CFS Sydney Canadian Forces Station Sydney , also known as CFS Sydney , is a former Canadian Forces Station located in the community of Lingan Road , Nova Scotia . It was operational as a Pinetree Line radar station from April 1954 to January 1991 . RCAF Station Sydney . The Royal Canadian Air Force constructed RCAF Station Sydney in Lingan Road along the northwest municipal boundary of the City of Sydney , opening in April 1954 as part of the Pinetree Line network of radar stations . The location of the station on a low ridge along the eastern shore of Sydney Harbour provided coverage of a large portion of the Cabot Strait and the south coast of Newfoundland to complement USAF operated Pinetree Line stations at Stephenville , Gander and St . John ' s to the northeast . Sydney ' s coverage was backed up by RCAF Station Beaverbank and RCAF Station Barrington to the southwest and RCAF Station St . Margarets to the west . Using the radio callsign " PEPPER " , the Sydney station consisted of a radome housing the early warning and ground control intercept radars , as well as supporting buildings including residences for personnel . The primary lodger unit established at the station was No . 221 Aircraft Warning Squadron ; this unit formed at Sydney on August 1 , 1953 while the station was under construction . Search radars installed included models FPS - 3 , FPS - 27 , and FPS - 508 . No . 221 Squadron was operationally controlled by Sector Commander 2 ADCC , RCAF Station Chatham . The RCAF air base at Chatham and the USAF ' s Ernest Harmon AFB in Stephenville were the nearest bases for interceptor aircraft that would respond to anything detected by the Sydney main radar . Following the 1958 partnership between the USAF and RCAF to form the North American Aerospace Defence Command or NORAD , many Pinetree Line radar stations were upgraded for automation and consolidation of intercept data . Consequently , RCAF Station Sydney ' s radar equipment underwent an upgrade in the late 1950s and early 1960s with the operational implementation of the Semi - Automatic Ground Environment ( SAGE ) System on September 15 , 1962 . Under SAGE , the Sydney station collected , discriminated and transmitted its radar coverage data to the designated SAGE Control Centre in the Bangor NORAD section at Topsham AFS . On February 1 , 1968 the RCAF merged with the Royal Canadian Navy ( RCN ) and the Canadian Army to form the Canadian Armed Forces . As part of the unification , RCAF Station Sydney was renamed to Canadian Forces Station Sydney , or CFS Sydney . The end of the Cold War and obsolescence of the Pinetree Line radar stations saw CFS Sydney ' s radar cease operations on January 17 , 1991 . The station was decommissioned by the Canadian Forces in 1992 whereby the Government of Canada transferred the property to the Government of Nova Scotia . It was subsequently transferred to the Municipality of the County of Cape Breton which established a non - profit development company named New Dawn Enterprises Ltd . to market the buildings and residences for civilian use . New Dawn Enterprises Ltd . saw limited success in seeing alternative uses for the facility , partly due to the economic decline of the Industrial Cape Breton region . In 2004 it was discovered that an above - ground fuel storage tank at the former CFS Sydney site was leaking . A subsequent investigation by the Department of National Defence identified 35 other underground fuel storage tanks on the property , some of which were also leaking . These tanks had not been revealed at the time of the facility ' s transfer in 1992 . DND has committed to cleaning up the site and remediating any resulting soil contamination . Canadian Coastal Radar . The main radar operations building of CFS Sydney was repurposed for one of three East Coast Canadian Coastal Radar ( CCR ) sites and still stands today .