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This abstract photo, captured inside a lighthouse with a small 35mm-format mirrorless camera and a 50mm lens, is mostly a visual pun on the concept of a lighthouse, as well as a study in diagonal and radiating lines.
It was very tight quarters, especially with the tripod. But a tripod was essential here (less for sharpness - at 1/3000 sec - than for composition and framing).
Lighthouse, 2014.
All the pixels, but not for use in navigation, at https://www.flickr.com/photos/mattblaze/15393439037
@cvvhrn yeah, this the first time I’ve ever seen that on this route
@cvvhrn great shot with AF1 on the tarmac!
@darryl_ramm It seems to be a fairly common configuration for military flights in the DC area.
Does the Navy still have that "Mission Accomplished" banner in storage somewhere? If it worked for Bush in 2003, it should do wonders for Trump.
@jbaggs Even when they do an "off the record" move the press generally knows about it and follows (it's just not published in advance).
I took the photo above (with the president on one of the three helos) because the move was pre-announced and they were identifying as "Marine One" with air traffic control.
@jbaggs Where the president is at any moment is almost always public and with fine granularity. He has a press pool following him around.
@jbaggs It's not a decoy mission after they drop the president off. It's obvious and public when he's aboard; his schedule is published and his movements are reported live in the press.
@Kiloku The military rules are a bit different from the civilian rules, but yes.
Marine One (the "HMX-1" presidential transport mission) typically flies the president in a close formation of three (sometimes two, occasionally four) helicopters. This is partly for security, but also to ensure a spare is available nearby.
In DC, after they drop off the president, they often split up and fly (joyride?) around the area for a while to help the pilots keep their hours up.
Here's a typical convoy over Dupont Circle taking the president up to Walter Reed a few years ago.
@darryl_ramm Yes, I'm aware it was MLAT. I wasn't trying to give a detailed explanation. I was trying to send current info while it was happening.
It's possible that this is a new practice after last year's crash along the same route, but I've not seen it before.
@brunoph I think that's uncorrected for the barometer.
Marine One convoy heading to WH from Andrews. Unusually, they have their ADS-B transponders on (they almost never do).
@bob_zim This is a pretty standard design for lower frequency discone antennas used in commercial facilities. The guy wires have to be insulated, as I recall.
The military uses a version that’s oriented more like a familiar VHF/UHF discone, which they call a “disc-cage”. It’s a more complex design, because the entire base of the conical has to be isolated from ground.
Discones are basically half of a biconical dipole.
@bob_zim It’s a discone.
The tip of the conical section is at the base of the tower (from the ring). The “disc” is the buried ground system.
I should note that while the site (and its cousins) had a number of large discone antennas like this one, they were mostly there as backups in case the main antennas (which included truly massive wire rhombics oriented toward various oceanic regions) or transmitter combiners failed.
The old Bell System did not mess around.
Ships on the high seas still occasionally make some use of shortwave radio, but its importance has greatly diminished over the last few decades. The Coast Guard still maintains a "watch" on emergency shortwave frequencies, listening for distress calls, but most transoceanic ships are now equipped with more modern, higher-bandwidth satellite communications systems.
Places like this are what the Internet looked like a century ago. Infrastructure is often heroic, and occasionally looks the part.
There were three AT&T radiotelephone sites in the continental US, each with its own transmit and receive antenna farms: Ocean Gate, NJ (shown here, serving the North Atlantic), Miami (serving the Caribbean and the Gulf), and Point Reyes, CA (serving the Pacific).
All the sites have by now been razed, either for redevelopment or as nature preserves. The antennas (including this one) are mostly gone now.