[GreenKeys] ELF in Canada...

[Kenneth Gartland]

Hi all!

Back in the early 60's LF and ELF was very active
on the East coast of Canada...

It was located in Newport Corner's, Nova Scotia,
only a few miles as the crow flies from my QTH
in Windsor, N.S.

The call sign was 'CFH'...

Some of the transmitters were located in Albro Lake
N.S., but the main LF and ELF antennas/transmitters
were in Newport...

This was an incredibly powerful station...

I was in the RCAF Air Cadet Squadron at the time
studying for my amateur ticket, and my instructor,
VE1PP,  had arranged for the radio class for a tour
thru the main facility...

It was an adventure never forgotten...

The Navy guys there never had many visitors
to this site, and as you can imagine, a very classfied
place...

We were treated very well, and shown areas and equipment
most people wud never see...

Our Navy Escort fellow took great delight in having
us hold standard fluorescent tubes, anywhere in the
room and we cud see the tubes flickering from the
keying of the transmitter...

There was an intense amount of RF energy in the room,
you cud sense its' presence...

On most of the transmission lines, fluorescent tubes
were fastened on, and you cud see them keying in step
with the code being transmitted...

To this day, I have never seen transmitter tubes so big!

Outside, the main antenna was "Star" Shaped, supended
by, I think, 5 towers 550'  high...

Apparently, the signal(s) from these transmitters
cud be heard anywhere in the world...

When I lived in Windsor, the signal strength was so
strong, it wud literally "Swamp" out most BCB receivers...

The CFH call sign cud be clearly be heard all over
the dial...

Trying to do any serious DX'ing was challenging
as the interference was continual...

I generally kept to the higher HF frequencies
to do meaningful DX...

Thinking back, this visit to the transmitter facility
further motivated me to get my ticket...(VE1-HMQ)

Thanks for listening...

Cheers!

Ken
VE3-HMQ
i-Telex 61663
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