Big Red 1977 – Email from Charlie Glover
Charlie Ok’d me to share this and this is THE place to share it. Enjoy ….
From: Charlie Glover
Date: August 19, 2013, 7:47:58 AM CDT
To: Jesse Kozlowski
Subject: Very Long EDM Line MeasurementsIn April of 1977, I was dispatched to Ft. Davis, Texas to participate in a special survey in the vicinity of The University of Texas McDonald Observatory. This was to be the initial phase of an extensive geodetic-geophysical study to detect any secular or episodic motions of the Observatory relative to prominent topographic features within a region extending as far as 100 kilometers (62 miles) from the observatory.
I arrived in Ft. Davis with all the necessary equipment to carry out the survey. I was met by three of the crew assigned to Party G-35.
High left: Marvin Crabtree: reassigned from the NGS EDMI Calibration Base Line Party, G-10, Low left: Slim Hughes, member Party G-35. High right: William V. Mast: Project Coordinator and me at low right: Charlie Glover, TDY from The NGS, Instrument & Equipment Branch, Corbin, virginia.
At the top of this butte, is Station BALDY. PID: BQ0414 Lat: N 30 38 08.16078 Long: W 104 10 25.29518
Elevation: 8381 Ft. It is atop MT. Livermore, the highest peak in the Davis Range.From this station, there were 7 very long lines radiating around the station. The longest was 92.8 KM (57.6 miles) and the shortest was 70 KM (43.5 miles). We were to observe EDM distances to all these stations at night and daytime while observing simultaneous reciprocal zenith distances.
The weather being what it is in SW Texas this time of year, we had to build an observing shelter to withstand very high winds. The material for this operation was slung in by copter.
The only landing site was bout 100 feet east of the station. The site was so narrow that the copter had to stay powered up in order to keep from rolling over.
Slim Hughes drilling holes into the rock using an Atlas Copco (cobra) Drill. Steel pines were driven into the drill holes to be used as anchors for tie down cables to keep the observing shelter from going airborne in the anticipated high winds.
The observing shelter as viewed from the copter touch down site.
The observing shelter as viewed from the copter, coming in to the touch down site at the lower left in the photo.
Four of the 5 observing crew . George Nelson pointing a heliotrope. Audie Murray behind George. Marvin Crabtree standing in door way. A student from the university of Texas behind Marvin. Swartz was his last name and he was just a tagalong. Charlie Glover was the photographer
All set up and ready to start doing what was rumored to be impossible.
Meanwhile on Station EAGLE 3 1977, PID BQ0470, on the highest peak in the Eagle mountains, Locally known as Eagle Peak.
Lat. N 30 55 16.80905, Long. W 105 05 07.60036
Elev. 7506 Ft.
Slim Hughes has set up his equipment consisting of 98 retro-reflectors, a heliotrope and a Wild T-3 Theodolite.
Randy Wegner has set up 48 retro-reflectors with a show light on top and is observing simultaneous reciprocal zenith distances with BALDY. Randy is using a grid show light instead of a heliotrope because he is on the short 70 KM line.
Meanwhile, back on BALDY, Charlie glover was zeroing in on EAGLE with Big Red. When that 10 milliwatt laser hit them thar reflectors, it looked like the sun coming up. Big Red measured that 92 kilos with the gray wedge only 1/4 out. I turned the photo-tube voltage down to about 2000 volts and the null meter clicked from on side to the other with 1 graduation movement on the delay line knob. The null meter hung null as if I was measuring 50 meters on a diffused reflector.
And Marvin was twisting ZDs on the stand right next to me. Audie Murray was recording for him and George Nelson was recording for me and the Kid Swartz was recording temperature, atmospheric pressure, wet/dry bulb, wind direction & velocity and Geodimeter modulation frequencies.
One complete round to all stations in 2 hours. Break for an hour and drink Jim Beam and coke, then do another round in one and a half hours.
Spec. sheet on Big Red
Been there and done it and I wouldn’t trade the experience for all the whisky in Tennessee.
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