Dismantled in 1995, The buildings down at the water, 
Diesels, Power line, the Tropo Antennas, 
and all the Living quarters were removed. 
Trutch originally was under the Island Division, 
and has switched back and forth
to the Northern Division, a couple times.
Jim Gural was area Manager at the time it switched
to the Northern Division in May 1967.
Originally many families made Trutch their permanent home. 
Trips to Prince Rupert were made for Doctor Visits, and R&R. 
Rolly Anderson was Caretaker at Trutch in the late 60’s. 
The crew was rotated into Trutch until 1968-1969. 

The Trutch Tropo Equip was Northern Electric (See Correction Below)
and had 10 KWatt water cooled klystrons 
with about a 100 gal reservoir for each of the 4 TX's (2 in each direction) 
there was 8 receivers, (4 in each direction) with a combiner system 
so any one of the 4 would be on line at any given second 
governed by the best AGC of the 4.
there was also 4 exciters which were modulators, 
and 70mz drivers for the pa (Klystron). 
The Klystrons were about 4 ft long (worth $10,000)and in a cage 
about 4’ wide, 5 ft high and 6' long. 
To replace the Klystron was about a 4 hr job for 2 guys 
as there was at least 20 water hoses to disconnect and reconnect. 
If you blew a line, it could take hours to mop up the glycol off the flour. 
Each of the 4 reservoirs was also a heat exchanger and had cooling fans 
plus circulating pump so when it blew you had to be quick to turn off. 
-by Don Gent
__________________________________
 TRUTCH 
 FAMILY LIFE 

Christmas 1966
l/r- Children on the Island, and Santa (Rod Snazel)
Below Don Gent's Home decorated for the holidays

We worked 10 days on and 4 off,
on all shifts rotation days, evenings ,nights. 
My days off were always during week, 
but who cared, you weren't going anywhere. 
Had a scheduled flight out of Rupert by BCAir 
every Friday with mail and groceries (weather permitting). 
Went over 2 weeks one time without plane, 
some people were desperate for food, 
and I know we supplied most from our deepfreeze.
There were also 13 Children on the Island: 
Me-1, Wellwood-2, Tracy-3, Lummerding-5, Inglis-2, 
of all ages up to about 10-12. 
Dawn, my daughter, the youngest-10mos
After Trutch wound down, 
Jim Inglis and Rod Snazel went to Kitimat. 
Doug Wellood, Tracy, Me to Terrace, 
Lepage moved later to Terrace, 
and Ron Lummerding moved to Port Hardy.
-story by Don Gent

a correction came in via email on the Equipment Manufacturer,
plus some interesting notes for the site.

I worked at all 3 scatter sites during the Summer of 1964 while employed by Lenkurt Electric. We were sent up there to install Threshold Extension Demodulators on all of the Receivers. My recollections are that the only Northern equipment associated with the Tropo system were the Parametric Amplifiers. The remainder of the equipment was manufactured by REL, Long Island, NY - the granddaddy of all Tropo manufacturers.

Also, you might note the original purpose of this system was NOT to provide BC Tel circuits (why do you think it terminated in Alaska?). This system's cost was underwritten by the US DOD (specifically the US Air Force). The sole purpose of the system was to provide a backup for the Anchorage - Seattle(?) submarine cable system carrying BMEWS traffic from Clear (? not sure of the exact site name) Alaska Backscatter Missile Warning Radar. The quality of the circuits on this system were far from toll quality, but they served the needs of the US Military. The White Alice scatter system that went north from Annette was so crappy that they had a teletype order wire on some of the hops.

The BC Tel system was engineered by John Rhodes and installed by Lenkurt / REL - I think in 61 or 62.

By the time I worked on the system, there were a few Prince Rupert circuits on it that were backhauled from the Annette Tropo site to Mt Hays via an old Farinon PT-80 link. The PT-80 was still operational when I made my first visit to Mt Hays in '67. Another bit of trivia - the CBC Radio program circuit to Prince Rupert was carried on this system as well. This was before the days of satellite program distribution. If you listened very carefully to the Prince Rupert CBC program sound on a good monitor, you could hear the Tropo receivers switching, with the odd noise burst...

And, oh yes, the traffic got to Port Hardy via an old Lenkurt 74 system. I also worked on the replacement of this system with brand new Lenkurt 76 microwave in '64.
From Doug Docherty
Telecommunications Consultant
ex Lenkurt, ex Raytheon, ex Farinon/Harris

Another name to add to the Employees at Trutch came in today Apr 28, 2008