Otter Cliffs was the Navy's best transatlantic radio receiver site because of its absence of nearby man-made radio noise, its unobstructed ocean path from Europe, and the outstanding receivers, antennas and noise mitigation techniques developed by the Wireless Specialty Apparatus Company under the leadership of Greenleaf Whittier Pickard.

Pickard is well known for his early inventions in connection with loop aerials, direction-finding systems and static mitigating devices used at Otter Cliffs during the war.

Edmond Bruce, a Navy enlisted man, served as chief electrician for the transatlantic receiver during the war.

He did so at the tip of the Schoodic Peninsula, about five miles away across Frenchman Bay, and Feb. 28, 1935 Otter Cliffs was decommissioned and the new Winter Harbor station was commissioned.

(It later became Naval Security Group Activity, Winter Harbor, and on July 1, 2002, was decommissioned and transferred to the National Park Service.)