1970 Hydro-Québec Eric / Logan troposcatter link

Site Name: Eric?
Location: Poste Montagnais Hydro-Québec / Eric
Built: ~1970
Operational: Unknown
Coordinates: 51.98483, -65.6545
Lot/Concession:
Condition: Active (Last info as of 2008)
Current Ownership: Hydro-Québec
Distance from paved road: Unknown, area is unreachable by road
Condition of access road: Unpaved road leads from rail line to tropo site

Site Name: Logan?
Location: Churchill Falls, Québec
Built: ~1970
Operational: Unknown
Coordinates: 53.5879, -64.2012
Lot/Concession:
Condition: Active (Last info as of 2008)
Current Ownership: Hydro-Québec
Distance from paved road: 1 Km from main road, not sure if the 500 is paved at that point.
Condition of access road: 1 Km access road of unknown condition, expected to be passable but gated as the site is active

Overview/Background:

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While researching the communications link between Goose Bay and NORAD/SAC facilities further south, I found reference (thanks to Alex Lupták) of a whole world of troposcatter facilities (http://rammstein.dfmk.hu/~s200/tropo/Tropo.kmz).  I mistook the currently operational Hydro-Québec troposcatter sites "Eric" and "Logan" to be old Cold War facilities that had been repurposed... now, I don't know that's entirely untrue, since there was a 6 site (5 hop) troposcatter network that joined Québec and Labrador built in the 1950s and potentially decommissioned around the same time as the Logan-Eric link was made... but let's say it was purely coincidental that Eric-Logan used seemingly identical antennas and technology.

With a little help from Google, I found the following from the Utilities Telecom Council of Canada:

"Hydro-Quebec reported that they intend to continue to operate one troposcatter hop in Labrador, which is above 200 kilometers and operates currently in the 1.7-1.9 Ghz band.  While Hydro-Quebec expects to replace this hop within the next five years, it needs to continue to use it for the foreseeable future because it has not found any other equipment in another band that could be used."
Correspondence between Utilities Telecom Council of Canada and the Director of Spectrum Engineering Branch of Industry Canada (2008.07.25)
http://www.utccanada.org/sites/default/files/public/UTC_Public_files/UTCC%20Comments%20on%20SMSE-018-12.pdf

Rail Map of the Tshiuetin Rail route
(click to enlarge)

Extrapolating from the information in that correspondance, I believe it stated that the link between Eric and Logan is a 60 channel analog link.  Eric to Logan is just over 200Km, matching the description, and it's only one hop.  They do mention that there is a two-hop troposcatter link used by Hydro-Québec somewhere, and I'm not sure where yet. 

So why is this important?  Why care?  Why is this so interesting?  Well, troposcatter sites of this design were used along the Mid-Canada line at Site 070, 060, 050, 415 and 410 - which were all shut down in 1967.  Other sites, like the troposcatter link that went from Hay River to Lady Franklin Point for DEW Line communications were decommissioned by the military in the 1970s.  The White Alice network along the West Coast up to Alaska was decommissioned many years ago as well.  Polevault along the East coast?  Long gone.  To the best of my knowledge Eric and Logan are essentially the same as those other troposcatter facilities, making them living museum pieces (as much as Hydro-Québec might cringe from me calling them that).


Directions:

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Regarding getting to Eric;
I'm not really sure there's a GMC Suburban-passable road to Eric from Sept-Isles, so it seems the only way to get there is by train.  Not VIA, they don't go that far, it's Tshiuetin Rail Transportation (wikipedia here, web site here)  The train from Sept-Isles leaves at 8am Monday and Thursdays, and Eric is half a day's train ride away.

I get the feeling that walking up to a remote critical infrastructure building, in the middle of nowhere, with a fence, would be a bad idea; so I'm going to have to ask around and see if I can find someone with an interest in the history of this site within Hydro Quebec.  Also, I'd rather see the inside of the facility than just the outside.  Now that would be a trick.  Wish me luck.

Logan is right off HWY500, the trans-Labrador Highway

Trip Report:

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Haven't been, yet...



