Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506300110
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: G-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Game wardens patrolling Smith Mountain Lake have begun using equipment, made by ITT Night Vision, that allows them to see things that used to benefit from the cover of darkness. ITT Night Vision is the commercial arm of the ITT Electro-Optical Products Division on Plantation Road, which for years has made night-vision equipment for the U.S. military.
ITT first entered the commercial market in 1993 with its Night Mariner binoculars for boaters. It now has a network of 300 dealers nationwide and has become a model for defense contractors, who are trying to develop commercial versions of their products to offset shrinking income from government contracts.
ITT Night Vision's closest dealer to the Roanoke area is the Foxport Marina on Smith Mountain Lake. Wayne Blount, who operates the marina, said he's sold roughly 120 Night Mariners to customers in western Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Half of his sales have been to people who intend to use the viewers on land rather than water, he said.
Blount occasionally lends night vision equipment to the game wardens who patrol Smith Mountain Lake. The equipment is particularly useful when a large number of boaters are on the lake.
One night last summer, Sgt. Ron Henry of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries was patrolling with the aid of a Night Mariner loaner from Blount when he heard people yelling.
Henry had encountered a group of teen-age boys and girls swimming near Hales Ford Bridge who were "somewhat less than clothed," he recalled. "I turned the night vision on and you could see just like it was daytime."
The teen-agers were swimming where they could have been hit by a boat. They had draped their clothes over "No Trespassing" signs on the lake's shore. Henry made them get dressed and sent them on their way.
Henry has also used the night vision equipment to hunt for boaters traveling on the lake without running lights, a more serious offense.
The boaters claim the lights draw bugs or bother them while they fish. The problem, he said, is they pose a hazard to other boaters traveling up and down the lake at night at 70 and 80 miles an hour, Henry said.
Cliff Ferguson, a USAir pilot who has two boats at the lake, one for fishing and the other for pleasure, bought an ITT monocular from Blount. The viewer has helped him on more than one occasion avoid floating logs, which could have damaged his boats, Ferguson said.
by CNB