| John
Coyle, caretaker at The Clarences Community Centre, Port Clarence,
recently chatted live on the radio to the residents of Port Clarence,
USA.
This
American namesake of the Teesside town is a coast guard station
near Nome in Alaska, with a changing lineup of US servicemen and
women staying there.
 |
| The
other Port Clarence... |
They
joined BBC
Radio Cleveland's John
Foster live on air to speak to John Coyle about their two
very different settlements.
Radio
Cleveland linked up the two Port Clarences via phone lines. Click
here to
hear what happened (you'll need Realplayer
on your PC).
It
was 8.20 am on Saturday for the two Johns, but for Commanding Officer
Frank Paula of the US Coast Guard it was 11pm on a Friday night,
and he and
his colleagues were having a few beers and playing pool and darts
in their recreation room after a hard day at work.
Frank
explained that Port Clarence is a LORAN (LOng Range Aids to Navigation)
station, dedicated to producing a radio signal from a 1,350 foot
mast.
The
signal serves as a navigation aid for a vast area around the transmitter.
A
one year tour of duty
To
maintain it, the men and women on the base all serve a one year
"tour of duty", with only 30 days holiday, taken in one
block.
John
Coyle asked Frank what a typical day involved.
"We
get up at 7am, have breakfast and start work at 8am. We have guys
maintaining engines, generators, heavy-duty equpiment and snow-removal
equipment.
 |
| The
other Port Clarence in Summer. |
"We
have electronic technicians working on our transmitters up here.
"Our
mission is to produce a LORAN signal for the Bearing Sea and for
Alaska."
Port
Clarence is extremely isolated, and spends a lot of time under cover
of snow, so John wondered if it ever got lonely?
"It
gets tough at times, but there's always an influx of different people.
It seems like the same 23 people are never here."
John
asked if any of the staff there had ever been to the UK, but the
closest any of them had ever come was changing planes in the airport!
56k
Listen to an excerpt
from the interview with Frank Paula. (Realplayer
required)
Visit
the website of the US
LORAN Station Port Clarence.
|
