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Snowbrushy
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Joined: 23 Jul 2003
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Location: South Sound |
I also carried one for a few years. The signal mirror came from the US 3rd Army, 4th Infantry Division, WWII. It probably came in handy in North Africa if you got lost out in the desert. My Dad brought it home from Europe after the war. It was heavy.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
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flash
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Joined: 08 Aug 2015
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flash
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 Sun Aug 09, 2015 4:41 pm |
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| contour5 wrote: | | Ah, signal mirrors. They used to be a "must have" item. |
They still work, and at 0.7 oz and under $10 for a store-bought 2"x3" polycarbonate mirror like the Rescue Flash® or StarFlash®, they aren't a burden - I carry Rescue Flash in my wallet with a flat whistle. When I hike, I take a 2oz Coghlan's 2"x3" glass mirror as well - it's brighter and doesn't scratch easily, so I can use it for non-emergency uses without worrying about damaging it.
Less than a month ago, a lost hiker in Colorado used a signal mirror to alert a search plane, a bit more than 24 hours after he triggered his PLB. The news stories are summarized and linked in this post on The Survival Forum at Equipped To Survive® in this thread devoted to news stories about rescues involving signal mirrors in the last six years.
There are a lot more powerful options these days for getting the word out when you are in trouble - cell phones, satellite beacons, ham radios, etc., but the folks in charge of rescuing you if you get lost (US Coast Guard, Civil Air Patrol, SAR groups) are probably carrying signal mirrors.
For one thing, if you have sunlight, and they look your way when you signal, you don't have to worry that they aren't monitoring your transmission frequency 
Carry a signal mirror, a whistle, and consider a PLB.
PLBs are less than 6oz, less than $250, or rent for under $50 a week.
Carry a signal mirror, a whistle, and consider a PLB.
PLBs are less than 6oz, less than $250, or rent for under $50 a week.
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flash
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Joined: 08 Aug 2015
Posts: 5 | TRs | Pics
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flash
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Sun Aug 09, 2015 5:17 pm |
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| Snowbrushy wrote: | | The signal mirror came from the US 3rd Army, 4th Infantry Division, WWII. |
Nice - a 3"x5" tempered glass General Electric ESM/2 with the cross-shaped double-sided aimer. Looks like you kept the issue envelope, too. Though the back says "visible at 10 miles" I've seen the flash from a 3"x5" glass mirror like that at over 40 miles in clear air. Thousands of ESM/2s were issued, so they come up on Ebay (though less often than the 4"x5" ESM/I). I bought one of each (for the historical interest, not for carry).
The development of US military signal mirrors in WWII is described by a major contributor here.
The WWII training movie for this mirror is here, though they use the ESM/I (the movie was made in August 1943, before the ESM/2 was available).
The commonest form of double-sided signal mirror is a simple metal plate (chrome-plated or stainless steel) with a hole in the center (remember the Boy Scout signal mirrors?), though there is a company in Canada that makes them with cross-shaped aimer holes.
The figure below are the instructions for using a double-sided signal mirror from the USAF publication: "Search and Rescue Survival training", AF Regulation 64-4, Volume 1, pp. 465-466, 15 July 1985. Click on the thumbnail for a readable version.
 How to use a Double-Faced Signal Mirror
Carry a signal mirror, a whistle, and consider a PLB.
PLBs are less than 6oz, less than $250, or rent for under $50 a week.
Carry a signal mirror, a whistle, and consider a PLB.
PLBs are less than 6oz, less than $250, or rent for under $50 a week.
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Mike Collins
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Joined: 18 Dec 2001
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Chico
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Joined: 30 Nov 2012
Posts: 2500 | TRs | Pics
Location: Lacey |
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Chico
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Sun Aug 09, 2015 5:22 pm |
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| Mike Collins wrote: | | convenient method |
One of the links posted above by Flash says the FS employees were not all that good with learning how to use it. Convenient for someone who's learned to use it perhaps.
