the "A" or Alpha Route of the Rearward Communications System which stretched down the Southeast coast of Alaska to Smugglers Cove, where communications were transferred to a subsea cable to the mainland US.

The site was idled in the late 1970's after the WACS system was rendered obsolete by satellite communications, and was subsequently razed and the site environmentally remediated by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, United States Army Corps of Engineers, and the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe in the late 1990s. Part of the former Ocean Cape Radio Relay Station is used by the Yakutat Tlingit Tribe as a culture camp to teach youth subsistence practices. The station was also the former site of one of Fort Carrew's base end stations to provide firing data for its 155mm gun battery, but it appears it was removed during the construction of the WACS site as it is not mentioned during remediation efforts.

www.whitealice.net/
www.poa.usace.army.mil/Portals/34/docs/civilworks/publi... - shows site layout line drawing over aerial imagery
dec.alaska.gov/Applications/SPAR/PublicMVC/CSP/SiteRepo...