A code svetomayak neon lights glow red and it can be seen from all sides.
Visible at night in IMC at a distance of approximately 50-60km.
Includes night (in the case of transfer of the airfield on the night "in the production of flight and the day in cases of poor visibility).
Looks like a pipe because there is vertical neon lamps - like fluorescent colors.
The lantern is used at night or in heavy fog and I pointed to the reason why it was designed by G.E. in 1928. It is used in heavy fog.
I donīt know, how this information is validated.
I checked it on a page of german aviators from former DDR, which used that equipment themselves in the active time.
There is probably some confusion by translating it from german to english via google translation.
If itīs translated with google, the last sentence reads:
The code consists of nine fluorescent lights in the color yellow to red. At low visibility conditions and corresponding altitude you can see the beacon code dozens of kilometers.
Which is not correct. because the german word "günstig" is tranlated to english with "low", which is quite the opposite of the german meaning being "favorable" which means good visibility.
If you check the picture, then it is easy to see, that in fog this lantern is definitly not seen very far, and not at all the mentioned 60 km. Thats the max range during night in favorable conditions.
So i think we can disregard the effect of the lantern in this case.
franzl