White Alice Communications System
Encyclopedia
The White Alice Communications System (WACS) was a United States Air Force
telecommunication
link system constructed in Alaska during the cold war
. It featured tropospheric scatter
links and line-of-sight
microwave radio links. It was characterized by large parabolic, tropospheric scatter antennas and also contained systems similar to standard microwave radio relays.
The system connected remote Air Force sites in Alaska, such as Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W), Distant Early Warning Line
(DEW Line) and Ballistic Missile Early Warning System
(BMEWS), to command and control facilities and in some cases it was used for civilian phone calls. The system was advanced for its time, but became obsolete within 20 years following the advent of satellite communication
s.
White Alice was conceived in the 1950s when Alaska had only basic telephone communication systems. For example, prior to White Alice only one phone call at a time could be placed from Nome
to Fairbanks
. Communication improved after White Alice was installed, but even in the mid 1960s an Anchorage
resident had to go to one location downtown to place a call to the lower 48.
The Air Force built the White Alice Communications System with numerous support facilities around the state to provide reliable communications to far-flung, isolated, and often rugged locales. Construction began in 1955 and the system was dedicated in 1958. In the end, 71 systems were installed throughout Alaska. White Alice was designed by Western Electric
, and civilian contractors maintained it. In 1976, the WACS was leased to RCA Alascom. By the end of the 1970s, most of the system was deactivated.
In the 1950s the Air Force used two word code names and White Alice was the code name selected for the project. It is fairly certain that White was used to indicate the snowy Arctic sites that the system would serve. However, it is unclear where the term Alice originated. Some sources suggest that Alice is an acronym
for ALaska Integrated Communications Enterprise. Other sources suggest that the system would have been named Alice White had there not been an actress with that name at the time. Thus it was reversed to White Alice. It is also possible that the code name White Alice was selected for no particular reason.
(USACE), Alaska district surveyed and selected each one of the original sites. It also constructed 11 of the original 31 sites. The selection process required that survey teams test the propagation path by setting up communication towers at each remote site during winter months. Some of the sites were easily accessible, but most of the sites were far from civilization on remote mountain peaks. 14 ton
s of equipment were taken by dogsled or helicopter to survey the sites.
Construction was extremely expensive, with initial estimates around $30 million, but the first phase cost over $110 million. Project Stretchout drove costs over $300 million. Part of this expense was due to Western Electric's underestimate of maintenance requirements. They initially estimated that a single site would require six people and one 25 kW generator. However, each site required 20 people and 120 kW to 180 kW of electrical power to operate. In remote areas, an airfield was constructed to deliver supplies to the sites. Since electricity was not available at the sites, diesel generator
s and fuel tanks had to be placed, and quarters for the technicians were also required. Mountain top sites had an upper camp with the electronic equipment and a lower camp with support facilities. These were sometimes connected by a tram
system. In addition to the support equipment, a typical White Alice repeater site consisted of four tropospheric dishes, grouped in pairs of two facing opposite directions to receive and transmit information from adjacent sites.
, multiplexing
a maximum of 132 simultaneous voice channel
s. The tropospheric hops used pairs of 60 ft (18 m) or 120 ft (37 m) parabolic
, billboard like reflectors. Having two antennas allowed for space diversity, meaning that if tropospheric conditions degrade on one path the second path might still be clear and communications would not be disrupted. For frequency diversity, each antenna transmitted two separate frequencies. Using both frequency and space diversity was called quad diversity. System power output for most shots was 10 kW
and used 60 ft (18 m) antennas. Longer shots used 120 ft (37 m) antennas with 50 kW and shorter shots used 1 kW and 30 ft (9 m), round parabolic dishes.
and served civilian use until the late 1970s, when it was superseded by satellite communication
earth stations. The last tropospheric link, from Boswell Bay to Neklasson Lake, was used until January 1985 to connect Middleton Island to the network. Vandalism, unsafe conditions and environmental concerns caused the Department of Defense (DOD) to remove physical structures at the sites between the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Several former White Alice sites and collocated facilities became contaminated sites managed by Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation - Contaminated Sites Program and DOD Cleanup programs sites because of PCB
usage and fuel leakage from storage tanks. It is likely the cost to clean up some of the sites far exceeded the cost of construction.
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...
link system constructed in Alaska during the cold war
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. It featured tropospheric scatter
Tropospheric scatter
Tropospheric scatter is a method of transmitting and receiving microwave radio signals over considerable distances – often up to 300 km...
links and line-of-sight
Line-of-sight propagation
Line-of-sight propagation refers to electro-magnetic radiation or acoustic wave propagation. Electromagnetic transmission includes light emissions traveling in a straight line...
microwave radio links. It was characterized by large parabolic, tropospheric scatter antennas and also contained systems similar to standard microwave radio relays.
The system connected remote Air Force sites in Alaska, such as Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W), Distant Early Warning Line
Distant Early Warning Line
The Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, in addition to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland...
(DEW Line) and Ballistic Missile Early Warning System
Ballistic Missile Early Warning System
The United States Air Force Ballistic Missile Early Warning System was the first operational ballistic missile detection radar. The original system was built in 1959 and could provide long-range warning of a ballistic missile attack over the polar region of the Northern Hemisphere. They also...
