Former RCAF Station Bird (SCS-600)

 demolished, closed / former military, former air force base, early warning radar

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Established in March 1957 as a Sector Control Station in the Mid-Canada Line (MCL), RCAF Station Bird, callsign Anthrax, was one of eight Sector Control Stations responsible for the operation, maintenance and monitoring of the string of unmanned doppler detection sites located approximately 50km apart in its sector. The site also operated 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 under the callsign of BIR-X. This task was accomplished by the use of a IS-101 Ionoscatter Radio system, also known as the AN/FRC-101, which carried data teletype transmissions to and from the DEW-Main site at Hall Beach (FOX-MAIN).

Remaining operational in its DEW Line role until the 1963 phase out of the IS-101 communications system, the site operated for an additional year in the Mid Canada Line until advances in both equipment and tactics led to the entire MCL system being made obsolete. Officially shutting down in it's MCL role in January of 1964, the site and the assigned RCAF crews were disbanded on 01 March 1964. With its structures razed the following year, today the only trace of RCAF Station Bird are the concrete footings for its buildings, its road network and the adjacent airstrip which is now used as a public airport serving local civilian and commercial interests.

lswilson.dewlineadventures.com/scs600.htm