White Alice Communications System
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The White Alice Communications System (WACS, "White Alice"
colloquially Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...
) was a
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...
telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
network with 80 radio stations constructed in Alaska during the
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. It used
tropospheric scatter Tropospheric scatter, also known as troposcatter, is a method of communicating with microwave radio signals over considerable distances – often up to and further depending on frequency of operation, equipment type, terrain, and climate facto ...
for over-the-horizon links and
microwave relay Microwave transmission is the transmission of information by electromagnetic waves with wavelengths in the microwave frequency range of 300MHz to 300GHz(1 m - 1 mm wavelength) of the electromagnetic spectrum. Microwave signals are normally limi ...
for shorter line-of-sight links. Sites were characterized by large parabolic, tropospheric scatter antennas as well as smaller microwave dishes for point-to-point links. The system connected remote Air Force sites in Alaska, such as Aircraft Control and Warning (AC&W),
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 northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the north coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska (see Proj ...
(DEW Line) and
Ballistic Missile Early Warning System The RCA 474L Ballistic Missile Early Warning System (BMEWS, "474L System", Project 474L) was a United States Air Force Cold War early warning radar, computer, and communications system, for ballistic missile detection. The network of twelve ra ...
(BMEWS), to command and control facilities and in some cases it was used for civilian phone calls. The network was originally operated by the USAF, but was turned over to
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
for operations after 1969. The opening of
satellite communication A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...
links in the 1970s made the system obsolete, and in 1979 it was replaced by an RCA satellite link that connected all of the stations to
Anchorage Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
. The network was sold the same year to a civilian operator for telephone calls. The deteriorating condition of the sites led to its shutdown in the 1980s and most of the facilities have since been removed.


Background


Troposcatter

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 Fairbanks is a home rule city 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 the second largest in the state. The 2020 Census put the po ...
. Communication improved after White Alice was installed, but even in the mid-1960s,
Anchorage Anchorage () is the largest city in the U.S. state of Alaska by population. With a population of 291,247 in 2020, it contains nearly 40% of the state's population. The Anchorage metropolitan area, which includes Anchorage and the neighboring Ma ...
residents had to go to one location downtown to place a call to the
lower 48 The contiguous United States (officially the conterminous United States) consists of the 48 adjoining U.S. states and the Federal District of the United States of America. The term excludes the only two non-contiguous states, Alaska and Hawaii ...
. 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 The Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company officially founded in 1869. A wholly owned subsidiary of American Telephone & Telegraph for most of its lifespan, it served as the primary equipment ma ...
, 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. It is unclear where the term Alice originated. Some sources suggest that Alice is an
acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...
for Alaska Integrated Communications Enterprise. Other sources suggest that the system would have been named
Alice White Alice White (born Alva White; August 25, 1904Katz, Ephraim (1979). ''The Film Encyclopedia: The Most Comprehensive Encyclopedia of World Cinema in a Single Volume''. Perigee Books. , pg. 1228. – February 19, 1983) was an American film ac ...
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 Engineers , colors = , anniversaries = 16 June (Organization Day) , battles = , battles_label = Wars , website = , commander1 = ...
(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 is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses. Mainly it describes units of weight. Confusion can arise because ''ton'' can mean * the long ton, which is 2,240 pounds ...
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 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 A diesel generator (DG) (also known as a diesel Genset) is the combination of a diesel engine with an electric generator (often an alternator) to generate electrical energy. This is a specific case of engine generator. A diesel compression- ...
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 A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
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 Antenna diversity, also known as space diversity or spatial diversity, is any one of several wireless diversity schemes that uses two or more antennas to improve the quality and reliability of a wireless link. Often, especially in urban and ind ...
and
frequency diversity Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...
,
multiplexing In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
a maximum of 132 simultaneous voice
channel Channel, channels, channeling, etc., may refer to: Geography * Channel (geography), in physical geography, a landform consisting of the outline (banks) of the path of a narrow body of water. Australia * Channel Country, region of outback Austral ...
s. The tropospheric hops used pairs of or parabolic, billboard like reflectors pointed at a low angle into the horizon. The radio waves were scattered by the
tropopause The tropopause is the atmospheric boundary that demarcates the troposphere from the stratosphere; which are two of the five layers of the atmosphere of Earth. The tropopause is a thermodynamic gradient-stratification layer, that marks the end of ...
, returning to Earth beyond the horizon, allowing communication between stations hundreds of miles apart. 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 antennas. Longer shots used antennas with 50 kW and shorter shots used 1 kW and , round parabolic dishes.


Decommissioning and aftermath

After 1970, WACS was transferred from Air Force control to RCA Alascom and served civilian use until the late 1970s, when it was superseded by
satellite communication A communications satellite is an artificial satellite that relays and amplifies radio telecommunication signals via a transponder; it creates a communication channel between a source transmitter and a receiver at different locations on Earth. C ...
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 PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * ...
usage and fuel leakage from storage tanks. It is likely the cost to clean up some of the sites will far exceed the cost of construction.