As a fan of SEs... (1 Viewer)

[brocknroller]

OK,so let me answer with a question,to get the topic back so to speak.The SE's are what? 11-12 year old technology?Most would agree that the most gains in binocular optics in the past ten years,has been in the field of coatings.Most that have old and new SE's say there is no difference in view.Most say that optically they still rate right up there with the best.So my question is,what percentage does the Fl's,el's,and Ultravids have on the SE's optically?Are the SE's 85%?,90%?,95%? as good optically?Is this a testament to great engineering,or a lack of technology gains in the last 12 years?

GOOD QUESTION, Ardy!!! I think I answered it in bits and pieces on various BF threads, but here's a summary...

First, Nikon did update the SE's coatings - at least on the 505 and 550s, perhaps 504s too, but I have only compared the difference btwn the 505 and earlier 501 SE, and there's a very noticeable ("hit your eye like a big pizza pie") difference in contrast and color depth in the newer 505 version. That's amore!

I've also compared the 505 SE (just today, in fact, during our daily Cloudy Valley 1/2 hour sunshine allowance btwn 5 p.m.-5:30 p.m) with the 8x32 LX, which some (including me) consider to be up there in the alphasphere except for the price (and more recently, the ED/FL/HD/whatever-comes-next-in-the-alphabet-low-dispersion glass).

The LX was ahead of its time so it's taken awhile for other roof makers to catch up with Nikon's coatings (and its smooth as a baby's bottom focuser).

The SE was ahead of its time too in overall optical quality and optical train design, and it's taken the alpha roof makers some time to... to...well, to...nope, I guess they're still working on it!

Seriously, folks, the past 12 years have seen amazing advances in roof optics, from the pre-phase coated Nikon Sporter, to the phase coated Monarchs, to the p-coated and zoot (silver) coated LX (we won't talk about the lead-free LX L, somebody at the Nikon optics lab must have read the formulas for the coatings and glass upside down - probably the same inverted vision opticians that made the original Zeiss Victory , to the dielectric coatings and ED glass of the EDG, a lead-free roof bin I can not only live with but recommend (though that's also true of the much less expensive lead-free EII and the presumably lead-free 505 SE that came before).

So what's happened, not only with Nikon but Zeiss, Leica, Swaro, Pentax, Leupold, et al is that roof bin manufacturers have spent an enormous amount of time and money trying to overcome the inherent flaws of the roof prism design so they could produce a roof bin that is optically on par with a $399-$599 porro (EII/SE), with some added bells and whistles (WP,FP,twist-up eyecups, and ED glass, which could be found in some porros 20 years ago), and then charge prices too obscene to mention to recoup all that R & D.

IMO, the time since the SE was first introduced has been spent mostly on trying to get roofs to catch-up with what the SE/EII and some other high end porros already had and then make them WP/FP, add some amenities, and finally exotic glasses to get rid of the pesky CA in the roofs.

The only reason that some of the best porros ever made don't have the latest and greatest 99-layer AR coatings is that manufacturers gave up on making premium porros, allegedly, to GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.

Do you think if the "people" knew that the Great Roof Experiment was going to cost them $2K a pop that they would have agreed and said, Yeah, go ahead, give us what we want and fagatabout the cost!

We the People already knew that porros could be water sealed (though it makes the focusers harder to turn) and now we know (and in theory, manufacturers have known for as long as we knew it about roofs), they can be made with internal focusers and with nitrogen/argon gas like roofs.

So I'm scratching my head (oh, got to get some Selsun Blue), wondering why the bleep it took so long for manufacturers to realize this self-evident truth when they could have saved themselves and their customers enormous amounts of money by simply updating the fine porros of yesteryear.

In the early years, comparable configuration roofs even weighed as much or in some cases actually outweighed porros. So that couldn't be the reason.

As far as ergonomics, surely there must be a lot of birders with big hands like me, who find roofs a bit unwieldy (yes, you put your thumbs backward, but keep doing that for long periods of time and you'll end up with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!).

So the question is: Given that optics manufacturers could simply update porros with WP, FP, twist-ups, super duper AR coatings, and all the bells and whistles that people have come to expect in premium roofs, WHY did they plod on and on all these years with correcting the flaws of roofs rather than simply update excellent porros like the Nikon SE?

This is what I call my "M & M Theory" of Roof Development: Mystique and Money.

