The North Warning System (NWS, ) is a joint United States and Canadian

early-warning radar An early-warning radar is any radar system used primarily for the long-range detection of its targets, i.e., allowing defences to be alerted as ''early'' as possible before the intruder reaches its target, giving the air defences the maximum tim ...

system for the atmospheric

air defense Anti-aircraft warfare (AAW) is the counter to aerial warfare and includes "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It encompasses surface-based, subsurface (Submarine#Armament, submarine-lau ...

of North America. It provides surveillance of airspace from potential incursions or attacks from across North America's polar region. It replaced the

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 List o ...

system in the late 1980s.

Overview

The NWS consists of both long range AN/FPS-117 and short range

AN/FPS-124 The AN/FPS-124 is an unattended radar (UAR) providing short range, Doppler radar surveillance of airborne targets. It provides target information to the Regional Operations Control Center (ROCC), and employs built-in-test, performance monitoring ...

surveillance radars, operated and maintained by

North American Aerospace Defense Command North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ; , CDAAN), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a Combined operations, combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air ...

(NORAD). There are 13 long range sites and 36 short range sites. In Canada, the station sites are owned or leased by the Government of Canada, which also owns most of the infrastructure. The radars and tactical radios are owned by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

. The Alaska Regional Operations Control Center (ROCC) at

Elmendorf AFB Elmendorf Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) facility in Anchorage, Alaska. Originally known as Elmendorf Field, it became Elmendorf Air Force Base after World War II. It is the home of the Headquarters, Alaskan Air Command ( ...

, Alaska controls the stations in Alaska; the Canada East and Canada West Regional Operations Control Centres (ROCCs) at

CFB North Bay Canadian Forces Base North Bay, also CFB North Bay, is an Canadian Forces base, air force base located at the City of North Bay, Ontario, North Bay, Ontario about northwest of Ottawa. The base is subordinate to 1 Canadian Air Division, Winnip ...

, Ontario control the stations in Canada. ROCC information is then passed to the NORAD Combat Operations Centre (COC) at Colorado Springs, Colorado. Each Long Range site consists of accommodation buildings, radar towers and

radomes A radome (a portmanteau of "radar" and "dome") is a structural, weatherproof enclosure that protects a radar antenna. The radome is constructed of material transparent to radio waves. Radomes protect the antenna from weather and conceal an ...

, generator and fuel systems, satellite terminals, automated weather station, and

UHF Ultra high frequency (UHF) is the ITU designation for radio frequencies in the range between 300 megahertz (MHz) and 3 gigahertz (GHz), also known as the decimetre band as the wavelengths range from one meter to one tenth of a meter ...

and VHF ground-air-ground radio. Short Range sites consist of a single AN/FPS-124 radar, satellite terminals, power generation and fuel systems, and a small emergency shelter that can accommodate six people. Some short range stations lack weather stations and UHF Tactical Radios.

History

The Distant Early Warning (DEW) Line, constructed in the late 1950s, was reaching obsolescence in the 1980s. With the signing of North American Air Defence Modernization agreement at the "

Shamrock Summit The Shamrock Summit was the colloquial name given to the March 17–18, 1985 meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and US President Ronald Reagan in Quebec City. It gained this nickname because of the Irish background of the tw ...

" between Prime Minister Mulroney and President Reagan in Quebec City on 18 March 1985, the DEW Line began its eventual upgrading and transition becoming the North Warning System (NWS) of today. The NWS began limited operation in 1988 with the commissioning and acceptance of the three newly constructed east coast sites BAF-3 Brevoort Island,

Nunavut Nunavut is the largest and northernmost Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories, territory of Canada. It was separated officially from the Northwest Territories on April 1, 1999, via the ''Nunavut Act'' and the Nunavut Land Claims Agr ...

, LAB-2 Saglek and LAB-6

Cartwright Cartwright may refer to: * Cartwright (occupation), a tradesperson skilled in the making and repairing of carts or wagons * Cartwright (surname), including the list of people Places ; Australia * Cartwright, New South Wales ; Canada * Cart ...

, both in

Labrador Labrador () is a geographic and cultural region within the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is the primarily continental portion of the province and constitutes 71% of the province's area but is home to only 6% of its populatio ...

. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, new NWS LRR radars replaced former DEW Line sites. DEW sites that were not transitioned to North Warning operation were eventually closed down. The official activation of the NWS and inactivation of the DEW Line took place on 15 July 1993. The bi-national North Warning System Office (NWSO) is located in Ottawa, Ontario and staffed with both Canadian and American military and civilian personnel. Staffed sites are operated by the

Royal Canadian Air Force The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF; ) is the air and space force of Canada. Its role is to "provide the Canadian Forces with relevant, responsive and effective airpower". The RCAF is one of three environmental commands within the unified Can ...