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flash
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Joined: 08 Aug 2015
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flash
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Sun Aug 09, 2015 6:54 pm |
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| Chico wrote: | | One of the links posted above by Flash says the FS employees were not all that good with learning how to use it. |
That was an issue - lookouts were typically summer hires, and often for only one summer. Also, training was uneven - one lookout recalled being told getting a package with written instructions, and being left to figure it out. The recollections cited in [1] of lookouts' experience in 1915-1917 are fairly negative, and based on them, you'd conclude that heliographs in the USFS were a dismal failure.
Despite this naysaying, heliographs were a success. On Sept. 28, 1937, the Forest Service arranged to have President Roosevelt greeted by heliograph flashes from twelve lookouts in Mt. Hood National Forest.[1] That just doesn't jibe with the USFS abandoning heliographs ca. 1917. Similarly, in the Sept. 1932 Santa Barbara fire in California: "all methods of communication used from heliograph to new Forest Service portable radio." and this photo of a 1927 fireguard school shows trainees using three Godwin heliographs, and the author (the former forest historian for the Cleveland National Forest) states that heliograph training was a standard part of the curriculum, and that "The heliograph use would rapidly decline in use after the arrival of portable radios in the 1930s".
One thing that seems to have been a huge help turning the heliograph from a liability into an asset was the replacement of Morse/Myer Code (which takes weeks to learn) with simpler codes. Three examples:
Albert Cochrell described his experiences in 1915 with heliographs and Morse code as "very confusing and inaccurate". He said a simplified code was developed over the winter, and "1916 was a new deal and, with the late Karl Klehm on Osier Ridge and yours truly on Blacklead, we pretty well mastered the thing and exchanged messages almost daily throughout the season".
G. Allen Burrows said of heliograph use in his (first summer) 1916 tour of duty using the simplified code: "We used the code the first day and had no trouble to speak of."
I quote a full description of the California simplified code, so you can understand how much easier this code was (and in case you want to try it). As another reference put it, you "sang along" with the flashes when reading or sending the message. From a letter to Scientific American in 1917:
| Quote: | | The usefulness of the heliograph by the Forest Service has been almost nullified in the past by the practical difficulties involved in learning and memorizing this perplexing and arbitrary code, especially since our lookouts and patrolmen are on duty only for a few months during the summer and do not, therefore, have the opportunity for constant practice. To obviate these difficulties, Forest Ranger S. A. Boulden, of the Cleveland National Forest, has developed a new code which is a marvel of simplicity, can be learned by anyone at a glance, and, if one forgets it, he can easily figure out the signal for any letter in a few seconds.
By the Boulden Code the alphabet is divided into five series, each, except the last, containing six letters, the several series thus beginning with the letters A,G, M, S, and Y. These series letters, with a few abbreviations, then constitute all that must be memorized. Any given letter is represented in code by 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 long flashes, corresponding to the number of the series, followed by short flashes corresponding to the relative position of the required letter in the given series; thus, "A" is 1 long, 1 short; "B" 1 long, 2 short; "O" 3 long, 3 short, etc. It is, however, unnecessary to memorize the code for each letter since, when sending the letter "O," for instance, one merely follows the 3 long flashes, as given, in the order A, G, M, then, as the short flashes begin, repeats the alphabet one letter at a time for each flash given, beginning with the series initial— M, N, 0. The same mental process is followed in sending.
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The code I have described has been widely adopted by the Forest Service and has revolutionized the use of the heliograph in connection with our work of forest fire detection and prevention. |
[1] "Heliographs" pp. 48-54, Communications in the national forests of the Northern Region : a history of telephone and radio Coats, J. H.; United States. Forest Service. Northern Region (downloadable from the page below)
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/handle/1957/10280
[2] Page 5 of the pdf below: "Another committee arranged to have lookouts on duty on twelve of the lookout points which were visible from the entrance of the Hotel and make the necessary arrangements for the display of heliograph flashes from these lookouts during the ceremony."
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1957/13797/FranklinRooseveltNationalForests1.pdf?sequence=1
[3] p. 111 of Forest Service Bulletin, Volumes 16-17
Carry a signal mirror, a whistle, and consider a PLB.
