Update: 1630 hrs 23 Apr 05
CBC has a much more detailed story on the radar thing. Disregard my post comments, as CBC already did the leg work and was less cryptic than VOCM.
CBC correctly spotted Raytheon as the contractor. They misindentify the company as a missile manufacturer. Raytheon manufactures a variety of defence products included radar systems as well as different types of missile systems such as the TOW (tube-launched, optically-tracked, wire-guided) anti-armour weapon.
One of Raytheon's products is the High Frequency Surface Wave Radar (HFSWR) system, developed by Northern radar of St. John's and currently installed at two sites in eastern Newfoundland. This is NOT the X band system, so don't get confused.
Most interesting aspect of this CBC story was the confirmation by NL Hydro of talks with Raytheon about power supply. (Big security hint for the Hydro dudes: never disclose conversations with a defence contractor. It's not your dog.)
No biggie on the power supply. If we can't recall power from the Upper Churchill, then the Lower Churchill project will have bags of electricity to sell.
This goes back to my point, though, about having a Chinese (PRC) state-owned enterprise involved in the deal from last year as part of the Sino-Energy consortium. Big security issues. No one on the provincial government side checked the background or considered the defence issues. Big mistake.
Estimated cost of the ground-based system is between CDN$500 million and CDN$900 million.
Original post starts:
When my web counter starts to show certain hits, I get a little curious.
Since I posted some information on X band radars earlier this year, I have received hits from various US government and civilian contractor sites. I am gathering they were primarily interested in any comments or information on the sea-based system being built by Boeing in Corpus Christi, Texas. Those are the pages they visited.
Then there are the hits that look at the posts where I have discussed whether or not there will be an X band radar built at Goose Bay.
There's been a bit more activity on that lately including hits today.
Curiously enough, there's also a cryptic story on VOCM today about an unnamed defence contractor visiting Goose Bay looking at potential sites for a radar system. Here's the full text from the website:
"A major American defence contractor recently explored locations for a radar station in Labrador.
That word from federal Defence Minister Bill Graham. However, Graham says there was never a formal request and no real discussions about it. He said if [it is] built, the installation would be part of Norad's information systems."
Most likely this is related to an old story, the one I commented on earlier this year.
The contractor is Raytheon.
The radar they are proposing is one used for the American ballistic missile defence system, except in this instance, the site would be owned and operated by Canada feeding information to the North American Aerospace Defence Command or NORAD for short. [which incidentally is linked into the BMD system.]
It would be nice to know where the story came from because as far as I can tell, the issue is just floating out there.