Porros were ho-hum. They were your dad's Oldsmobile. Are you going to take your girlfriend birding in your dad's Oldsmobile? Heck, it was in large part that "old fart stigma" that killed the Oldsmobile.

My Great Grandfather drove an Oldsmobile.
My Grandfather drives an Oldsmobile.
My Father drives an Oldsmobile.
I drive an Oldsmobile.
My children will not drive Oldsmobiles!

Replace the word "Oldsmobile" with "porro" and there you have it (or at least half of it).

The other half was that in the process of making roofs as good as porros, manufacturers could (after recouping their R & D costs) charge more money for roofs by justifying the higher cost due to roofs being more difficult to make (an argument that itself is more difficult to make now that Chinese companies like Zen Ray, Promaster, and Frontier have entered the fray with good quality ED roofs "at a price you can afford").

I realize that this is probably not a popular view and one that might be frowned upon in the roof-friendly BF community, and admittedly, I don't have the technical documentation to back up it up (the documents are locked away in heavy duty, fire-proof and burglar-proof 1-ton safes at Zeiss, Leica, Swaro, and Nikon .

However, when you look at the advances these companies have made in their top-o'-the-line roofs, most of them have been about tweaking roofs to make them brighter, sharper, and have less CA... ur..like good quality porros.

So that's my porro-prism filtered view of bin history.

As Cowboy Jack Clement and Johnny Cash used to sing:

"I don't like it but I guess things happen that way."

Brock

 

[ceasar]

Very informitive reply Bob.Question:If one of the big 3 were to produce a state of the art porro (i.e. wp,fl glass) and at a lower price than their top roofs,would it sell enough to keep producing it,or are porros no matter how refined,just out of fashion?

No doubt it could be done, just as Nikon did it with the SE's. Esp. if they did not bother with waterproofing. But I think it would end up being an expensive "loss leader" just as the SE's are/were. I don't think that any of the big three are in a position to do it. Nikon's size and diversification in the industry is unique.

It is, I think, in a large part, a "fashion" problem as Brock alludes to in his post above. The "viewing public" here, (forgive this pun, O Lord!) clearly prefers the slim lines of Roof Prisms over the wall-eyed look Paolo Ignazio Porro first introduced to the public about 150 years ago. The manufacturers, business people that they are, are going to give their customers what they want, and in this case, the competitive quest to build as good, or better a roof prism binocular as a the best porro prism has been good for the optics industry in general.

Bob

 

[John M Robinson]

OK,so let me answer with a question,to get the topic back so to speak.The SE's are what? 11-12 year old technology?Most would agree that the most gains in binocular optics in the past ten years,has been in the field of coatings.Most that have old and new SE's say there is no difference in view.Most say that optically they still rate right up there with the best.So my question is,what percentage does the Fl's,el's,and Ultravids have on the SE's optically?Are the SE's 85%?,90%?,95%? as good optically?Is this a testament to great engineering,or a lack of technology gains in the last 12 years?

To my eye my 8x32 SEs are at least as good as my 8x42 Ultravids. I like them both, and I do appreciate the robust feel of the Ultravid, but I slightly prefer the view through the SEs. Your question was the basis of my original post, what recent advances in bin technology could be applied to the SE to make it the undoubtable world's best bin, porro or roof? Alas as others have said, even if they did make a world's best SE, it's still a pprro, or your Dad's Oldsmobile as Brock puts it, and would not likely compete against sexier roofs. My suggestion is buy one while you can.

Oh, to answer your specific question, I'd say the SEs are optically 100% of the Ultravid BRs and I personally can't see a difference between my BRs and the newer HDs.

John

 

[etudiant]

Could robustness have played a role?
It is quite common to find miscollimated porros, even when new in the shop, while roofs have been consistently good, at least in my experience.
Dick Cooke, one of the top opticians in the US, once noted that he'd seen one USN porro fall down a deck ladder without any damage while another lost collimation badly after tipping over on the mess table, so there is a sensitivity in the design.
Consistent reliability is a more attractive sales feature than superior but inconsistent design, at least for the mass market. Maybe Nikon decided that they could only achieve that reliability in a roof design.
I'd love to have one of the optical pros on this forum give their insights on this speculation.

