Lure of the most desolate coast in the world!

[Michael Alexander]

An interesting article, from an era when Oranjemund was a really remote part of the world.... ( the article is  almost 700kb)

[Larry G]

Good grief! This sounds like "A Twist Of Sand", if anyone remembers it. I have travelled via Landrover and Jeep in many areas of Diamond Areas 1 and 2, and never in my wildest dreams did I experience 'quicksand'. This was almost fifty years ago and, like the old SWA cops we became fairly good drivers in the dunes and on the beach [when there was one]. Helicopters indeed; that's for sissies!

[Michael Alexander]

Welcome onto the Board Larry, keep 'em coming, I have taken the liberty of pasting your email to me in here...

"In 1962 Doug Bonner and I spent a happy month or so at Meob, spending
> enough money to keep the Diamond Area II concession 'right' with the
> gov't. We flew in with jeeps and a small Ovambo crew, the landing strip
> being marked by a wind-sock, and lived in huts left by the Germans that
> decamped from there in 1930 [as shown by newspaper dates]. We, too,
> feasted on steenbras from the bay, after our fresh supplies ran out.
>
> But what tickled me was that a year or two later I returned to O'mund
> during the early days of undersea diamond exploration and was shown a
> cigar box containing maybe 100 VOC coins, mostly copper but a few silver,
> found ON the landing strip we had used! Sadly we missed them, but although
> one side was pristine and fresh, the other was totally corroded by the
> wind blowing sand over the  300 years they lay there.
>
> Incidentally, the work carried out by the Germans covered about 50 km of
> the coast. While we camped at their base station, at the mouth of the
> buried Tschaucab [sp?] River where there was potable water, a pipeline ran
> from this northwards to a string of smaller camps. All iron was totally
> rusted to fragments, brass patinaed, and wood just eroded if in direct
> contact with the wind. When the Germans left, through the surf since
> Sandwich Harbour was closed at the time, they left just about everything
> except for their personal belongings. It was reminiscent of Nevil Shute's
> 'On The Beach'; weird. "


Great to keep the history......

[SandyB]

Good  pioneering  stories keep  them flowing ..

[toonfandangl]

Larry!! I remember the book, the author was Geoffery Jenkins and there was a film called 'A Twist Of Sand' with Richard Johnson, Honor Blackman, Jeremy Kemp, and I think at the end of the book the plot turned out to be OIL not Diamonds.

The book was much better than the film.

'On The Beach' by Nevil Shute a better film and a good author.

[Chris Bruce]

Geoffrey Jenkins visited Oranjemund in the 1950's to do his research for A Twist of Sand and my father Phil Bruce was asked to escort him through the mining areas. They spent several days together and Dad is mentioned in the books acknowledgments for the assistance he provided. 

[Charles Scheepers]

Tellurometer

From Wikipedia.

The Tellurometer was the first successful microwave electronic distance measurement equipment. The name derives from the Greek tellus, meaning Earth.

History:

The original Tellurometer, known as the Micro-Distancer M/RA 1, was introduced in 1959.[1] It was invented by Dr. Trevor Lloyd Wadley of the Telecommunications Research Laboratory of the South African Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), also responsible for the Wadley Loop receiver, which allowed precision tuning over wide bands, a task that had previously required switching out multiple crystals.[2]

Methodology:

The Tellurometer emits an electronic wave: the remote station reradiates the incoming wave in a similar wave of more complex modulation, and the resulting phase shift was a measure of the distance travelled. The results appear on a cathode ray tube with circular sweep. This instrument penetrates haze and mist in daylight or darkness and has a normal range of 30-50 km but can extend up to 70km.[3]

Application:

The Tellurometer design yields high accuracy distance measurements over geodetic distances, but it is also useful for second order survey work, especially in areas where the terrain was rough and/or the temperatures extreme.

Examples of remote locations mapped using Tellurometer surveys are Adams Bluff, Churchill Mountains, Cook Mountains, Jacobsen Glacier, Mount Albright, Mount Predoehl, Mount Summerson, Sherwin Peak and Vogt Peak.

The MRB2 or Hydrodist was a marine version[3] that was used in coastal surveys and calibrating ships using other survey navigation systems.

Commercial exploitation:

Plessey, the British electronics company, formed a new subsidiary known as Tellurometer (Pty) Limited in the 1960's to manufacture the product and to develop and sell derivatives.[3] The Company subsequently introduced numerical displays, solid state transmitters, integrated circuits and eventually microprocessors for the product.

[henniek]

Plessey also supply Tellurometers for the mining industry. The unit is fitted on top of the man cage , or rock hoist - the signal is transmitted to surface , giving a precise reading of the position of the cage . Especially helpfull on the Automatic Coupe hoists like the ones supplied by Asia & AEG ..

[Michael Alexander]

Was there not quicksand up at Baker's Bay near the pan?