Gene Oleson 1964 photo collection
Station under construction c./1953
Comb Receiving Antenna (MX-1287/GRN)
Looking South at the station
Morning Sun
Station c./2000. The west center wing (berthing area) destroyed and the east center wing (admin office/co/cpo/storage) also gone.
Station truck as is in 2000.
A tourist visited the station and sent Gene the above photo and
stated that the Transmitter and amplifier was covered by snow.
Some additional notes from Gene:
Cape Christian was novel in that we also had the AN/GRN-9B TACAN Beacon. The tacan was DME only (distance measurement) as the azimuth data was corrupted by the fact that we were parallel to Fox Basin where magnetic north is located. One ET was detailed to the Navy school for the GRN-9. All the USAF traffic to Thule crossed over Cape Christian.
In addition Cape Christian had additional UHF/VHF capability as the Loran watchstander had to monitor at least four frequencies in addition to the HF SSB. One of the B-52's circling the polar regions carrying the "big one" might call on UHF. You'd get a single call, "Cape Christian this is (coded call). He would send a group of ten letters and "Relay Thule Center, out." No fills, repeats or idle words. It didn't happen every watch, but sure would wake you up on the mid-watch. The Loran watchstander in turn had to wake up the RM as the only link to Thule was an unreliable CW circuit. The HF SSB was supposed to be a link to the Danish at Nipisat and to Cape Athol, but it was useless as I don't recall a single QSL with them. I learned CW at Cape Christian!
Thanks Gene!
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