 

[ceasar]

It is my understanding that collimation problems in Porro Prism binoculars are much easier to fix (and consequently less costly) than in Roof prism binoculars although I have never tried to fix this problem in either type of binocular!
Bob

 

[Sancho]

Very informitive reply Bob.Question:If one of the big 3 were to produce a state of the art porro (i.e. wp,fl glass) and at a lower price than their top roofs,would it sell enough to keep producing it,or are porros no matter how refined,just out of fashion?

Don´t Swaro Habicht porros still have a cult following? They´re waterproof and nitrogen-purged, 7.8 degree FOV. Cost about the same nowawdays as the Nikon SE 8x32. Eye-relief a bit tight at 12mm. I´ve never seen a pair, though.

 

[Ardy]

Don´t Swaro Habicht porros still have a cult following? They´re waterproof and nitrogen-purged, 7.8 degree FOV. Cost about the same nowawdays as the Nikon SE 8x32. Eye-relief a bit tight at 12mm. I´ve never seen a pair, though.

Are they still made?
This is like Betamax deja vu,all over again

 

[brocknroller]

Could robustness have played a role?
It is quite common to find miscollimated porros, even when new in the shop, while roofs have been consistently good, at least in my experience.
Dick Cooke, one of the top opticians in the US, once noted that he'd seen one USN porro fall down a deck ladder without any damage while another lost collimation badly after tipping over on the mess table, so there is a sensitivity in the design.
Consistent reliability is a more attractive sales feature than superior but inconsistent design, at least for the mass market. Maybe Nikon decided that they could only achieve that reliability in a roof design.
I'd love to have one of the optical pros on this forum give their insights on this speculation.

I’m not an "optical pro” but I can tell you from personal experience that the SEs can take a lickin’ and keep on tickin’. They don’t go out of collimation easily. You have to really abuse them.

However, the EII is more delicato than robusto. The lack of full rubber armoring like the SE (except for the bare metal near the center post), and the EII’s bare metal objective housings make them more vulnerable.

I’m not sure if the two porros share the same prism seats, some BF member took them apart, but I can’t remember what he said about that. I’ll have to delve into the archives when I have more time.

Prism seat design plays an important role in how well porro prisms stay in collimation. The inferior spring-loaded prism seats used in big Chinese bins are supremo fragile (pronounced FRA-GEE’-LEE like Darren McGavin in “A Christmas Story”).

I had two 15x70 Chinese bins shipped to me, one checked and initialed by the owner of the company himself and the other collimated by the trusted individual seller, who knows how to collimate bins.

Although both bins were packed well, merely getting bounced around in transit knocked both of bins out of collimation by the time they reached me, which in one case, was only one state away. These are not isolated cases, if you read astro-bin forums, you’ll find that it’s quite common.

So much so, in fact, that one dealer of Chinese bins has a Website devoted to how to collimate the big Chinese bins he sells!

But I suppose the good news is that with some patience and a collimation tool, you can get the bins back in collimation rather than sending them back to the manufacturer (I didn’t have the patience or the right tool, so I sent them back anyway).

This experience turned me off to Chinese optics for quite awhile and to write an open letter on a forum calling for "Haute Chinese" bins.

Only now are the Chinese finally becoming followers of W. E. Deming, the quality control guru, who couldn’t get the American company he worked for to listen to his ideas about quality control so he went over to Japan and helped the Japanese build an economic empire.

Here’s a short biop on Deming:
http://articles.latimes.com/1993-12-21/news/mn-4178_1_quality-control

A drop test to see which would stay in collimation longer, an 8x32 SE or an 8x32 Ultravid would be very interesting.

To the person who said he owned both these bins, please try this test at home…....... and then ship me the remains of the 8x32 SE so I can send them to Nikon for $20 to be repaired or replaced.

Nikon has the best used bin repair policy in the entire bino world. That’s one reason why I’m a Nikon bin enthusiast.

You can use them with impunity, though I’m still careful, because I don’t want to wait weeks to get them back if they need repairs, particularly now that my collection has thinned faster than customer line at IndyMac after being taken over by federal regulators.

However, your point is well taken. Perhaps the fact that roofs can be made more “mangle proof” than porros because of their straight through prisms and internal focusers is another reason (besides mystique and money) that bin manufacturers chose to advance the roof model rather than your grandfather’s porros.

To wit, I will revise the name of my theory to the “3 Ms of Roof Prism Development”: Mystique, Money, and Mangle-proofing, which would include waterproofing and fog proofing because water damage and internal fogging can “mangle” the insides of a bin.