PLBs are less than 6oz, less than $250, or rent for under $50 a week.
Carry a signal mirror, a whistle, and consider a PLB.
PLBs are less than 6oz, less than $250, or rent for under $50 a week.
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Snowbrushy
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Joined: 23 Jul 2003
Posts: 6670 | TRs | Pics
Location: South Sound |
| flash wrote: | | Morse code as "very confusing and inaccurate". He said a simplified code was developed over the winter, and "1916 was a new deal |
Morse code is similar to learning a new language. Spanish? German? I've forgot them also, just like I did with morse code. I had to learn it all with morse code for the merit badge, back in the day. But I forgot it after the badge ceremony. I was a busy kid. I forgot morse code just like I did with most other languages I'd learned. Unless you practice them often it's shortly gone from the memory. I'd like to see a new drone signal game. It's a recreation let's make it fun. Old tech/new tech.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
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Ski
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Joined: 28 May 2005
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Ski
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Sun Aug 09, 2015 8:31 pm |
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here you go, Snowbrushy!
"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
"I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each."
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Snowbrushy
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Joined: 23 Jul 2003
Posts: 6670 | TRs | Pics
Location: South Sound |
Thank you, Ski. As I recall from a friend who lived they used that device up in I-Corps, Vietnam. There was some mutineer officer named Kurtz who they were trying to talk with using morse code. Bring him in. The top of a river up in the jungle is where he lived. But he didn't know morse code. The officer was highly decorated but he didn't practice his morse code. They were trying to communicate with him, to no avail. He didn't do his homework about the merit badge about the codes. Morse code. You can hear the sound on the radio through the jungle. It comes and goes through the static. Rant's. It's creepy stuff. He had most certainly gone crazy. And he didn't know morse code.
About that officer. He got whacked by a highly trained Special Forces guy. The officer didn't know morse code. There is a moral to this story, but I'm not sure anymore what it is. Today you can use your smart phone. Good luck with that.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
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Mike Collins
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Joined: 18 Dec 2001
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| Snowbrushy wrote: | | He got whacked by a highly trained Special Forces guy. |
dit-dit-dit/dit-dit-dit-dit/dit-dit/dah
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lee
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Joined: 20 Jan 2014
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lee
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Mon Aug 10, 2015 8:44 am |
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| Snowbrushy wrote: | | Thank you, Ski. As I recall from a friend who lived they used that device up in I-Corps, Vietnam. There was some mutineer officer named Kurtz who they were trying to talk with using morse code. Bring him in. The top of a river up in the jungle is where he lived. But he didn't know morse code. The officer was highly decorated but he didn't practice his morse code. They were trying to communicate with him, to no avail. He didn't do his homework about the merit badge about the codes. Morse code. You can hear the sound on the radio through the jungle. It comes and goes through the static. Rant's. It's creepy stuff. He had most certainly gone crazy. And he didn't know morse code.
About that officer. He got whacked by a highly trained Special Forces guy. The officer didn't know morse code. There is a morale to this story, but I'm not sure anymore what it is. Today you can use your smart phone. Good luck with that. |
Looks like you just watched "Apocalypse Now" ;-)
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Snowbrushy
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Joined: 23 Jul 2003
Posts: 6670 | TRs | Pics
Location: South Sound |
| lee wrote: | | Looks like you just watched "Apocalypse Now" ;-) |
Yea. Pulp fiction about an otherwise dry history subject. BTW, what does the code mean at the end of your sentence, Lee?
 aircraft-carrier-launch-
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
Oh Pilot of the storm who leaves no trace Like thoughts inside a dream Heed the path that led me to that place Yellow desert stream.
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lee
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Joined: 20 Jan 2014
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lee
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Mon Aug 10, 2015 11:01 am |
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LOL.... It was suppose to be a winking smiley face but.....
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Chico
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Joined: 30 Nov 2012
Posts: 2500 | TRs | Pics
Location: Lacey |
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Chico
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Mon Aug 10, 2015 12:47 pm |
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| lee wrote: | | LOL.... It was suppose to be a winking smiley face but..... |
 or semicolon paren.
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