A Light in the Tunnels

In the past week, I went down to the San Xavier mine just south of Tuscon, AZ, to do a site survey. In another week or so, I'll head back for the real work. The point of this trip was to poke around, identify good locations for our antennas. In this case we were looking for electromagnetically quiet locations and locations where the antennas would actually fit underground.



About 150 years ago, someone said, "There's Gold in these hills" and so they began digging. What a surprise when they only found silver.


The mine was "operational" until 1950 when it was given to the University of Arizona. Some graduate students in the Mining Engineering Program there showed us around under ground. They have us hardhats, lights, and self rescuers (a delightful present to keep one alive in the event of a mine fire).

We crawled down tunnels, climbed down ladders, and made measurements.


Here's Allen descending the ladders to a lower level of the mine, the 100 ft level.



Down in the drifts, as you would call them if you are miner, there isn't much more room than you need to stand. Occasionally there are chambers big enough for our antenna.


After poking around the mine, I went and visited my sister up in Phoenix. We ate well, she showed me her labs and office, and I met her adviser. Apparently the latter is quite a treat.

Somewhere there's a picture of us enjoying margaritas and tequila at El Barrio, but that's locked in her iPhone somewhere.