(BMEWS), to command and control facilities and in some cases it was used for civilian phone calls. The system was advanced for its time, but became obsolete within 20 years following the advent of satellite communication
Communications satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunications...
s.
Historical perspective
Nome, Alaska
Nome is a city in the Nome Census Area in the Unorganized Borough of the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern Seward Peninsula coast on Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. According to the 2010 Census, the city population was 3,598. Nome was incorporated on April 9, 1901, and was once the...
to Fairbanks
Fairbanks, Alaska
Fairbanks is a home rule city in and the borough seat of the Fairbanks North Star Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska.Fairbanks is the largest city in the Interior region of Alaska, and second largest in the state behind Anchorage...
. Communication improved after White Alice was installed, but even in the mid 1960s an Anchorage
Anchorage, Alaska
Anchorage is a unified home rule municipality in the southcentral part of the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the northernmost major city in the United States...
resident had to go to one location downtown to place a call to the lower 48.
The Air Force built the White Alice Communications System with numerous support facilities around the state to provide reliable communications to far-flung, isolated, and often rugged locales. Construction began in 1955 and the system was dedicated in 1958. In the end, 71 systems were installed throughout Alaska. White Alice was designed by Western Electric
Western Electric
Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
, and civilian contractors maintained it. In 1976, the WACS was leased to RCA Alascom. By the end of the 1970s, most of the system was deactivated.
In the 1950s the Air Force used two word code names and White Alice was the code name selected for the project. It is fairly certain that White was used to indicate the snowy Arctic sites that the system would serve. However, it is unclear where the term Alice originated. Some sources suggest that Alice is an acronym
Acronym and initialism
Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations formed from the initial components in a phrase or a word. These components may be individual letters or parts of words . There is no universal agreement on the precise definition of the various terms , nor on written usage...
for ALaska Integrated Communications Enterprise. Other sources suggest that the system would have been named Alice White had there not been an actress with that name at the time. Thus it was reversed to White Alice. It is also possible that the code name White Alice was selected for no particular reason.
Construction
The United States Army Corps of EngineersUnited States Army Corps of Engineers
The United States Army Corps of Engineers is a federal agency and a major Army command made up of some 38,000 civilian and military personnel, making it the world's largest public engineering, design and construction management agency...
(USACE), Alaska district surveyed and selected each one of the original sites. It also constructed 11 of the original 31 sites. The selection process required that survey teams test the propagation path by setting up communication towers at each remote site during winter months. Some of the sites were easily accessible, but most of the sites were far from civilization on remote mountain peaks. 14 ton
Ton
The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...
s of equipment were taken by dogsled or helicopter to survey the sites.
Construction was extremely expensive, with initial estimates around $30 million, but the first phase cost over $110 million. Project Stretchout drove costs over $300 million. Part of this expense was due to Western Electric's underestimate of maintenance requirements. They initially estimated that a single site would require six people and one 25 kW generator. However, each site required 20 people and 120 kW to 180 kW of electrical power to operate. In remote areas, an airfield was constructed to deliver supplies to the sites. Since electricity was not available at the sites, diesel generator
Diesel generator
A diesel generator is the combination of a diesel engine with an electrical generator to generate electrical energy....
s and fuel tanks had to be placed, and quarters for the technicians were also required. Mountain top sites had an upper camp with the electronic equipment and a lower camp with support facilities. These were sometimes connected by a tram
Aerial tramway
An aerial tramway , cable car , ropeway or aerial tram is a type of aerial lift which uses one or two stationary ropes for support while a third moving rope provides propulsion...
system. In addition to the support equipment, a typical White Alice repeater site consisted of four tropospheric dishes, grouped in pairs of two facing opposite directions to receive and transmit information from adjacent sites.
Operation
The tropospheric scatter system operated around 900 MHz, and utilized both space diversity and frequency diversityDiversity scheme
In telecommunications, a diversity scheme refers to a method for improving the reliability of a message signal by using two or more communication channels with different characteristics. Diversity plays an important role in combatting fading and co-channel interference and avoiding error bursts...
, multiplexing
Multiplexing
The multiplexed signal is transmitted over a communication channel, which may be a physical transmission medium. The multiplexing divides the capacity of the low-level communication channel into several higher-level logical channels, one for each message signal or data stream to be transferred...
a maximum of 132 simultaneous voice channel
Channel (communications)
In telecommunications and computer networking, a communication channel, or channel, refers either to a physical transmission medium such as a wire, or to a logical connection over a multiplexed medium such as a radio channel...
s. The tropospheric hops used pairs of 60 ft (18 m) or 120 ft (37 m) parabolic
Parabola
In mathematics, the parabola is a conic section, the intersection of a right circular conical surface and a plane parallel to a generating straight line of that surface...