Maps:

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Eric Troposcatter Antenna Site (pointing at Logan, 200Km NNW)

View Larger Map  |  Get Directions

Eric Troposcatter Antenna Site
(There is a road that leads West to, and along, the rail line)
atlas.gc.ca 1:30000

Logan Troposcatter Antenna Site
atlas.gc.ca 1:15000

Reference:

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L'Avenir Page 16 - May 9th, 1972 (Thanks to Alex Lupták - and Google News too)

The High Arctic Data Communication Systems (HADCS) of Ellesmere Island

"The HADCS is a secure data communication system between CFS Alert and Ottawa. The system is, in part, composed of a chain of six, line-of-sight microwave repeaters between CFS Alert to Eureka with a satellite link between Eureka and Ottawa." -Canadian Forces

In 1981-1982 the The High Arctic Data Communication Systems (HADCS) was built and turned on to connect CFS Alert with a communications Satellite to facilitate voice and data network communication with the rest of the Department of Defence, as well as the rest of the world.  UHF (~900Mhz) repeaters were set up across Ellesmere Island to bounce the signal from the top of the world, where no satellite was in view due to the curvature of the earth, to Eureka, the closest suitable spot where a satellite dish can "see" a geosynchronously orbiting satellite.  Interestingly, I found reference that the signal from the Satellite link terminates at the Sir Leonard Tilley building, not CFS Leitrim as I expected.

Reportedly, when the HADCS I system was upgraded to HADCS II in ~1998, the system's speed was upgraded to 6.312 Mbps (T2), and the frequencies were changed to true "Microwave", 1900~2100Mhz.

Satellite images of Ellesmere Island are scarce, but The Atlas of Canada's Topographic maps are available for further inspection.  From poking around with all available open source maps, below is a Google Map using the best guess I have for where the microwave relays are located.  Of the pictures I could find, I assume the solar panel is facing South, therefore I can guess which general direction the microwave repeaters are "repeating". 

I still haven't found out where Whiskey is located, but from the Jerry Proc Web Pages, they cite

"The repeaters are generally located on mountain tops that have a clear view to the neighbouring repeater. The separations between pairs of repeaters vary from 18 km (Black Top to Skull) to 121 km (Grant to Ida). The highest repeater site is Grant at 1256 m (4120 ft.) above sea level."

So, if you go NE from Yankee, or SW of Victor (a distance between them of ~130Km, you should find Whiskey less than 121km away at a height of less than 1256 m.   Perhaps on the Agassiz Ice Cap?

"The HADCS microwave link spans the northern half of Ellesmere Island. The repeaters are generally located on mountain tops that have a clear view to the neighbouring repeater. The separations between pairs of repeaters vary from 18 km (Black Top to Skull) to 121 km (Grant to Ida). The highest repeater site is Grant at 1256 m (4120 ft.) above sea level.  The system consists of repeaters named as follows: Grant, Ida, Victor, Whiskey, Yankee, and Black Top. Skull Point is the location of the Eureka satellite dishes. (Graphic source unknown at this time)"
Courtosey of The Web Pages Of Jerry Proc

From Skull Point to Alert, here is what the repeaters look like

No Picture Available 

SGT Skull Point
( 80.0081066,-86.3879192 )

HADCS Site Black Top (Facing SE)
( ~80.0031463,-85.4310326 )

HADCS Site Victor (Facing SE)
( ~81.3399842,-74.769984 )

HADCS Site Yankee (Facing WSW)
( ~80.7067817,-81.0173826 )

HADCS Site Ida (Facing NW)
( ~81.5777492,-69.3846524 )

View of site IDA, on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, on 10 June, during Operation NEVUS 2013.
Photo: Captain Ray Connelly, 438 Tactical Helicopter Squadron
Source: Flickr - Joint Task Force North

HADCS Site Whiskey (Facing SE)
(Coordinates Unknown)

A CH-146 Griffon helicopter slings a battery over the site WHISKEY on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut during Operation NEVUS 2013.
Photo credit: Captain Eli Squires, Joint Task Force (North)
Source: http://www.cfna.forces.ca/articles/2013/07/08-eng.asp

HADCS Site Whiskey (Facing NW)
(Coordinates Unknown)

A CH-146 Griffon helicopter lands at Site WHISKEY on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, on 9 June, during Operation NEVUS 2013.
Photo: Captain Ray Connelly, 438 Tactical Helicopter Squadron
Source: Flickr - Joint Task Force North

HADCS Site (Facing NE)
(Unknown Location - Maybe Grant?)

