CFS
ALERT
CFS ALERT
50th Anniversary Celebrations
Ham Radio Operation
27 Aug – 10 Sep 2008
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During the spring of 2008, it was decided that a select group of “Alert Veterans” would travel back to Alert during the 50th Anniversary celebrations to reactivate the amateur radio station – VE8RCS. For 4 of the past 5 decades, amateur radio was the only communications available for station personnel to talk with loved ones in the south. Military members were stationed to Alert for 6 months at a time and were unable to bring family members. Their only contact was via “phone patching” done on amateur radio and Canada Post. Well, we all know how reliable Canada post is, so people relied on the radio to be able to speak to loved ones.
In the 1980's phone service was brought into Alert and amateur radio began to decline. By the late 80's amateur radio became more of a hobby for personnel serving at Alert. In the 1990's fewer people were posted to Alert and over time the amateur radio station was used less and less until it was shutdown in the mid to late 1990's. VE8RCS (Royal Canadian Signals) was deactivated and amateur radio became a hobby of the past.
On 26 Aug, 3 “ham” radio operators departed the southern climates to rebuild and active VE8RCS for the 50th anniversary of the station;
Robert – VE3GLO
Les – VE3KFS
Scott – VA3XA
A
4th member, Ken – VE3SRS, is scheduled to join
the team
on 4 Sept.
All
veterans of Alert and operating VE8RCS.
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This is a quick log and photos of our day to day activities
(will be updated on a day to day basis if time allows)
Entries are written by Scott
26 Aug 2008 – So today was departure day for my trip north. It all started last evening after supper. Said goodbye to the wife, kids and dogs and out the door I went. Drove 2 hours to meet Bob who lives closer to the airfield and he and I just sort of sat around until 1.30am when it was time to go pick up Les. I did manage to get a few hours of napping on his couch before leaving. So in a 24 hour timeframe I had 2 hours of sleep. This should help me sleep on the plane I thought.
Arrived in Trenton (where the airfield is) at 3.30am and checked in with the counter at 4am as directed. We finally boarded out Hercules transport plane around 6.15am and were airborne about 6.45am. Not bad. A bit behind schedule buy hey I could live with it. It got even better when they told us that we expected to be in Thule Greenland in about 7.5 hours vice the usual 10 hours. The flight was smooth flying. Couldn't get to sleep due to the noise, for those who have never been on a Hercules and I expect that is most of you - it's EXTREMELY noisy. Even my MP3 player couldn't cut through the racket. Everytime I'd start to drift off someone would trip over me and I'd be awake again. So I resigned myself to getting sleep in Thule.
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This image is the passenger area inside the Hercules. Not bad for a transport plane. Everything behind me is cargo so nothing really to show back there. Notice the meals in a box hahaha. No hot food or TV on this flight.
3 hours into the trip I noticed the crew chatting and digging out books and calculators. This can't be good. Having flown in the arctic on transport planes for the past 20 years I could tell something wasn't right. Sure enough, one of the 4 engines had failed. Now this far into a trip we'd normally carry on with 3 engines since we're almost half way to Thule. Nope, not this time. Someone made the decision to head all the way back to Trenton. So 3 hours all the way back to where we started.
So, the summary for day 1;
Time travelled = 6 hours.
Distance travelled = Oh I'd guess 1500km's.
Effective km's = 0
Apparently we are to try again tomorrow. Wish us luck!
27 Aug - A repeat of the 26th haha. Got up at 3am, over to the terminal for 4am where we were told that we were delayed at least 3 hours. Sigh. Just as we were leaving for breakfast at 6am we go the call to not move, things had changed. Apparently they moved all of our stuff off of our plane to another plane. The new plane now didn't work, but the old plane returned all repaired. So transfer everything back to the old plane. By 7.30 we were in the air and made it into Thule in the later afternoon. Will post pictures tomorrow.
28 Aug - Well we finally made it to the Top of the World in one piece and I have found internet connectivity. Not overly fast but it could be a lot worse. For those who need to figure out where I am, find a map and look for 82.3N 62.5W and you'll find Alert.
