Type/Brand/Model of Binoculars in different ATC Towers!
 

Just curios, any info...magnification, objective lens, focus, field of view...

Zeiss 7x50B's used in Gibraltar Tower

No idea what they have now, but back in the golden days at Heathrow, the bins were ex-German battleship - monster things on a heavy stand. I'd guess they were probably 30x80, or thereabouts. They had various filters and other gadgets and were truly superb. Maybe someone grabbed them as a souvenir when the old tower closed? There were also smaller ones.. 10x50 I guess.

HD, yes indeed they are still in use on L22 (as we would describe the poistion of the new VCR), but only because I couldn't actually smuggle them out of the old VCR.

When they went away for refurb in the ?late 90s? I begged TPTB to just have the optics done, but no, the plank in charge of the operation specified that they should be 'prettified' by the ?tasteful? addition of matt black paint. Thus, any provenance for the things was destroyed at a stroke.

The repairers were also instructed to fill all the recessed screwholes with black gunk, and I spent a few hours removing the said gunk with a tinny screwdriver before everyones clothing got ruined.

They were supplemented by a few pairs of cheap and useless pound-shop specials which only fell into focus if you banged them hard on the desk (or a passing trainees head)

OK M... Great shame if they were messed up. When the said smaller bins were in the tower a controller who reached quite dizzy heights was on Air and I was on GMP. I wanted to look at something so called "G...., throw me the bins". CLONK, as they hit the window next to where I was sitting!!!

Kilo Twenty-Five....

Yellow ones...

Current bins at Heathrow for the last eight or so years have been Opticron Countrymans

Not worth what's paid for them. Think we must have gone through about twenty pairs in the last five years.

Is no-one using image-stabilized kit? I use a couple of pairs in another role and they're impressive.

For the ATCOs, we buy a couple of branded German names sold in Lidl, currently retailing at £12.99 each.
Superb quality and excellent value for money, although given the treatment they get we have to buy a new pair every year.

The ATCAs take much better care of theirs, 20 years old and still as good as the day they were unwrapped (the binoculars - not the ATCAs:p).

Mine's made by Thales - good for a hundred miles or so and displays on a nice big screen:}

To quote Viz Comic's Top Tips column of many moons ago -

"Do not waste money on expensive binoculars. Merely stand closer to the object you wish to view!" :ok:

HD - West Freugh Tower used to have a superb (and impressively huge) pair of German WWII vintage binos on a very large tripod. Still had the eagle insignia on the side and, on a clear day, you could read the Statue of Liberty's wristwatch with them.

<<currently retailing at £12.99 each. Superb quality.....>>

A somewhat contradictory statement, Niknak, but I'd be interested to hear what the German names are. No matter what you think and what your experience is, 12 quid binoculars can't be "superb quality". Don't even think of paying less than a few hundred quid, possibly more. It's like buying cameras or hi-fi. Sure, they may work, but they can't compare with something of quality. If I were you, I wouldn't use those 12 quid bins too often of you might mess up your eyesight.

HD

Hi Bren; I'd agree in principle, but LIDL had some binos branded as Bresser at some giveaway price last year. Bresser are Meade under a different name, so I collared two pairs before the word got out.

They are not in the same league as the LL tripod jobbies, it's true, but for spotting the deer and the boar in my 'backyard' they are superb.

OK M... Accept what you and Niknak say. I see that Bresser 10x42s retail at around £270, which would be a reasonable price, so I wonder how Lidl can bang them out at 12 quid? I wonder how much they'd charge for my Zeiss bins, which retail at £1.5K?