The following set of three photos depicts the 5RadU Main Operations Room likely from the early 1950's era. Jim Thoreson, who served in Whitehorse in 1961, says the wooden desks were gone by then being replaced with metal desks. In addition, the Operations Building had the Comm Center, the Intel (Intelligence) Room,  LRTS (Long Range Technical Search), Voice section, a training area and offices.  Also included was a huge diesel electric generator which could provide emergency power.

In April 1953, it was reported that operations were good in 1950 and  1951, but deteriorated due to the loss of experienced operators and supervisors and  the absence of an RCAF southern station which could be used in totation.(Note 3)

Dual Hammarlund SP-600 positions. At the right side, (background), are racks containing the high speed printer section complete with receivers and frequency shift converters. Atop the SP-600 receivers are slots which were used to hold Frequency Cards. These cards indicated what frequencies were to be monitored by the operator at that position.  (DND photo)

The buckets are labelled "Classified Waste". All classified waste was burned in those days.   (DND photo)

RCA AR-88/SP-600 position. It was noted that the AR88's supplied much better audio from broadcast stations than did the SP600s. Question- Was there any difference in functionality between this position and the dual SP600 position? Contact: jerry.proc@sympatico.ca  (DND photo)

August 1950: Front and side views of the Rockex cipher machine. A teletype link connected Whitehorse to CBNRC HQ in Ottawa .Click on image to enlarge. (Photo by |Jerry Proc)

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Credits and References:

1) Jim Thoreson <jimthoreson(at)shaw.ca>
2) Earle Smith - VE6NM <ve6nm(at)rac.ca>
3) History of CBNRC
 
 

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Feb 8/25