Pretty uneventful trip on the 2nd attempt. We got a late start on Wednesday but did finally make it into Thule Greenland late in the day. Couldn't believe the weather – 14c with beautiful sunshine. The sun did dip below the horizon at 11pm and came back up around 4am. We had a nice dinner and a relaxing evening with an old friend who's up there working and off to get a decent nights sleep after a long day of travel. Thursday we were up early again and off on the last 2 hour leg of the journey to Alert.
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Finally arrived at 82.3N 62.5W and things haven't changed much since my last visit here in 1999. Just a lot fewer faces then what were around in days gone past but much of the place hasn't changed. We spent the first day getting quartered into our rooms and receiving briefings on the do's and don'ts for the arctic. This is a very unique place with a very fragile environment. Safety and social issues are very important up here. A minimum of 12 hours just to get an aircraft up here for medical emergencies and people who have been this isolated for up to 6 months don't always act normal. So some sensitivities must be a part of your social interactions. Still 24 hours of daylight here but the sun should start to dip in a few weeks for a few hours each night.
The evening of the first night was starting to setup for our radio operations. With the sun up we were chomping at the bit to get started. By the end of a very late evening we had our first antenna up and most of the equipment unpacked and configured.
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29 Aug - An early morning again today as we wanted to get the radio gear up and running as soon as possible. Throughout the day we finished installing the 3 element yagi, a 10 meter dipole, a 40 meter inverted V and we were off. The first sounds from the radio were static. As expected propagation this time of year is very poor. We do not expect to see any activity higher then 17 meters or anything lower then 40 meters. We're still 24 hour daylight so the propagation is strange.
Weather was absolutely fantastic. Temps had to be around 5c and we were running around doing the installations in shirt sleeves. In the end this is how the antenna farm looked;
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Everything is set up near the old/current gym. Almost exactly the same location that the former 2 towers were located. Mind you our setup is much smaller then the orginal.
While setting everything up we ended up with a curious visitor. He didn't cause us any problems but seemed to want to see what we were up to.
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By the end of the day 99% of the antennas were completed and all the equipment was up and running. Les had been active on the pactor modes with a station in Alaska and Bob was pounding away on a morse key. He ended up staying up most of the night on 30 meters and apparently had his chin hitting his chest by 6am. But a successful day on the CW side of things as he worked about 385 stations during the night.
30 Aug - First full day of operating on the ham bands. Les and myself made it into the shack around 7.30am and started spinning the bands looking for voice activity. The QRN (noise) was terrible. I started out with the beam outwards Europe and was soon trying to pull stations out of the noise. In the beginning it was Russian station after Russian station. Things impoved as the morning rolled along. Soon we had massive pileups coming out of Europe. Even working them by the numbers it was very difficult. Massive power,rudeness and just plain ignorant people. I know that english isn't their first language but it was frustrating by times. This is exactly why I gave up working DX. After 3 years and 3 years in Bermuda pile-ups just don't interest me much anymore. But for 2 weeks I can live with it. Les and I spelled each other off from time to time and by the time Bob returned at 10pm to work more CW we'd racked up just over 1000 contacts.
Throughout the day Bob felt compelled to grab my camera and take a few shots;
 Scott (VA3XA) and Les (VE3KFS) |
Around 10pm I decided to go for a walk. The sun is still 24 hours per day but it is ringing the horizon and when we get some cloud we get some interesting results. I had the camera and was sure wishing I had my tripod with me but managed a few shots handheld.
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And a couple of dramatic panorma shots
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31 Aug - Another day on the rig. Began the day with some better propagation, the static levels have dropped considerably. Believe this to be due to the low ice fog hanging around the area. The temperatures have dropped down to about -8C and we now have hell frost growing on the antennas and coax. Suddenly the static drops hahaha. The moisture in the air seems to help.
