NavList:

 When I was at the factory in St. Petersburg in 1992, they brought our a SNO-T that I was interested in importing.  The factory director proudly explained that the gray box paint was resistant to nuclear radiation. I never could get a reasonable price to import them; probably because I did not personally bribe the Director.

Ken


On 10/24/14 2:16 PM, Alexandre Eremenko wrote:

It is well-known that SNO-T in the  Soviet sextant means:

S - Sextant
N - for Navigation
O - with an illumination device ("Osvetitel")
T - Tropicalized.

What did they exactly mean by "tropicalized" ?
I have only conjectures.

1. Both SNO-M and SNO-T have the unique magnifier
with luminous paint, so it works for illumination of the scales.
The manuals say that the scales themselves are covered with this paint,
but I don't believe them. It is the magnifier that is covered. Inside surface of it.
They may have had some new paint composition on SNO-T to withstand high temperatures
and humidity.

2. SNO-M and SNO-T are radically different designs (the first one is the clone of C. Plath,
the second of Freiberger). The most conspicuous feature of Freibergers and SNO-T is the
completely enclosed worm. Can this have something to do with "tropicalization"?
To prevent some insects entering between the arc and the worm??
:-)
I always thought thsat most of those tiny insects live in Canada and Soviet Arctic regions:-)

What else could they mean?

Does anyone know when Freiberger started to produce sextants?
I have never seen pre WW II Freibergers.

Alex.

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