for sale- Trip down memory lane

more than a few of the shots had too steep of vertical angle for the yoke - so my boss showed me a approved improvision-
unlock the the triback lock and slide the blade of your oldtimer under the edm and pry a little till you got a return...

We used those in the FA, circa 1979.
Cool to see one!

I lugged the orange HP3800 suitcase all over the place in the early 70's.

And the battery was just another orange case.

Thanks for the memories.

WOW...A 3808A.

Those babies had the same EDMI as a 3810B, and could reach out there 50,000' or so on a good day (or more often NIGHT).

I remember the 3800A (about 1970), and then the 3805, 3810A & B, but I liked the 3820A the best (a heavy sucker though). I ended up buying a Geodimeter Model 76 (and later a Model 78), but there will always be a soft spot in my head for the HPs.

They were all a lot easier to pack around than a pair of ElectroTapes, but they sure didn't have the range that the ElectroTapes had (206,000' one afternoon).

Ahhh...those were the days...T2s & EDMIs (sure beat chaining), but I don't think that I want to go back there.

Loyal

Loyal

We had a Laser Ranger for the longer shots, all taken at night.

That thing was BIG and needed a fully charged 12 volt auto battery on the ground.

It would literally measure as far as you could see.

Good match with a T-2.

Rather ominous, reminds me of surveying Abyssinia in 88'

Carl

I used a Laser Ranger a few times (I had a Ranger II for awhile). You are right about them being BIG suckers. I gave mine to a friend that collects old survey gear when I moved a few years ago (along with a AGA Model 78 and a Fujitsu 9 track tape drive).

Loyal

anybody remember Plessy Tellurometers? Those were miles and miles of distance measuring fun. By the late 70's, they were actually small enough to fit in a backpack. Small enough that if you had to hike 10 miles horizontal and 4K feet vertical to your obs point, you could still start measuring on the same day you started the hike.

Good memories of Shelikof Strait, Afognak, Kodiak, Shuyak, Swikshak Lagoon, etc.

BC

Wow, 3810B! Dragged one of those for many miles through the Catskills.

I don't think I'm in the market for one, though!

Rick

First time I even heard of the 3808. The last HP I used was a 3800 in 1978, while working for W. E. Neil & Assoc.. Went from that to a Red 1A, then Red 2, then the Sokia SD3r.

looks like it could be the counterpart to a cubitape dm- (16 or 60) ? still have one of those in the garage

Wow, the 3800A was a lot eaiser to use than the 3800. The 3800 required "twisting of switches" until the needle was centered, each switch was for a different wave length and distance integer, 1', 10', 100', 1000' etc. The problem was what was center, at times you could choose your own 10' range, the needle was on one side of the reference frame and +10' the needle was on the other side of the reference frame, pick the distance you like. The 3800A automated all of that with the LEDs and less operator judgment calls.

We did a lot of work with the old 3800 though a real tough and usually accurate unit, but nobody wanted to pack it into the woods.

Tom Wilson

Did any of you ever use the wild setup for the T-2 that had a base the size of a dvd player with it's own tribrach that the gun mounted in? It had the "eyes" that mounted on the telescope?
How about the old Army boxes with a diopter(?) antenna on the front? I think that was a microwave set. You could talk to the set on the other end using the thing. Had a crazy range too, something like 20k.

Wild Di3 Distomat?

Probably a Tellurometer. Cube a bout 1 foot each side.

Never used either, but did use an HP 3805 and a 3810.

Used almost all of the early HP's back in the day. Heavy, battery suckers, but dependable like all the early HP products.

Traversed a lot of miles using three tripods with tribrachs and shooting both ways. This was especially important with the dial in models as they would tend to find a way to fall in between the cracks on one of the settings. It must have been related to atmospheric stuff as you would get two different measurements sometimes but it was always easy to pick the outlier out.

I can't remember if we had those before or after the distomats. Goober distant devices that required you to look into a periscope shield and tune in the frequency. Those could barely measure over a half mile if my memory is correct.

The Telly's..Marvelous and with the FM you could shoot almost any distance and have clear communication between both units.

So now we pop out of the truck and get impatient if we have to wait more than 20 seconds for a fix.

Deral

Did use the Wild DI-3 quite a bit especially for radial stake out or radial data collection. Got good at using the switches to get the vertical angle in the thing for slope reduction to vertical difference and horiz. distance. Used a T-16 with it and if I remember right we estimated down to a .10 of a minute with it.
jud

The Old "Dial-A-Distance" 3800. It was the only one I ever used.