Worked a massive pileup into Europe in the morning and in the late morning we started to pick up a few North American stations. So at new we swung the beam down to the south and spent the afternoon trying to work North American stations. We definitely worked a few but nothing near what we were getting towards Europe, that's fine, we're not looking to work massive amounts of stations, but we do wish to get contacts out to those who lived the VE8RCS days. Late afternoon the conditions dropped again and by evening we could hear little to nothing out of anywhere on voice. Les and Bob grabbed the key and back to morse code on 40 and 30 meters.
1 Sept - I spent last evening putting together this website and posted it. I also put a link on qrz.com and got up this morning to find a wack of e-mails from everyone who had worked Bob during the night. As of this morning (1 Sept) we are up to 2315 contacts. If we catered to the pileups that number would be much higher. Not to mention if the pileups would behave a bit better. There are so many people calling that it can take a minute just to pull a single callsign out of the mess. Bob sits and shakes his head over the CW pileups, can't make out a thing. We continue to work by the numbers.
Photos to follow shortly, off to breakfast and we have some 50th anniversary celebrations happening this morning so I will be off with the camera. Bob should be hitting the hay and I believe Les will be on voice through the morning. I should be back around lunch time.
Well, I did make it back at noon but I got tied up with another project. After breakfast I was off to the station photo gathering at the sign. Well somewhere along the line I got asked if I'd take the group photos. Guess I have the biggest camera on station haha. It was the least I could do. Unfortunately I spent the entire afternoon and evening post processing images. It was tough as we were shooting into the sun as the pictures were to be taken in front of the newer Alert sign that is just below the station. Not to be confused with the one at the runway which is much more famous.
Anyhow, the upside was they hoisted me up 40ft with a bucket truck to take the pictures, well while just hanging around waiting for the people to show for their photos, I snapped a few panorama shots from the great angle I had.
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I thought it turned out pretty well. The runway is the to the far left, the station to the right underneith the sun.
Think I have the station photos pretty much complete. So back to normal ops for me tomorrow as I've barely touched the radio all day. Les and Bob have been going full guns while I sit and play with my computer and cameras. They're gonna fire me shortly I think hahaha.
Propagation was pretty poor on the bands today. Some European and North American stations through the morning but very quickly died in the afternoon. This evening Les is banging away on the key. Jeez I'm starting to hear morse code in my sleep again.
The country tally is racking up. We've had contacts with Australia, New Zealand, India, The Vatican, Greenland, Iceland to name some of the more exotic.
Total tally has suffered a bit due to propagation and this unbearably slow morse code operations :) but we're up to a total of 2622 contacts.
2 Sept - Well the ham bands are absolute crap this morning. The ice fog lifted and it seems that was what was keeping the static at bay. Very few stations that we're hearing and the loudest has been out of China. Worked 2 Chinese stations on the first call. So Les has been spinning the dial and I've finished up the station photos and took some time to work on more photos from the trip up. I'm thinking of taking a short walk around the station later today to get some more shots, although our travel is still very restricted due to the polar bear activity.
 Les and Bob (the old guys) |
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 The BX in Thule. We've bought one serious pile of booze out of here over the years. |
 Bob and Les |
 Myself and Bob |
 The Coast of Greenland |
 Some more of the land. |
 Ice Breaking off the floe |
 Sun peaking around the buildings |
 The "newer" tracked vehicles, not the old bombs haha |
 Flat Top Mountain in Thule. Lots of rumours surrounding this hill hahaha. |
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For those looking for Ellesmere island who can't find us, keep an ear out for KC0VEU/VY0 (http://www.qrz.com/detail/KC0VEU) . Rob is operating out of Eureka to the south of us (a few hundred km's at 80N). He has an inverted V up on 20 meters and has been active. We're chatting on e-mail to this point, no ground wave on 20 meters up here. He's our neighbour by comparison but he's sure a ways away! hi hi
I see Les is back to CW so bands are still bad. We have a voice sked with the CFARS boys at 1700z on Juliet so we're hoping the bands will open to the south.
3 Sept - A quiet radio day. The radio bands continue to be shakey at best. We get some openings and then everything dies. I was away from the shack most of the day working on a project but Les and Bob filled the void. Finally got some openings into the south and we worked a nice pile of stations. Even the Europeans were fairly well behaved today and it allowed us to work a good many of them.
