Google Earth Community: The DEW line

I remember as a kid of the cold war hearing about the DEW line across the top of Canada, which was designed to detect attacks by the USSR across the polar cap. Typically consisting of doppler radars and communications antennas (tropospheric scatter antennas), they usually had a short runway for DC-3/C-130 access and often a beach landing site for delivering heavy equipment by sea.

They were typically on the highest land in the area, along the coast of the Arctic ocean.

Larry Wilson's excellent web page served as a resource, both for locating the sites and for the excellent linked overlays (25 or so) which are topo charts of the site.

The overlays are not turned on by default, but are all included in the file. Each overlay has a topo map that has been oriented as closely as I could to the features below:

Have fun wandering one of the great cold war relics (and kudos again to Mr. Wilson for collecting so much information). Be sure to follow the links from each site to Larry's webpage, where you'll often find great photos and more info about the location.

Edited: I left out one radar site COB-M by accident. Attachment updated with the corrected list

Edited: Based on information provided by cannorthgirl I've updated the location of the PIN-4 site and add the overlay

Edited: Updated position of some placemarks and overlays now that some sites are in hi-res

Kudos to the Google Earth team who select which areas get mapped. Most of the DEW line is now in hi-res, and it is obvious that the maps were chosen just to show the DEW line sites.
Here is a catalogue of sites that are now in high resolution.

Sites with hi-res and an overlay:
LIZ-2 (overlay moved slightly to better match terrain)
LIZ-B (overlay moved slightly to better match terrain)
LIZ-3 (overlay moved slightly to better match terrain)
POW-MAIN (overlay moved slightly to better match terrain)
POW-2 (overlay just touches edge of high res area)
BAR-MAIN (overlay moved slightly to better match terrain)
BAR-1 (overlay adjusted to try and match terrain) active site with aircraft present)
BAR-B
BAR-4 (overlay adjusted. New short range radar site active on the southern edge of the site)
PIN-3 (overlay adjusted. Long range radar site visible)
CAM-3
CAM-4
FOX-MAIN (overlay adjusted. Overlay buildings match modern facilities exactly, active long range radar site. Town of Hall Beach visibile nearby)
FOX-2 (adjusted overlay slightly)
FOX-3 (adjusted overlay slightly)
FOX-5 (active, short range radar site)
DYE-4
BAF-3 (active, long range radar site, overlay still not exact)
BAF-4A (active, short range radar site, placemark adjusted slightly)

Sites with hi-res:
COB-2
LIZ-C
POW-A (with the remnants of a melted ice runway visible!)
POW-B
POW-C
POW-3
POW-D
BAR-A
BAR-3 (active, surrounded by Tuktoyaktuk, or Tuk as its known, placemark adjusted slightly)
BAR-DA1
BAR-E (placemark adjusted slightly)
PIN-CB (active radar installation)
PIN-DA
CAM-A3a (active, short range radar site)
CAM-CB (active, short range radar site, town of Gjoa Haven visible)
CAM-3
CAM-D (active, short range radar site)
CAM-FA
FOX-1 (active, short range radar site)
FOX-A
DYE-MAIN (active, long range radar site, lots of antenna arrays visible, with nice shadows to show structure)
BAF-5
LAB-2 (active, long range radar site, aircraft visible at airport)

Edited by jclarke (09/09/08 11:59 PM)

Post Extras