As Bob pointed out, roofs are harder to fix if something does go wrong since roof prism alignment needs to be more precise than porros, and the technicians also have to suck out the air of the exposed insides and inject nitrogen or argon for WP/FP.

So you better have your Leica Passport Warranty handy if you do need to ship your Ultravid back after the drop test.

Even though I read that Leica customer service reps recently took a course with Miss Manners, they are still going to charge you through the proboscis if you don’t have the warranty.

However, since a premium roof is much less likely to go out of collimation and is less vulnerable to other susceptibilities of porros, if you take reasonable care of your roofs, they could last you a lifetime and even become an heirloom you could pass on to your grandchildren, who will promptly sell them on eGoogle (after Google buys out eBay) because by then, porro prism bins will be back in style.

Brock

P.S. They already have the domain:
http://www.aboutus.org/EGoogle.com

 

[John Dracon]

Have been enjoying reading the flow of thoughts and opinions on the endangered optical species, viz., porros and just why the roofs are dominating the market. I picked up a recent Zeiss catalog on sports optics and was surprised to read (1) that Zeiss has begun to move away from its long established tradition of marketing only the best and
(2) that only one porro model is still in production.

My experience over the years with Zeiss binoculars is that each model was at the apex in terms of optical design and purpose. Now we have best (FL Victory) and good (Conquest) binoculars to choose from with the Conquest line being expanded significantly. This certainly is a philosophical shift on Zeiss's part.

The only porro now listed is the 7x50 B IF rubber covered binocular. The outstanding 15x60 porro is no longer being made. I have one of those big honkers, and it is truly an exceptional piece of optics. What I found most interesting in their catalog is that they still are pushing their 8x56 telescopic looking roofs, even when they have more compact roof models which in my judgment are superior. That football field long roof (pardon the hyberbole) is a dinosaur with a narrow field and swings like a pendulum when dangling from the neck. I had one and quickly traded it off. One day I ran into a fellow hunting big horn sheep on a steep mountainside. He had one of those old "classics" as they are called, and he readily admitted he had bought (and brought) the wrong glass. Evidently, Zeiss is still caught up in some nostalgia by including that binocular in its line. I call it a man bites dog kind of optical piece. I can't imagine a birder buying one of those. John

 

[drn]

...
As Bob pointed out, roofs are harder to fix if something does go wrong since roof prism alignment needs to be more precise than porros, and the technicians also have to suck out the air of the exposed insides and inject nitrogen or argon for WP/FP.
...
Brock

the technicians suck the air out? :-O those companies probably have blond techicians to do that "job", don't they?
No, nothing is sucked out. The dry gas is pumped in at one end until only it and no more air comes out at the other end. It's a pure blow job (no sucking).

 

[Fernando np]

Sancho,
The Swaros Habitch porros are very common in Spain, mainly among hunters. A good value.
I can't understand people who see as handicaps for stability the lack of size or weight. After using for first time my 8X32SE my main doubt was about its performance in low light. Luckily soon I enjoyed the experience of watching two wolves walking against the blizard at the end of a dark day. Wind so strong as for feeling how my stopped car was rolling. I left the car and swiftly saw the wolves. The SE pass the test in low light. Apart of this I could imagine more stable non-stabilized binoculars in my hands. They are so short than really they look inside my fist. By the wide the big hood of my feather jacket gave full cover of the weather.
An 15X60 SE would be my sugestion.

Fernando

 

[ceasar]

Sancho,
The Swaros Habitch porros are very common in Spain, mainly among hunters......................................................................................................................................................................... The SE pass the test in low light. Apart of this I could imagine more stable non-stabilized binoculars in my hands. They are so short than really they look inside my fist. By the wide the big hood of my feather jacket gave full cover of the weather.
An 15X60 SE would be my sugestion.

Fernando

You know, Fernando, a 15 x 60 SE probably could be done. And Nikon could use the same 16mm oculars in it that they use in the 8 x 32; 10 x 42 and 12 x 50.:t:
Bob

 

[brocknroller]

the technicians suck the air out? :-O those companies probably have blond techicians to do that "job", don't they?
No, nothing is sucked out. The dry gas is pumped in at one end until only it and no more air comes out at the other end. It's a pure blow job (no sucking).