Less and Bob managed to set up a second radio down the hill that we will start using when all 4 of us are here. With me busy with other stuff we never needed the 2nd radio today. Ken was suppose to arrive this afternoon but apparently they had some plane issues and had to return to Iqaluit for repairs. I've since heard that they have flown up to Resolute and will arrive here tomorrow morning. Hope the fog clears cause we are socked right now now. Gotta wonder if Resolute has enough beds to handle 40 people?
Yesterday some of the contractors got me out for a quick ride to the old TX site. While up there I managed a few panorama shots.
 2 exposures blended. Alert as seen from the south. Hasn't changed much but all the 20's and 50's are gone. |
 7 exposures blended. A look at Crystal and Pollen (sp?) mountains on the left. Taken from the TX site. |
Not to much else to report, had a couple of nice chats today with some of my Bermuda mates. Even had fun using my Bermuda callsign as VP9MM/VY0, that got a few chuckles. Thanks to everyone for all the e-mail from all over the world, we are getting about 50 per day and all of us have been reading and replying to most. The response has been touching, particularily those from the older Canadian hams who used to do all our phone patching. Without you guys, these tours would have been unbareable.
 Bob working the world on CW in his sleep? |
Till tomorrow! Just under 4000 contacts now.
4 Sept - Busy day with social events so will post a few pics and a quick run down of what's been happening. The Polar Bear was spotted again and one of the station folks managed to get a picture. He was kind enough to loan me a copy of the image along with some fantastic stuff he has of the wolves. His name is Bruce Bond (aka Trashcan) and I thank him for submitting the images and letting me post them, will upload some more as time goes on. Typically there were few bears in Alert over the years. But as the ice has receded with the global warming the seals and bears have been forced to move further north. Thus we are starting to seem them on a regular basis up here.
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| Again thank you to Bruce Bond for the excellent photos. I'd never seen a Polar Bear in Alert until these shots. Apparently just before this was taken the bear was fighting with one of the local wolves. Unfortunatley he missed that shot as he was reporting the sighting to the proper authorities. Gread job Bruce. | |
The
plane of 50th anniversary folks arrived today (a tad late) just as the
snow began to fall. Some familiar faces in the crowd and was
pleased to see my boss on the plane. I had no idea she was
Alert
bound. So lots planned over the next 20 hours for them to see
the
station, have a big dinner tonight, visit us here in the shack and
leave tomorrow morning for the south. With the arrival of the
plane was our new 4th member - Ken. So keep an ear for him on
the
air. Propagation is terrible today with only about 4 voice
contacts, around 20 RTTY contacts and a few CW. Times are
tough
right now.
Ran across the mom wolf and one of her cubs today. Again Trashman has some great shots that I'll post in the coming days, but here are some of mine from today.
 Our 4th member Ken arriving (VE3SRS) |
 Mom and 1 of her cubs (there are 4) |
 The cub was pretty playful and was playing possum |
 Mom decided to come check me out just in case |
 The Cub alone watching me from aways away. |
5 Sept - The webpage has continued to grow way beyond what I expected. Some of you may have noticed several errors last night with the images, I think I have all the problems sorted out now, thanks for your patience. Continue to get about 50 e-mails a day just from amateurs who are hitting this site. Thank you for all the kind works.
Last night went very late with all the 50th anniversary visitors. We had an excellent supper with the visitors who came and many "old Alert" stories were told over several beverages (and I don't mean the antennas). More then one toast was made to all our former "frozen chosen" members. Obviously not everyone could attend but those who did represented the 50 years with pride and all our former members were in our thoughts.
This morning the visitors all travelled to the end of the runway where a short service was held to honor those who lost their lives in Boxtop 22 and the Lancaster crash in 1950. Tony, a survivor of Boxtop 22, who travelled up for the anniversary (his first time back since the crash) attended and said a few words on behalf of those lost on Boxtop 22. A lovely service. I have some shots and will publish when I get through the pile here.