, but physically staffed by civilian contractors. Logistical and maintenance support for the NWS is supplied by the

Air Force Materiel Command The Air Force Materiel Command (AFMC) is a Major Command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force (USAF). AFMC was created on July 1, 1992, through the amalgamation of the former Air Force Logistics Command (AFLC) and the former Air Force System ...

of the United States Air Force, located at Ogden Air Logistics Center (OO-ALC),

Hill Air Force Base Hill Air Force Base is a major U.S. Air Force (USAF) base located in Davis County, Utah, just south of the city of Ogden, and bordering the Cities of Layton, Clearfield, Riverdale, Roy, and Sunset with its largest border immediately adja ...

, Utah.

Site remediation

The former DEW Line sites were operated using practices and materials accepted by the environmental standards of the time. With their closure and many of them rebuilt as NWS sites, a clean-up project was undertaken to remove surplus infrastructure, treat chemically contaminated soils, and stabilize landfill sites. The clean-up was designed to keep chemical contamination from the DEW Line sites out of the

Arctic The Arctic (; . ) is the polar regions of Earth, polar region of Earth that surrounds the North Pole, lying within the Arctic Circle. The Arctic region, from the IERS Reference Meridian travelling east, consists of parts of northern Norway ( ...

food chain, and ensure that the sites are restored to an environmentally safe condition. In 1989, the Canadian

Department of National Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and military forces, found in states where the government is divided ...

(DND) started investigating the environmental conditions of the DEW Line sites and commenced clean-up work at two sites in 1996. The clean-up of 21 sites was scheduled to be completed in 2013. In March 2014 DND announced the remediation project was complete.

Stations

The NWS consists of 15 long-range

radar Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

s (11 in Canada, of which eight were DEW Line sites) and 39 short-range radars (36 in Canada).Environmental Assessment for North Warning System (Alaska)
/ref> The system forms a long and wide "

tripwire A tripwire is a passive triggering mechanism. Typically, a wire or cord is attached to a device for detecting or reacting to physical movement. Military applications Such tripwires may be attached to one or more mines⁠especially fragme ...

" stretching from Alaska to southern Labrador. Minimally-attended NWS Long Range Radar AN/FPS-117 radar sites shaded in blue.

Distant Early Warning Line sites not included

The following table lists the DEW Line sites not included in the NWS. Most of these sites not included were Intermediate sites closed in 1963 when they were declared obsolete. The stations consisted of a module train, a warehouse, a vehicle garage, an

Inuit Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labrador, Quebec, Nunavut, the Northwe ...

house, POL (''P''etroleum, ''O''il, ''L''ubricant) tanks and a continuous wave radar tower. Others were some Auxiliary sites that were replaced with new NWS stations. DEW Line stations in the

Aleutian Islands The Aleutian Islands ( ; ; , "land of the Aleuts"; possibly from the Chukchi language, Chukchi ''aliat'', or "island")—also called the Aleut Islands, Aleutic Islands, or, before Alaska Purchase, 1867, the Catherine Archipelago—are a chain ...

of Alaska were inactivated due to budget reductions in 1969. The DYE Stations in

Greenland Greenland is an autonomous territory in the Danish Realm, Kingdom of Denmark. It is by far the largest geographically of three constituent parts of the kingdom; the other two are metropolitan Denmark and the Faroe Islands. Citizens of Greenlan ...

and

Iceland Iceland is a Nordic countries, Nordic island country between the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic and Arctic Oceans, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge between North America and Europe. It is culturally and politically linked with Europe and is the regi ...

were transferred to the USAF Air Forces Iceland in 1980. The primary DEW line radars were the

Raytheon Raytheon is a business unit of RTX Corporation and is a major U.S. defense contractor and industrial corporation with manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. Founded in 1922, it merged in 2020 with Unite ...

AN/FPS-19 The AN/FPS-19 was a long-range search radar developed for the NORAD Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line) by Raytheon. It was an L-band system working between 1220 and 1350 MHz produced by a 500 kW magnetron. Two such systems were pla ...

long range L-Band search radar in Canada and Alaska at main and auxiliary sites; Bendix AN/FPS-30 at the four Greenland DYE radar stations.

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois. It was founded by brothers Paul and Joseph Galvin in 1928 and had been named Motorola since 1947. Many of Motorola's products had been ...

AN/FPS-23 short range search radar was installed at the Intermediate sites, used as fillers to cover any Long Range Radar surveillance gaps. *Location approximate due to low-resolution aerial imagery of area. *Site location obliterated by snow cover.

References

External links

Public information.

Public information from PAIL Corp.

NWS Radar information from FAS. {{Abandoned sites in Greenland Aerospace Defense Command Canada–United States relations Cold War military history of Canada Cold War military history of the United States Military globalization Military in the Arctic Air defence radar networks Radar stations of the United States Air Force Royal Canadian Air Force