White Alice
The White Alice Communications System (WACS, "White Alice" colloquially) was a United States Air Force telecommunication network with 80 radio stations constructed in Alaska during the Cold War. It used tropospheric scatter for over-the-horizon links and microwave relay 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 (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 network was originally operated by the USAF, but was turned over to RCA for operations after 1969. The opening of satellite communication 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.
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.
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