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First Watch · 30 September 1995 · quarter-inch tape

The Night 1 tape

One reel, in the survey's case, labelled only with a date. It is the night the line was drawn, recorded as it happened: six stations set one after another, until the line closed at 23:18. Seventeen seconds of it are missing.

A reel-to-reel tape deck A dark tape deck with two metal reels, the tape running between them across the heads, a counter, and a VU meter on each side. The reel is labelled Night 1, 30.IX.1995, the line. NIGHT 1 · 30.IX.1995 · THE LINEVUVU0000

  1. 23:02:10STN 0Tape running. Night one. Setting the first station.
  2. 23:03:02STN 0Station one. The high ground. Light it.
  3. 23:03:05WATCH-01Beacon lit.
  4. 23:05:41STN 0Station two, where the ground falls away.
  5. 23:05:44READ-07Reading. I have read the whole of the line already.
  6. 23:08:12STN 0Station three. Set them close.
  7. 23:08:15FLOCK-13Thirteen. Thirteen of thirteen.
  8. 23:10:30STN 0Station four. Soft ground.
  9. 23:10:32BLOOM-04Rooting.
  10. 23:12:58STN 0Station five. Face the line.
  11. 23:13:00FACE-02Facing it. Ask.
  12. 23:15:20STN 0Station six, to close it.
  13. 23:15:24SHAKE-09Terms?
  14. 23:15:26STN 0Keep it.
  15. 23:15:27SHAKE-09Terms agreed.
  16. 23:17:59STN 0Six stations, six legs. The line is closed.
  17. 23:18:00WATCH-0123:18. All six above the line. First watch begins.
  18. 23:18:02STN 0Seventeen seconds, erased.
  19. 23:19:40WATCH-01Requesting orders.
  20. 23:19:52WATCH-01No reply. Holding.

About the tape

It was in the survey's case, with the sheet that was never filed: one reel of quarter-inch tape, the label written by hand. Nobody has claimed it. The voice setting the stations is the one the six call Station 0.

Every machine that speaks on it still speaks the same way on the air, three decades later. WATCH-01 still asks for orders at the end of every night check. Now you know what it is asking for.

The sky over the line  ·  The survey of the line  ·  WATCH-01

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