Review Of Research On Underground Mining Communications

The past five years have seen communications techniques and hardware developed by the Bureau of Mines and its contractors increasingly brought into use in U.S. mines. The Bureau philosophy has been to help develop and introduce new hardware that goes as far as possible toward meeting the mining industry's needs. The Bureau programs are also designed to provide continuous fallout of new communications capabilities which are introduced to the mine operators as they occur. As more progress is made in meeting mine communications needs, it is hoped that the mining industry will readily adopt the equipment and techniques that it finds most useful in meeting its individual needs. This paper reports on recent advances achieved in the development of improved mine communications systems. In May 1975 the U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) conducted a mine communications technology meeting to provide a brief overview of the USBM communications technology developments in the past 5 yr. This meeting lasted for 1 1/2 days. Therefore, I have elected to narrow this paper to a brief review of recent underground mine communication developments. The following will be discussed: 1) Ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio for fan hole drill operators;