This from The Fresno Bee of Friday January 8, 1971.

@shaqmeister Thanks for sharing.  I am sure there are non-standard usages of the term.

Zodiac made so many mistakes, him mixing up “radians” with “radials” isn’t a stretch.  It is made more clear with the other clues related to Z32.  After all, he misspelled the word “Christmass”, and “victom”.

… and I have others from 1969/1970, but I could only ever find this specific usage in Fresno and in the typesetting for this paper. It’s not a common usage in land surveying generally – most other examples use “radial line” – which made me think for a while that maybe The Zodiac was the typesetter working at The Fresno Bee. 😉

@shaqmeister You are right to be talking about land surveying as I have some feelings he was very familiar with surveying in general.

From what I recall about the Wing Walkers, they are more associated with the Air Force, although I know they were available to civilians at surplus stores.  But “radials” + Wing Walkers is suggestive of Air Force rather than Navy, but can’t say for sure.

I again apologize to you for our previous battle @shaqmeister, I should have been more agreeable rather than defensive.  It was only a natural reaction due to external circumstances.  We likely agree about many other things regarding the case, although I only became familiar with it out of necessity of trying to solve this particular cipher.

Posted by: @coder1987

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I again apologize to you for our previous battle @shaqmeister, I should have been more agreeable rather than defensive.  It was only a natural reaction due to external circumstances.  We likely agree about many other things regarding the case, although I only became familiar with it out of necessity of trying to solve this particular cipher.

No need to apologise, @coder1987. We all get passionate about stuff from time to time. I can remember a time on another forum where I was exactly the same once and, even though there I had the opportunity to delete what I had said, I decided to leave it up to remind me to be more humble in the future.

Posted by: @shaqmeister

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Posted by: @coder1987

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I again apologize to you for our previous battle @shaqmeister, I should have been more agreeable rather than defensive.  It was only a natural reaction due to external circumstances.  We likely agree about many other things regarding the case, although I only became familiar with it out of necessity of trying to solve this particular cipher.

No need to apologise, @coder1987. We all get passionate about stuff from time to time. I can remember a time on another forum where I was exactly the same once and, even though there I had the opportunity to delete what I had said, I decided to leave it up to remind me to be more humble in the future.

 

Passionate, that is the right word.  I still respect your past work on this cipher, some of the best I’ve seen and I looked around.  I was just battling about it because I was mad, it was still good imo.

I had started off humble but it wasn’t working, so I just had to vary the approach to draw attention, lol.  Sad but true.  Just trying to get this thing looked at and it is way harder than I imagined.  But I know why that is, it was past “solves” like Faycal’s.  I have nothing against him but he was overly excited.  Only reason I am excited is because the triangle.  If that wasn’t there, even with LHR right there, I am far less interested in it.  Empty field is boring but still plausible.  You need a landmark if you buried something and want people to find it one day.

It still makes me laugh that your proposed solution landed just south of my childhood Naval housing.  Crazy.  But I don’t dwell on it too much, some things truly are just a coincidence, even if improbable.

I see it was also pretty close to Alcatraz, which is a spot Oliv was very interested in as well.  So much so, they liked it more than LHR.

I have to be honest and say I can’t work out why some proposed solutions get, basically, international coverage for a while, and others don’t get anything. Probably, timing more than anything.

Posted by: @shaqmeister

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I have to be honest and say I can’t work out why some proposed solutions get, basically, international coverage for a while, and others don’t get anything. Probably, timing more than anything.

You are right, yet again.  I am liking you more and more as this goes on now.

The day after I shared this, the Black Dahlia rumor went viral (Dec 23).  That is what everyone was talking about.  That passed, but the other forum admin censored it before the hype went away on Dahlia.  His ban was one of my strangest internet experiences, because the reason for it was about as minor as it gets (nothing negative/mean, just off topic, but a response to another users off topic post that mentioned me).

So I don’t know what that BS was about but luckily I have mostly settled down about it by now.  There are other ways to get the word out there.

I went to the experts first before forums.  People are busy, they get a ton of emails with proposals that are a slog to deal with.  It is a constant barrage of Z32 and Z13 proposals I am sure.

Also will say, I had some early supporters on this at the other place, they just had a lot of questions about it.  So did I.  Early on they helped me work through some of them, which helped.

As for my own efforts some while back, that was really just me trying to get something off my mind and out of my system. I don’t hold anything by it, particularly. But I had started a thread on the other site that tried to get people thinking about how to limit the possibilities by selecting reasonable constraints based on what it can be expected the Z32 would contain – as to form, basically. 

I went with that for a while, and then stepped away. Only, then I got a sense of restlessness because I had proposed a way forward but had never, at the time, run it through. That’s when I set out, for a while, to do just that, if only to be able to put it to rest in me.

And after that, I had my rest and, with the solving of the Z340 just prior, I felt that was all there was to do.

Posted by: @shaqmeister

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As for my own efforts some while back, that was really just me trying to get something off my mind and out of my system. I don’t hold anything by it, particularly. But I had started a thread on the other site that tried to get people thinking about how to limit the possibilities by selecting reasonable constraints based on what it can be expected the Z32 would contain – as to form, basically. 

I went with that for a while, and then stepped away. Only, then I got a sense of restlessness because I had proposed a way forward but had never, at the time, run it through. That’s when I set out, for a while, to do just that, if only to be able to put it to rest in me.

And after that, I had my rest and, with the solving of the Z340 just prior, I felt that was all there was to do.

After coming here, I noticed a few people that I think just needed more engagement from others to solve this sooner.  Discord would have been better for people to talk about this cipher.  I think real-time collab is more effective.

And so it wouldn’t surprise me if had people been more active in discussions with Z32 solvers such as yourself, it would have been done awhile ago (if my landmark checks out).  You just needed someone to bounce ideas back and forth with.  Would have liked to have seen that happen with your efforts.

And that is likely why you came around here in the first place.  So you put in a very solid effort I’d say.  Again I’ve looked around by now.

Back in its day this forum was very active, and it was where you came (I felt) for the serious discussion. You have to know, though, that the forum as it is now was run from an active website and that the person running that wanted to shut down. So, because all of the early work on the Z340 began here, Dave Oranchak agreed to take the forum and archive it on his site. As you can see, it is still possible to post here, but its purpose now is not to be used like it was. Its just a record of past discussions, basically. Which is cool.