[Laser] mechanical rotating shutter

[Bob Heath]

Another 175 Mile path - Pioneering DX ?

Just to the West of Miles City, Montana, USA there is a roadside
marker with the following inscription:

     The Tongue River

     Captain Wm. Clark, of the Lewis & Clark Expedition, camped
     with his party on an island in the Yellowstone opposite the
     mouth of the Tongue, July 29, 1806.  The Indian name for
     the river is Lazeka.

     Construction of Fort Keogh, named for one of Custer's Captains
     killed at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in '76 was started
 >    in '77.  That knob off to the south is Signal Butte.  During 
the        <
 >    Indian troubles the army used to flash sun mirror messages to       <
 >    a post in the Black Hills 175 miles away.  A cloudy day sure        <
 >    threw a lot of static into that pioneer wireless 
system.                   <

     Miles City, named after General Nelson A. Miles, started in
     '77 as a shack and tent town with a population running largely
     to prospectors and miners from the Black Hills, buffalo hunters,
     traders, and gamblers.  She was wild for a while.  When the cattle
     days of the '80s arrived many a Texas trail herd came through
     here and the city soon acquired a national reputation as a
     cattle and horse market which it has never relinquished.

Setting up a long line-of-site these days is no trivial task.  Imagine
the problems when it could take a couple of weeks of travel through
hostile territory to inform the other end that you were ready to transmit!

Unfortunately it was too hazy when I tried to check if that optical path
was viable.

Anyone out that way care to comment ?

Bob, G3UJV.

>  
>


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