VE3CWM (Cold War Museum)

Underground Station
VE3CWM (Cold War Museum) transmits from 25 feet underground in the former secret nuclear bunker, known as the Diefenbunker, located in the village of Carp near Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Officially known as Canadian Forces Station Carp, the facility was operational as part of the Canadian military’s communication system 24/7 for 32 years, from 1962 to 1994, before being decommissioned.

Emergency Radio Room
The station is located in the Emergency Radio Room on the top level of the 4-story, 100,000 square foot underground facility. VE3CWM recreates the amateur radio facility which operated from 1982 through to the end of the bunker’s active military service in 1994, under the call sign VE3GOC (Government Of Canada).

Much of the equipment shown in this photo is original to the station and was originally installed in 1982.

Much of the equipment shown in this photo is original to the station and was originally installed in 1982.

Amateur radio offered a vital emergency communications capability for keeping in touch with otherwise isolated communities during times of emergency. Radio systems operating on short-wave continue to provide medium to long range communications when telephone lines, satellite ground stations and cellular base stations are destroyed by enemy action or natural disasters.

The Diefenbunker’s amateur radio station was equipped with VHF and HF equipment for local and long range emergency communications.

Station Equipment
The three blue cabinets in the above photo, along with the Yaesu FT-902DM HF transceiver, monitor scope, phone patch, and Dentron antenna tuner are all original bunker hardware.  The cabinets and all the equipment had been removed from the bunker when the facility was decommissioned and stripped empty in preparation for permanent sealing. Check out the Diefenbunker section of this site for information on how the facility was saved and ultimately became a museum, a Cold War Museum.

Our website banner shows a detailed picture of the original equipment that was installed in 1984 and is still in operation today.

A Yaesu FL-2100B was added in later years to replace the one that disappeared when the bunker was stripped. This addition brought the main HF radio complement very close to its VE3GOC configuration.

In the picture above, the right hand rack houses a RACAL RA-17 and Collins 2050 communications receivers, both typical examples of equipment in use at the bunker during its later operational years.

Antennas
The antennas are connected via a number of coax hard-lines resurrected from the military service days and extending to ground level 25 ft. above the Emergency Radio Room. The original antennas were removed when the bunker was decommissioned and the cable connections cut off at ground level. One our first activities were locating useable antenna connections by matching the residual above ground stubs to groups of cables terminated above the radio room.

Newly installed 50 foot tower and TH-5 beam antenna.

Many of the cables run to the base of the 180 ft. tower, which now provides a handy anchor for some of VE3CWM’s antennas. Hugh Pett, VE3FFL, initiated the cable location exercise and was instrumental in establishing VE3CWM, assisted by Brian Jeffrey, VE3UU. The job was completed under the direction of Nick Shepherd, VE3OWV.

VE3CWM antennas are located above the bunker with a clear “take-off” in most directions from the well elevated site, and include the following:

  • 40/20/15/10 M trap vertical installed 500 ft from the bunker on the site of the old LF antenna.
  • G5RV mounted at 40 ft on the bunker’s 180 ft. tower.
  • TH-5 HF tribander on a 50 ft. tower.
  • VHF 2M Ringo Ranger.
  • Two 33 ft. ground mounted verticals.
  • One End Fed Half Wave – 80 through 10M.

Emergency Transmitter Room
Next to the Emergency Radio Room was a room that held HF and VHF transmitters that were to be used in case the main transmitter site located some 60 km away near Perth Ontario became out of service.

The bunker’s main transmitters were located 60 km away, near Perth Ontario, in order to discourage enemy bombers from using their ADF (automatic direction finding) capability to locate the secret facility.

Known as the Richardson Site, the 2-story underground bunker housed 20 high power transmitters, including a number of TMC GPK-10K, 10Kw transmitters, known by their military nomenclature as  the AN/FRT-39. They were all sold for scrap when the site was shut down in 1994.

HF receiver display.

HF receiver display.

The Emergency Transmitter Room is now used as a display area for radio and other electronic equipment. One of the many projects that the bunker’s Radio Volunteers get involved with is  the acquisition and restoration of representative cold war era receivers and transmitters for display and operation. Check out the photo gallery below for a selection of photo’s showing various displays and equipment that we have done over the past few years. The room is always changing! Shown above is a collection of AR-88 (Canadian GR-17), Hammarlund SP-600, Racal RA-17, Collins 2050 and other receivers representing the equipment that provided the mainstay of the bunker’s listening capability over its operational lifetime. In fact, in order to disguise the primary function of the bunker during its construction phase, the cover story was that the facility was the “Experimental Army Signal Establishment,” EASE for short, and the bunker was referred to in official documents as the “Receiver Building, R-1”.

We have also acquired several Marconi TH-41 5 kW HF transmitters in addition to several AN/FRT-502 VHF transmitters which, although not original bunker equipment, are typical of the HF and VHF communications equipment in use on the DEW and Pinetree Lines during the bunker’s early operational period. The BC-610 Transmitter and National NC-2-40D receiver are examples of WWII communications equipment still in widespread use during the early days of the bunker’s operational life.

The Emergency Transmitter Room (ETR). The room originally held the standby transmitters for the site and now houses additional operating positions for Amateur radio work.

The transmitter room is also equipped with a additional operational station positions which currently includes a FTDX101D which is usually used with a Hammarlund HXL-ONE amplifier, Kenwood station monitor, and LDG autotuner. Our most popular antenna is the TH-5 beam at 50 feet, but we also have access to an End Fed Halfwave, and a 35 Ft vertical. The standby radio is a FT-902DM which we acquired as a possible replacement of the Bunker’s original FT-902DM which is located next door in the Emergency Radio Room. In addition, a RCA SSB-1 Mk IV 4-channel crystal controlled sideband transceiver is set up for operation on the 3755 kHz ONTARS net frequency.

Here is a photo gallery of the various stages of life of the Transmitter Room. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge the picture.