NRS Newport Corner

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History

NRS Newport Corner was established by the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) in 1942 in the St. Croix River valley in Newport Corner, 50 kilometres northwest of NRS Albro Lake near the rural hamlet of Brooklyn.

NRS Newport Corner was a sub-unit of NRS Albro Lake and functioned as the primary transmitting facility, while the receiving facility was located at Albro Lake. A landline connected the two operations. A secondary transmitter was co-located at NRS Albro Lake should the connection to NRS Newport Corner fail. The callsign for NRS Albro Lake (which was responsible for both facilities) was "CFH" and the combined construction cost was $6 million. NRS Newport Corner was a critical component in the success of the RCN and its allies in the Battle of the North Atlantic; it could transmit to locations halfway across the world, stretching from Murmansk, Russia to the Falkland Islands.

NRS Albro Lake and its sub-unit NRS Newport Corner was renamed HMC NRS Albro Lake on July 1, 1956. Permanent married quarters (PMQs) were constructed on the site during this time. Dartmouth's growth during the post-war years degraded radio reception in Albro Lake as the town became a city by the early 1960s. Unification of the Canadian Forces in 1968 resulted in the Albro Lake location closing and the unit HMC NRS Albro Lake became CFS Mill Cove when the new receiving facility opened 50 kilometres west of Halifax in 1967.

NRS Newport Corner functioned much as before, as a detachment of CFS Mill Cove instead of NRS Albro Lake. Defence cutbacks in the late 1990s saw CFS Mill Cove receiver renamed NRS Mill Cove. Both the NRS Newport Corner transmitter and NRS Mill Cove receivers were automated and are currently operated by HMCS "Trinity" at CFB Halifax. Today both facilities have the prefix Naval Radio Station (NRS) in front of their geographic location; they function as detachments to CFB Halifax.