, billboard like reflectors. Having two antennas allowed for space diversity, meaning that if tropospheric conditions degrade on one path the second path might still be clear and communications would not be disrupted. For frequency diversity, each antenna transmitted two separate frequencies. Using both frequency and space diversity was called quad diversity. System power output for most shots was 10 kW
Watt
The watt is a derived unit of power in the International System of Units , named after the Scottish engineer James Watt . The unit, defined as one joule per second, measures the rate of energy conversion.-Definition:...
and used 60 ft (18 m) antennas. Longer shots used 120 ft (37 m) antennas with 50 kW and shorter shots used 1 kW and 30 ft (9 m), round parabolic dishes.
The end of White Alice
After 1970, WACS was transferred from Air Force control to RCA AlascomAT&T Alascom
Alascom, Inc. d/b/a AT&T Alascom is an Alaskan telecommunications company; specifically, an interexchange carrier . AT&T Alascom is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. AT&T Alascom, previously known as Alascom and many other names, was the first long-distance telephone company in Alaska...
and served civilian use until the late 1970s, when it was superseded by satellite communication
Communications satellite
A communications satellite is an artificial satellite stationed in space for the purpose of telecommunications...
earth stations. The last tropospheric link, from Boswell Bay to Neklasson Lake, was used until January 1985 to connect Middleton Island to the network. Vandalism, unsafe conditions and environmental concerns caused the Department of Defense (DOD) to remove physical structures at the sites between the late 1980s to the early 2000s. Several former White Alice sites and collocated facilities became contaminated sites managed by Alaska's Department of Environmental Conservation - Contaminated Sites Program and DOD Cleanup programs sites because of PCB
Polychlorinated biphenyl
Polychlorinated biphenyls are a class of organic compounds with 2 to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, which is a molecule composed of two benzene rings. The chemical formula for PCBs is C12H10-xClx...
usage and fuel leakage from storage tanks. It is likely the cost to clean up some of the sites far exceeded the cost of construction.
See also
- List of White Alice Communications System sites, a list of sites in the White Alice system
- Distant Early Warning LineDistant Early Warning LineThe Distant Early Warning Line, also known as the DEW Line or Early Warning Line, was a system of radar stations in the far northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, in addition to the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland...
- Ballistic Missile Early Warning SystemBallistic Missile Early Warning SystemThe United States Air Force Ballistic Missile Early Warning System was the first operational ballistic missile detection radar. The original system was built in 1959 and could provide long-range warning of a ballistic missile attack over the polar region of the Northern Hemisphere. They also...
- Western ElectricWestern ElectricWestern Electric Company was an American electrical engineering company, the manufacturing arm of AT&T from 1881 to 1995. It was the scene of a number of technological innovations and also some seminal developments in industrial management...
— Designer / maintainer of White Alice - North Atlantic Radio SystemNorth Atlantic Radio SystemThe North Atlantic Radio System was a chain of five tropospheric scatter communication sites that stretched from Iceland to RAF Fylingdales, forming an extension of the Distant Early Warning Line .-Development:...
(NARS) is a similar system used in the GIUK gapGIUK gapThe GIUK gap is an area in the northern Atlantic Ocean that forms a naval warfare chokepoint. Its name is an acronym for Greenland, Iceland, and the United Kingdom, the gap being the open ocean between these three landmasses...
area. - ACE HighACE HighACE High was a NATO communications system which dates back to 1956. The system was decommissioned in the late 1980s, and its frequencies reallocated for commercial radiotelephone service. The system was designed to be an L-band troposcatter radio system, which was meant to provide long-range...
— A NATO communication system in Europe including similar tropospheric systems - Elmendorf Air Force BaseElmendorf Air Force BaseJoint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is a United States military facility adjacent to Anchorage, the largest city in Alaska. It is an amalgamation of the former United States Air Force Elmendorf Air Force Base and the United States Army Fort Richardson, which were merged in 2010.-Overview:The...
Command site for the Air Force in Alaska - AT&T AlascomAT&T AlascomAlascom, Inc. d/b/a AT&T Alascom is an Alaskan telecommunications company; specifically, an interexchange carrier . AT&T Alascom is currently a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. AT&T Alascom, previously known as Alascom and many other names, was the first long-distance telephone company in Alaska...
- Alaskan Air CommandAlaskan Air CommandAlaskan Air Command is an inactive United States Air Force Major Command. Established in 1945 under the United States Army Air Forces, its mission was to organize and administer the air defense system of Alaska, exercise direct control of all active measures, and coordinate all passive means of...
— Original reason for White Alice - Radio propagationRadio propagationRadio propagation is the behavior of radio waves when they are transmitted, or propagated from one point on the Earth to another, or into various parts of the atmosphere...
- Tropospheric scatterTropospheric scatterTropospheric scatter is a method of transmitting and receiving microwave radio signals over considerable distances – often up to 300 km...
- Submarine communications cableSubmarine communications cableA submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean....
External links
- http://web.archive.org/web/20091028073725/http://geocities.com/~billev/wacs/technical.html
- http://www.webcitation.org/query?url=http://www.geocities.com/cheermomtoo/index.html&date=2009-10-25+17:12:29
- http://www.kadiak.org/wacs/wacs.html
- Russian tropospheric relay communication network
- Troposcatter communication network maps
- North Atlantic Radio System - NARS