The Rocky Mountain Institute of Advanced Studies

1. Long, long ago

   The Rocky Mountain Institute of Advanced Studies was formed in the early 70's as an offshoot of the Radio telescope site somewhere in the bush near Caroline,Alberta. Phd's were issued at a cost of $3.00 each and meetings were held at late hours in local watering holes. The Institute's main building was damaged in a mishap involving a large person and the apparent collapse of the pole over the pit,and has now passed into oblivion.

   148k jpeg of a typical meeting

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2. The 'Long Station Wagon' log: Here are some excerpts from the log of the real Radio Telescope found while tidying up the lab.

   "21 Jan '72 Grish,James,Harding,Vaneldik,etc.

   1. Arrived at 20:30 hours,Route from ranger station to cabin not plowed;four wheel chains and super low speed required to reach destination.
   2. Vehicle was unstable on highway and when approaching Clearwater bridge touched brakes and vehicle broke into oscillation and went into the ditch. Tried to winch out of ditch but winch didn't work so a passing truck hooked onto winch and started pulling out and broke winch cable and motor. Finally the other truck used it's winch to haul our vehicle out.
   3. Attempted to put the new modular system on the air____"
   (Technical stuff started here,they left the site Jan 22 at 1600 hrs.)

   "3 Feb. 1972 Goddard-Holroyd

   1. Left Edmonton at 14:15 and arrived at site 19:30. No problems getting here.
   2. • HEATER IN BUNKHOUSE OUT
      • PILOT OUT
      • ALL LIQUIDS FROZEN
   3. Ski-Doo wouldn't start.Battery sitting on Ski-Doo seat Friday morning.
   4. Located side cutter and Crescent wrench missing from Big Blue tool box. Located EMPTY jerry can.
   5. Lights in bunk-house did not want to start. (We need new fluorescent lamps.)
   6. Change batteries_____" (Four pages of technical stuff deleted.)

   There is a lot more but I don't have disk space for it. Some notable incidents were the Dr. Hardings bagging a moose during hunting season, lots of misadventures involving vehicles and the temperamental Ski-Doo, and the chewing up of coax cables by a Wolverine.

   The last log entry was August,1972.

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3. Papers The main purpose of the site was the testing of a three mile long antenna array. Here are a few of many papers related to it:
   • Chutte,Englefield,Harding,James & Routledge ,"Site-testing for a proposed 12 Mhz. radio telescope in Alberta ,"J. Roy. Astron. soc. Can.,vol 65,no.2, pp 49-59.
   • D.A. Wynne ,"Physical tapering of large antenna arrays" ,Msc. thesis, Dept. of electrical Engineering, Univ. of Alberta, 1973.
   • J. Galt, C.R. Purton, and P.A.G. Scheuer, " A large 10 Mhz. array for radio astronomy," Publ. Dominion Observatory, vol. 25, No. 10 ,pppp 295-304, 1967.
   • Barry David McLarnon, "A multiplexed feeder system for accurate excitation of a large antenna array ", Msc. thesis, Dept. of electrical Engineering, Univ. of Alberta, 1973.

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