USAF Sornfelli

Sornfelli at the Dansih Faroe Islands; the location of North Atlantic Radio System (NARS) site #43, a US strategic troposcatter comms link. Connected with NARS 42 (Höfn) Iceland and NARS 44 (Mormond Hill) Scotland. NARS was a chain of tropospheric scatter comms sites that stretched from Iceland to RAF Fylingdales, forming an extension of the Distant Early Warning Line (DEW Line).

NARS network comprised comms between Rockville AS (Iceland), Hofn (Iceland), Sornfelli (Faroe Islands) and Mormond Hill (Scotland). From Rockville Air Stn (Iceland) NARS was further connected with the US/Canadian Distant Early Warning (DEW) line radar alerting network. From Mormond Hill (Scotland) NARS was further connected with the USAF ACE high troposcatter comms link.

NARS used AN/FRC-39 tx and rx equipment which could be configured for 1 kW, 10 kW or 50 kW power output depending on the range and/or quality of signal required. NARS sites were configured for 10 kW output, with the exception of site 41 in both directions and site 42's connection to site 41.
Each set consisted of 2 transmitters and 4 receivers for redundancy and to boost signal to noise ratios, using vacuum tube technology which proved time consuming to maintain at high levels of efficiency.
Levels of service proved variable with weather effects and tech problems frequently causing loss of connection. Improvements were gained through improved maintenance procedures but did not change significantly until introduction of solid state technology, with the system able to transmit at 9.6kbit/s, (a very fast internet connection for that time), by the time NARS was closed down in 1992 after 30 years of service.
SATCOM introduction made the Troposcatter networks obsolete,

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