FA2007-0140 16 March 2008 Ellesmere Island, Nunavut
A CH-146 Griffon helicopter landed on a High Arctic Data Communication Systems site (HADCS).
CF Photo by Sandy Flacht
Source: Flickr RCAF-ARC

 

No Picture Available

HADCS Site Grant
( 82.4912854,-65.0851054 )

References:

• (U) Investigation of a Photovoltaic/Battery Hybrid System for Powering The High Arctic Data Communications System Final Report - National Defence
  http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a218353.pdf
• http://jproc.ca/rrp/alert_power_system.html 
• http://jproc.ca/rrp/alert.html
• http://www.ve3kbr.com/articles/im_wired_cfsalert50_e.pdf
• http://www.rcaf-arc.forces.gc.ca/en/8-wing/alert.page
• Operation NEVUS: The Northern Information Highway
  http://www.cfna.forces.ca/articles/2013/07/08-eng.asp
• http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/toporama/

CFS Alert

You can file this one under "places that are almost impossible for me to go visit", but I found a few pictures and web sites that do give a good idea of what it would be like, so my curiosity is ever-so-slightly satisfied.

CFS Alert is at the top of the world, and is the Northernmost inhabited place on earth.  It reportedly performs SIGINT, some research, and acts as a weather station. 

Map courtesy of Nasittuq

Unfortunately there is pretty crummy Google satellite imagery of the area, potentially due to the orbit such a satellite would need, which is also the reason normal satellite communication is not possible from CFS Alert.  Communications need to be bounces along microwave relays to Eureka before a communications satellite into view.

UPDATE:
It seems someone HAS made very limited imagery of CFS Alert available


View Larger Map

CFS Alert

Because of the lack of satellite imagery I wasn't aware of the layout, size, shape, or anything really, about Alert; and wouldn't want to ask many questions of anyone who's been there, since most of the operations of CFS Alert, while many are performed by non-military members, are hush-hush.  Therefore, I was thrilled to find pictures from the air already on the public internet!

Photo courtesy of Nasittuq (click for larger image)

Photo courtesy of Nasittuq

Map courtesy of Nasittuq

This is the best map of the base I could find; but it doesn’t include the fresh water source or Plessey Pusher CDAA array.
Map courtesy of Nasittuq (click for larger image)

Southwest view along the runway in the direction of the fuel depot seen in the distance
Photo courtesy of Nasittuq

Since I was having a hard time finding the general layout of the antenna arrays, I resorted to making a composite image from several screenshots of atlas.gc.ca 1:15000 imagery.

composite image created with imagery from atlas.gc.ca

I was quite surprised how much about CFS Alert could be found with Google; there isn’t anything "new" above, and my favourite CFS Alert video is below (also, not new).

Kempis Mountain - Long Lines / TD-2 Site

Last summer, when I passed through Black River-Matheson I stopped at Kempis Mountain to see the remediated site that was the Mid Canada Line site 070 - the last Tropscatter receiver which fed Doppler radar signals to "The Hole" in North Bay, from Kempis to North Bay by land line.  The signal was skipped off the troposphere from a repeater in Relay, Ontario, repeating the signal from Fort Albany, Ontario.  Anyhow, that was what I was going to look at - and there wasn't much left but a plaque, as the site had been totally "remediated"

Plaque @ MCL Site 070 - Kempis

What I was surprised to find was a rather beefy old steel massive self supporting microwave tower at the peak of the mountain, along with some steel prefab buildings that also looked vintage.

Microwave Tower @ Kempis Mountain

Thanks to the information provided to an expert in the field and in the area (Thank you MM!) I now know this was a 1950s vintage BELL microwave tower, part of the TD-2 / Long Lines system - the first "long haul" coast to coast microwave network which meshed across the USA and Canada proving phone and television signals across the countries.  They really don't make towers like this anymore - there's a lot of steel, not just because the prices were lower, but because the microwave dishes (or Horns) were extremely heavy and the tower needed to be beefy.

Here is a technical journal from 1951 about the TD-2 system
http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol30-1951/articles/bstj30-4-1041.pdf

...and the later TD-3 system, with diagrams of the buildings
http://www3.alcatel-lucent.com/bstj/vol47-1968/articles/bstj47-7-1511.pdf

1960 Map of AT&T Long Lines Routes
Courtesy of Terry Michaels & Long-Lines.net

If you zoom in on the Ontario section of the map, you'll see Kempis listed, and likely not coincidentally, microwave repeaters follow the Pinetree Line sites along HWY11 pretty well.  Yes, I think I'll be taking pictures of even more old microwave towers in the future. 

Was this one, that I found near Westport, Ontario part of the Bell Long Lines system too?  I'm not sure.  The building was concrete block, not steel.

Decommissioned microwave tower near Westport

I'm always excited to find another element of technology from the Pinetree Line time period, it helps put together the pieces and helps me understand what was, or wasn't, possible at the time.