Wednesday 4 September 2013

Wednesday 4th September 2013

Well today started off good, minus twelve with very little wind but overcast. I printed the news papers and then put a few calls out on the radio for Darron. He didn't make the sked last night and he hasn't called in this morning so I am a little bit worried about them. I did the ARPANSA filter change and by then it was smoko.

After smoko I went down to the transmitter hut and set the bias on all four FETS in my 6m amplifier and then assembled the amp, connected the power supply and all the cabling for testing. I powered it up and it didn't work. The power supply was dying on key up. Hmm, is it the amp or the power supply? It was the power supply, so I returned to the workshop with the power supply. The output was fine until a certain load was reached and then it would die. I spent the afternoon working on it and I believe I found the transistor causing the problem but we don’t have one and I can’t find an equivalent. In the late afternoon I started to initiate a SAR for Darron and Keldyn and I talked to John about it as Cookie, Chris and Trent were up a fang hut when Justin walks in and says they called in this morning and he forgot to tell me.

Tonight at The peoples night Luc put on some video of deep sea trawling by the AAD on the Aurora Austalis taken at 800 meters deep. It was amazing seeing all the sponges, fish and weird sea creatures but what you didn't see way the trail of destruction behind the trawl net. All in the name of science though. Trent showed a heap of photos and gave a talk about the November festable in Munich which he goes to every year. Justin played a movie he made of him, John and Keldyn climbing Rumdoodle peak.

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