This reminds me of a cartoon I once saw in Playboy. A woman is kneeling in front of a guy (with her long hair hiding what's she's doing, of course). You can only see that her cheeks are red and expanded like a blow fish.

The balloon caption above the guy reads: No, No, it's just an expression!

Yes, I meant to say the air is blown out.

Thanks for that "heads up".

Brock

 

[drn]

This reminds me of a cartoon I once saw in Playboy. A woman is kneeling in front of a guy (with her long hair hiding what's she's doing, of course). You can only see that her cheeks are red and expanded like a blow fish.
The balloon caption above the guy reads: No, No, it's just an expression! ...
Brock

retraining for a new job in the optics industry?

 

[John Russell]

What I found most interesting in their catalog is that they still are pushing their 8x56 telescopic looking roofs, even when they have more compact roof models which in my judgment are superior. That football field long roof (pardon the hyberbole) is a dinosaur with a narrow field and swings like a pendulum when dangling from the neck. I had one and quickly traded it off. One day I ran into a fellow hunting big horn sheep on a steep mountainside. He had one of those old "classics" as they are called, and he readily admitted he had bought (and brought) the wrong glass. Evidently, Zeiss is still caught up in some nostalgia by including that binocular in its line. I call it a man bites dog kind of optical piece. I can't imagine a birder buying one of those. John

The 8x56 format was never intended for birding. It is popular among European hunters for use from a high seat, often under twilight conditions.
The Zeiss Classic is long because of its Abbe-König prisms and long focal length objectives, both features being conducive to good optical quality.
It nevertheless only weighs 1000g and its FOV is only significantly exceeded in this size by the Zeiss Victory, which is both heavier and more expensive.
In a test of thirteen 8x50 and 8x56 bins in the German magazine, "Pirsch" it attained daylight and twilight transmission values of 94,3% and 93,1% respectively, marginally behind the Victory but way ahead of the rest.

John R.

 

[John Dracon]

John R - Thanks for your comments. The 8x56 Dialyt has a FOV of only 330 feet per 1,000 feet. It has to be considered in the forefront of awkwardness in handling. Even the Zeiss Victory and Conquest "compact" models 8x20 have wider fields. Its popularity with Euopean hunters is unquestioned. What isn't unquestioned is the sporting ethic which allows shooting at twilight from a shooting box (akin to a bench rest) on a game animal that lives in a confined area.

How the one power gain over Zeiss's 7x50 porro in twilight is a real advantage escapes me. I owned both models and have substantial hunting experience in what is call "fair chase" hunting, to which high seat hunting can't compare. Until P coating came along the optics of the Zeiss 8x56 Dialyt couldn't match an inexpensive Bushnell 8x40 porro. The Dialyt ought to be given a decent burial and forgotten. But as Twain said, "It is a difference of opinion that makes a horse race." No, it isn't a bird binocular. It is a niche binocular as you pointed out. My comments on the Dialyt 8x56 were just an aside. Another aside. I find it difficult to believe that Zeiss abandoned its lovely, portable, usable, and optically sound 8x30 B porro years ago. John

 

[ostling41]

How the one power gain over Zeiss's 7x50 porro in twilight is a real advantage escapes me. I owned both models

I lived in Butte from 1978-82, and on two occasions rode my motorcycle to White Sulphur Springs. It struck me then as a nice town, but like most towns in western Montana (definitely including Butte) it seemed far from prosperous. I'm wondering if you could buy half the town, for the price of your binocular collection.

 

[John Russell]

What isn't unquestioned is the sporting ethic which allows shooting at twilight from a shooting box (akin to a bench rest) on a game animal that lives in a confined area.

John,
I'm not a hunter and we all have different ethical positions that fall somewhere between vegans and Buffalo Bill, but AFIK the animals hunted from a high seat are not confined and the targets are often wild boar.
There is a well known animal filmer here in Germany by the name of Andreas Kieling, who has done some really crazy things like filming Alaskan Brown from 10m, swimming with saltwater crocs in Australia, and getting really close to Komodo dragons. He said that his scariest experience ever was being attacked by a wild boar near his home in the Eifel region.
BTW, the AFOV of the 7x50 Zeiss is not much better than the 8x56 Dialyt and it has individual focussing.
If one wants 7mm exit pupils and a wide FOV it means big prisms and lots of weight.

John R.

