Fort Stanton Cave Study Project news for Thursday, July 23

We have now nailed down one of the trips mentioned in the e-mails below.  We will be doing the radio location trip next week, Thursday, July 23 through Saturday, July 25.  The other trip is still being planned, but we haven’t nailed down the dates yet.

Regarding the radio location trip, the cave team will enter the cave on Thursday and travel to the radio location site, and deploy a beacon on the morning of Friday, July 24.  Another team will be on the surface on Friday morning searching for the signal of that beacon, and trying to locate the point directly over the beacon in the cave.

I have attached a map to this message that shows the area that we anticipate working in, near the intersection of Little Creek Rd and Custer’s Last Stand Rd.  We will likely be in the area defined by the red circle. This area involves several different property owners, including some Rainmakers property on the north side of the circle, and the Walco II Ranch on the south side.

What will actually happen is that there will be an individual walking around carrying an antenna and a radio with headphones.  The person will be listening for the signal from the beacon underground.  Other individuals will be placing PVC “sticks" on the ground, at the direction of the radio person.  These sticks are placed in such a way that they point towards the beacon, and hence, towards the location on the surface directly over the beacon.

Once the surface point is located, we will try a couple of methods of determining the depth of the beacon.  One method involves determining the angle of the strongest signal from a point offset from the surface point; the other involves raising the antenna on a mast and measuring the decrease in beacon signal strength when the antenna is raised from the surface to a point in the air.  For this part, there will be people holding guy lines to stabilize the mast.  It will kind of look like a “maypole”.

After a few hours, the cave team will move the beacon and we will repeat the process a short distance away.  We should be finished by early afternoon on Friday.  We will take all the equipment with us and leave nothing behind.

Interested persons are welcome to watch the process, and help out, if you wish!

If anyone has any questions or concerns about this activity, let me or project director Ron Lipinski know.  In addition, I will be in the area talking to the affected property owners, if they are home, on Thursday, July 23.  I will be at the Rancho Ruidoso Valley Estates pavilion off Custer’s Last Stand Rd, from about 10 am to 11 am on Thursday.  Look for my white Toyota Tundra. I would welcome talking to any of you about the radio location project or any other aspect of Fort Stanton Cave, or the Fort Stanton Cave Study Project.

Once again, we thank everyone for your cooperation with the

.