Our ARES group had a grabNgo bag show and tell the other night, and one person had a "signal mirror" that was one of those 'business card' CDs. See
http://www.blank-cd-cdr.com/p-bcjc100.html
for samples, if you haven't seen them.

He gets them free from people, and they have a hole in the center and the reflective surface on the data side.

I also have a few 3-inch mini-CDs that some software came on. Same hole, same reflective surface.

They aren't as sturdy as polished metal, but they're free and very shiny. Regular CDs would work, too, but are larger.

Phil

That's a very generous offer and I love free things like most people do. But my experiences with CD?s as signal mirrors haven?t been very good. I was testing out the Ultimate Survival mirror this summer and brought along a full sized CD for a test. This is far from scientific but at 2 miles the CD wasn't able to make a flash for the other observer to see. The U.S. mirror was easy to see.

You should do your own test and let know how you made out. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Adam

I ws wondering about this yesterday as I have a stack of them here on my desk with no use for them. LOL

Oops. That may be a problem. I'll have to figure out how to get someone a couple of miles away and still be able to see them. :-)

I would highly recommend you read Doug's pages on signal mirrors. Here is a quote:

NOTE: We are often asked about, or see the recommendation online and elsewhere, the use of a CD-ROM as signal mirror. It is shinny, reflects light, has a hole in the center, and thus looks somewhat like a signal mirror. Moreover, many of us have lots of useless CDs around, AOL continues to send many of more of them, thus its appeal.

In tests a CD proved to be only about 20%-25% as effective (distance and brightness at distance, judged subjectively) as a 3 x 5 mil-spec plastic signal mirror, a bit more effective, but not even 50% compared to a small 2 x 3 mil-spec plastic signal mirror. It would compare worse against higher quality mirrors.

From an operational persepctive, in an After-Action Report of a major SAREX (Search and Rescue Training Exercise) conducted in 2001 by the Colorado Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, the conclusions were, "that "victims" who had never used a signal mirror (with the aiming hole in the middle) were able to use them effectively, while CD's (AOL etc.) are useless as signal mirrors."

CD's come up often in the forum as their price is right and if it was all I had....blah blah...however a quality signal mirror is vastly more useful and efficient. If you are building a kit I would recommend you do not scrimp on this item.

See Doug's write up here:

http://www.equipped.org/signal.htm#ReflectionsOfLight

I have both Malcolm Murray's Rescue Reflectors and others including the one in Doug's kit.

I tested my 2x3 Rescue Reflector plastic model at Crater Lake Oregon last year. I was about a mile or so from my wife who was at the lodge. I contacted her via ham radio but she could not see me. I took out my mirror and brought the fireball right down to where I knew she was standing and she immediately yelped into the radio that it was nearly laser blinding.

A decent quality signal mirror is just not so expensive to be substituting a free inadequate CD.

I think they are useless as a mirror, but if you have fruit trees, string them together and hang them from the branches to keep the birds off the fruit, or stick them to a wall with the data side facing out so when the sun hits them you get coloured reflections around the room.

One of my friend has thousands on CDs that he stacks on artfully arc'd rebar in his backyard. A real attention getter.

Done. Thanks.

This is probably needs one of those US english to Australian english translations but what is "arc'd rebar"

"...what is 'arc'd rebar' "

Rebar (steel concrete-reinforcing bar) bent into an arc, I assume.

Sue

I did it from a boat. I was signaling some one onshore.

Adam

Right. Very artfully -- it looks like huge flowers. One end of the rebar is driven into the ground, then the CDs are threaded on.