>>7107969I am a radar tech, was their there to service and preform maintenance on the radars for the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distant_Early_Warning_Lineand our presence their prevents Russia from intercepting north american radio chatter as it is the prime location for it if they where to do so (fun fact, CFS Alert is closer to Moscow then it is to Ottawa) and because for many years, the Russians are constantly poking our boarder so much so that the Pilots that go intercept the Russian jets know and talk to each other, its important that we are there.
For entertainment, we had a movie theater and we had the latest movies that come out donated by the studios, games, big lan parties. we have ATVs, snowmobiles, a bar!
nights where very long while i was there, only a few hours of daylight at most so we had to take vitamin D pills. it can be pretty lonely, our internet was through 12 microwave link stations and then to a satellite so latency and bandwidth was garbage (we serviced those as well) its called HADCS
http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/operations-canada-north-america-recurring/op-nevus.pagePic is one of the stations, just pulled it off of google. And most of that available bandwidth is reserved for work related stuff as well.
Im unsure of what kind of set up they would have at the south pole but i would imagine is similar as you cant really have good satellite communications at the poles because most of the satellites are at the equator, and satellites are line of site so the curvature of the earth gets in the way.
we also frequently had university students coming up and we would assist them in getting around, and them doing their studies and stuff, some of them where pretty cute and lonely :P. every now and again, i got to go to the north pole.
over all it was a good experience but life can become a grind. they do everything the can do spice things up with little social events but even as an introvert my self, the cabin fever was getting real