We followed that up with a visit to the "original" Alert sign. Actually it's about the 4th rendition of the sign over the years. It gets so big that the wind knocks it down and it gets rebuilt. I noticed that the sign I put for the distance to Bermuda has disappeared. I'll have to put a new one up on my next trip.
 A 7 exposure Panorama of the Alert sign |
Late morning the veterans were again airborne and are on their way south. A short but very fun visit was had by all.
Meanwhile back in the ham shack we continue to struggle with radio propagation. I've been working some RTTY and a few voice contacts, Les and Ken have moved down the hill to a second radio that we have setup and Bob continues to work CW through the night.
On my way to the shack this morning I came across a wolf who was having a snooze outside the kitchen. She didn't seem overly interested so I took the opportunity. Sick of wolf pictures yet?
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You'll notice we have snow on the ground. We picked up about 3-4 inches during the day and evening yesterday. Today is overcast and around -3C. Winter is approaching.
6 Sept - A winter wonderland. After a blissful 10 hour sleep, wore out from all the visitors, got up to an overcast morning but visability wasn't all that bad. An hour later we were completely fogged in and an hour after that it was snow coming down. Light fluffy stuff all day. No visibilty for picture takings. So been spending the day in the ham shack. We're coming down to our final few days of operating before we have to take the equipment down so the final push is on. The bands were better, Bob worked about 300 contacts during night and we've picked up another 300 during the day on voice, cw and RTTY. Not bad considering we only had 50 during the past 2 days. It's been reported that we had a solar flare a few days ago so the bands are just coming back now.
Tallies up till this afternoon are just over 4600 contacts.
 Remembering our lost members |
 Crystal and Pollen (sp?) Mountains through the Snow |
 The "new" Alert Sign |
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 Taken on the way to the TX sight, 6 blended images. |
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7 Sept - Another cold, overcast day. Seems the weather is hanging right over us. Uneventful morning, just working on the QSL card for the operation. It will be 2 sides and still working on the back but the front should look like this;
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Well the propagation gods continue to give us trouble. By the end of the day we're over the 5000 mark on contacts but we are sure having to work for them. Bob seems to be having the best luck with his CW operations in the evenings.
Still waiting some official word regarding the flights this week but if we don't hear anything by late tomorrow we still begin tearing down the station some time late on Monday so we can get everything all packed up. So that means less then 24 hours more of operations. Lots of e-mail flowing in as many still need us on the various modes, we're trying. It's a shame that we've never really had any propagation into the US this entire trip. A scattering here and there and that has been it.
Ran into a good size pack of wolves today so your stuck with more wolf pictures. hahaha. I love these guys. There were a total of 6 wolves and the cubs were just a few feet away playing with me.
 Bob Operating the 2nd station |
 On the drive to the 2nd station these 2 were waiting for the bus? |
 Bob ran me back to the camp, and there were wolves everywhere. |
 You gotta get past me buster! He wouldn't get out of the way. |
 Hello little red riding hood. |
 Just Chilling Out |
 3 Wolves (there were 6 but they wouldn't pose together) |
 Curious George Jr? Was sure wondering what was up there. (the kitchen) |
 Howler! This little guy was giving the call. Amazing to hear and watch. |
 Best portrait I've ever taken. |
 2 cubs, they liked me I think hahaha |
 They got pretty close :) |
8 Sept - Apparently the day started rather early for Bob last night. We've had massive hoarfrost buildup over the past few days here and the weight on the wires snapped the mast. So down came the 40m Inverted V and the 30m Dipole. He managed to get the 30m Dipole back up but it's in a poor location. As we're suppose to start pulling down the antennas later today it was decided not to effect repairs. The 2nd site still has 40m capability but that site will be coming down later today as well unless we hear something soon regarding our flights. To our knowledge everything is on track to leave on Wednesday.
As for myself I've been running around taking pictures of all the old signs that I can find before the history is completely lost. Much of it is gone already but I understand that some of the Leitrim folks came up here and "rescued" some of the more important stuff. The images are processing right now and I'll post some of them later today.