 

[John Dracon]

Allan - "Far from prosperous" is a good discription of current White Suffering Springs. In fact the U.S. Chamber of Commerce several years ago found Meagher County (WSS country seat) to have the lowest per capita income of any county in the entire United States. WSS and Butte have much in common - located at 5,000 feet and surrounded by mountains, Butte had the colorful copper kings - Marcus Daly and William Clark - Clark managed to bribe his way into being elected to a Congressional Senate seat, and our U.S. Senate in a spasm of self-righteousness refused to seat him. (later they did)

Meagher County was named after one Thomas Francis Meagher, who packed in his forty four years several lifetimes of adventures. Born in Ireland to affluent parents, he became such a noisy promoter of Irish independence that the English exiled him to Tasmania, but he managed to escape and get to America where he distinguished himself fighting for the North in the Civil War. He eventually was named Montana's first territorial governor in 1865, but he, like Amelia Earhart, disappeared never to be found.
He was last seen aboard a paddle wheeler (steamship) on the shores of the upper Missouri at Fort Benton, the end of the steamboat run. He was presumed to have fallen overboard, either drunk or knocked in the head and toss into 12 feet of the roily Missouri River. No body was found, and no one stepped forward as an eye witness. He was known to enjoy his spirits - this may be the origin of the countless Irish jokes about booze. But since he had many political enemies (things really haven't changed), that explanation can't be ruled out, either. No death bed confessions have ever emerged, leaving it an unsolved mystery for all times. He disappeared on July 1, 1867.

Now since this is a birding web site, allow me to point out that the citizens of White Sulphur Springs and the whole of Meagher County are avid bird watchers. We patronize the nearest Walmarts, and in spite of our niggardly incomes, manage to buy much bird seed to help our feathered companions survive our frigid winters and hurricane force winds. We have a rich diversity of birds from mountain blue birds to sandhill cranes. Our raptors are of many species, and most stay year round including the golden and bald eagles. Our osprey do move south in the winter but have many nests in the summer. Canada geese and mallards are found all year long. Upland species include pheasants, several varieties of mountain grouse, sage hens, sharp tail grouse, chukars, and Hungarian partridges. While we in WSS may lack monetary resources, we make up for it in wild life and birds galore. We could easily make a documentary and call it "Birds Gone Wild."

People who live in Butte love that place, and I'll wager you enjoyed living there. Take care.

P.S When you left Butte in 1982, were you riding a Harley? John

 

[ostling41]

People who live in Butte love that place, and I'll wager you enjoyed living there. Take care.

P.S When you left Butte in 1982, were you riding a Harley? John

I rode into Butte on my Honda XL500, with clothes in my pack, and suitcase full of belongings soon to follow on Greyhound package express. I'd just accepted a job there as a research engineer, after living in New Zealand for six years, and I didn't own any furniture. I rented a house a block from the Berkeley Pit, then in operation, not far from Dirty Mouth Jean's bar The Stockman, and near the house of Tony the Trader. I had no car, so in wintertime I had to take the bus to Missoula for Christmas shopping. Not only did Butte not have a Walmart, it didn't even have a McDonald's.

I took the last known photo of the roller coaster at Columbia Gardens, which was bulldozed the week I arrived in town.

Japan finally made a car I could fit into, so in 1982 I bought a Nissan Stanza, and left Butte in that. Growing up in Seattle, there was no way I would have considered buying an American car. My next job was in Barrow, Alaska, which wasn't as cold as Butte. On Arctic shores I looked at tundra swans and oldsquaws through my Bushnell 6x26 custom compacts.

On the lam from the Barrow mob, I holed up in Sitka (where my mother was raised) for a week. I read in the local paper that Ivan Doig was giving a reading there, of his new book The Sea Runners. I went to the JC and was the first to arrive in the empty auditorium. Then Doig arrived and sat near me. "Do you think you and I are the only two people in this room who have been to Ringling, Montana?" I asked. We laughed. I knew, from reading This House of Sky, that he went to school there, but didn't know then that he'd actually been born in White Sulphur Springs.

I didn't know about the history of Meagher until you told it. In fact, I didn't even know how to pronounce the name of your county. White Sulphur Springs may be poor economically, but I think it is one of the nicest spots on the entire US 89, which until 1992 ran from Canada to Mexico, passing right thought Phoenix, where I have lived since 2001. I retired as a rocket engineer three years ago, and decided to stay here until it seems time to leave. Montana always beckons.