Former AGE-X DEW Line Rearward Communications Site (Anchorage, Alaska)

 demolished, radiocommunication, former air force base

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Established in 1956 as the Westernmost of four Rearward/Vertical Communications sites built to receive and relay surveillance data from the remote Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line sites to military authorities in Alaska and the contiguous United States, the AGE-X site went online with the rest of the DEW Line on on 15 April 1957.

Equipped with the IS-101 Ionoscatter Radio system, also known as the AN/FRC-101, the site was dominated by the huge curtain antennae which carried data teletype transmissions to and from the DEW-MAIN sites at Barter Island (BAR-MAIN) and Point Barrow (POW-MAIN). Operating successfully for the next six years, the AGE-X site's usefulness began to wane as its inability to transmit voice data as well as the maintenance-intensive nature of the IS-101 system led the US Air Force and NORAD to explore other communication system options. The selection of a dual tropospheric scatter and microwave radio communication link network which would later become the White Alice Communications System (WACS) led to the AGE-X facility becoming redundant, and at the end of 1963 communications at the AGE-X site were terminated.

Idled thereafter in reserve until the WACS system became fully operational throughout the DEW Line, the site was razed in the late 1960's and the land transferred to the State of Alaska. Today the only remnant of the site is the partial clearing in the tree stand where the transmitter antenna and support buildings once stood.

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www.dewlineadventures.com/technical-info/