Audio
Ronald Rosie Interview Diaphone at SMI Lighthouse
Transcript
Ron Rosie
That foghorn had a diaphragm in there, about this big around and it tapered down. And when the air hit it, it would clatter and that’s what made the sound. Well, the snow would go in there and freeze the dang thing. So, you had to go up and take this big plate off the back, with about 8 bolts in it. Go outside with a stick and ram that thing back out of there. You always had a spare one and you’d jam it back in and put the cover back on and start the air motor again.
I can show you in the tower, there’s a little table up there. It’s probably, oh about this high, and the air horn that ran the cam, that tripped the horn would freeze up. So, you cut a hole in the table and put a lamp under there. So, the heat lamp warm kept the motor from freezing up.
We had a big cam and on that cam was one bump, that was seven seconds. About every minute it blew seven seconds. That thing would go around like this…
Interviewer
To make the revolutions.
Ron Rosie:
…then she’d trip and blow and drop and do it again. Kept going. Never stopped.
See and then the [unintelligible] that we had down at the fog signal. We had two of them down there. The front shoulder was the engine, the back shoulder was the air compressor. And they were big. The big flag was about this high on each end. And you regulate the speed of the engine, once you got the pressure up. Everybody said it took so long, but it well you can't believe everything you hear. We knew how long it took.
And you heated it with a torch. You give it the air and it would take off. And you'd, you regulate the speed of the engine to the air, certain air pressure and you could keep the horn at seven second because the pressure of the air would fluctuate the motor would run faster or slower.
So, you had the engine run at exact speed and depending on the weather. But you could regulate the engines by a notch or two on a lever. For the warning, you time it with a stopwatch. Right at the fog signal, that’s how you kept it even.
Interviewer:
Well, that took a little bit of work to figure that out.
Ron Rosie:
Well, but back in them days, that was a must. There was none of this maybe, perhaps, a little bit don’t mean no difference. It didn't work that way.
Interviewer:
Right, it had to happen.
Ron Rosie:
It had to be right, or it wasn't going to work. A lot of them say well, well hard to do. No, you got used to it.
Description
Ronald Rosie, son of the last lighthouse keeper on South Manitou Island, discusses how harsh winters could complicate the use and the sound of the air diaphone at the lighthouse.
Credit
NPS Interview
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