 The hoarfrost on the yagi this morning. This does not shake off, it's on there and the ropes solid. Really adds weight. |
Update: Well, as of 1600 local today we are now QRT. The winds began to pick up this afternoon and with the strain on the mast from all the hoarfrost it was decided to drop the yagi. By 1630 everything was taken down, and none to soon as the wind got pretty wild and the wind chill is pretty bad. Not a good time to be working on antennas. So for now we're off the air and don't expect to be back on. If our plane gets delayed then we might throw a wire back in the air and attach a rig and work a few more but we have heard nothing to indicate that we will be delayed.
There will be much more coming on the website over the next few days so please continue to check, I'm working hard on a major pile of images (over 50 of the signs and station to come later this evening if all goes well). Seems I've worked more stations on e-mail and photos then on the bands haha. Will also combine all the stats from the operation. I believe the numbers will be around 5400 unique contacts. But we'll have the numbers in a day or 2. Also putting the final touches on the QSL card and will put the logs up on EQSL when the card is complete.
Bob, Les, Ken and myself would like to put out a special thanks to Cliff Fairbanks - VA3CAF for the outstanding support he has given us over the previous months. His efforts on the CFARS side resulted in us working many of our CFARS members and MARS stations south of the border. He has also been tireless in getting the word out regarding our operations. Thanks Cliff - Bravo Zulu buddy.
As well a thank you to Radio World for loaning us an IC-7000 with tuners and power supplies. Thank-you to them, Icom Canada and Alinco for the support.
Ok folks more to come in a few hours!
Sights and Signs of Alert - A lot of pictures so created a new webpage for it. Should be some memories in here for everyone who has ever been a Frozen Chosen. Click the link.
9 Sept - Busy day getting everything all packed and shipped out. Also trying to compile a few stats for everyone. So here goes;
Total Contacts = 5659
Total Countries = 86
Unique Contacts = 5316 (lots of dupes)
40 meter CW = 699
40 meter Voice = 10
40 meter RTTY = 11
30 meter CW = 1541
30 meter RTTY = 3
20 meter CW = 1107
20 meter RTTY = 308
20 meter Voice = 1637
Hope to have the logs up on E-Qsl before I leave, if possible. If not expect this weekend or early next week.
So that was the numbers folks, not as high as we would have liked but still respectable considering the propagation and time of year. The highlight was talking to all the former "Frozen Chosen" and those amateurs who did phone patches and passed traffic for the past 50 years of Alerts history. Without you this place would not be as pleasant as it was. Thank you all. We also appreciated all the e-mails and stories that we have received over the past 2 weeks. Even from those who spent time in the arctic but never in Alert. Was great hearing from all of you.
A few more photos before we depart;
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73's
de Scott, Bob, Les and Ken
VE8RCS is again QRT
(lets hope not for the last time)
 The Crew with visitor Earl Smith Bob, Ken, Earl, Scott and Les Photo by James Ferron |
 The Crew with visitor James Ferron Check out those cool shirts (thanks Les!) Photo by James Ferron (thanks James!) |
 Would you trust these guys? We all had our eyes closed hahaha Photo by James Ferron (thanks!) |
Would you like a copy of the images on this page?
As many of you know I have a small business and I sell my photos. But Alert has always had a special place in my heart so I'm offering my images at "near cost" for the next few months to anyone who'd like a print. Visit Scott Crouse Photography and go into the Alert Gallery to see the images and purchase the prints. The photos will be delivered straight to your home. You can select any size or crop that you would like. If you'd like a more complete product, you can also get the image framed or mounted on canvas. Just e-mail me and tell me which image you'd like and I'll send you a link where you can select your frame and matting or even canvas mounted on a frame back, you can complete the purchase and it will be delivered straight to your door.
Anyone wishing to use the images on a webpage or for commercial use, contact me for prices, terms and copyright info.
If there is an image on this page that is not on my page and you'd like a print, let me know which one and I will post it for it (if it's one of my images). I do request that you respect these images and not make copies or cross post to other websites without permission, these images are copyrighted.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me direct. I hope you enjoy these images as much as I do. Alert is such a special place.
Comments
can be e-mailed to scrouse@gmail.com
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