Former NEL-X DEW Line Rearward Communications Site (Fort Nelson)

 demolished, radiocommunication, former air force base

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Established in 1956 as one 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 the United States, the NEL-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 site at Cape Parry (PIN-MAIN). Operating successfully for the next six years, the NEL-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 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 NEL-X facility and the rest of the Rearward Comms sites becoming redundant, and at the end of 1963 communications 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.

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