Bethel WACS Site (Bethel, AK)

 military, tropospheric scatter station

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Built in 1957 and declared operational in 1958, the Bethel White Alice Communications System (WACS) site, callsign BET, operated as a tropospheric communications transmittal site for the Bethel Air Force Station and also as a communications relay site in the WACS network. Serving the adjacent Air Force Station through its shutdown in 1963, the station provided the primary link for radar surveillance data between the Station and the Alaskan Air Defense Direction Center at Fire Island AFS near Anchorage.

Following the closure of Bethel AFS, the Bethel WACS station remained operational and continued to serve as a WACS relay site for both Cape Romanzof and Cape Newenham Air Force Stations and the rest of the WACS network. Shots for Cape Romanzof and Cape Newenham were 153 and 148 each respectively, with the rearward relay shot to the WACS site at Aniak spanning 96 miles. The site was equipped with three pairs of 60ft parabolic reflectors transmitting at 10kW.

Serving through the WACS system shutdown in 1971, the Bethel WACS station was largely abandoned to the elements and was subsequently razed and environmentally remediated as part of "Operation Clean Sweep". One of the original six antennae was preserved as part of the remediation process however, and now serves as a local landmark.

www.whitealice.net
www.kadiak.org/wacs/wacs.html
Accounts from a former Bethel site serviceman: www.kadiak.org/guest.html#213