Tuesday 14th May 2013

Today while rummaging through one of my office draws I found some gloves left here from last year. Normally I would throw these out but as we were not issued with good gloves it's a real bonus. All the guy's that have been down south before took their own gloves down. I wish they had told the new guy's this. The problem is you need to wear two pair of gloves so you can take one pair off to do fine work or to use a camera etc and then put your other pair back on to stay warm. If you remove all gloves it only takes moments for your hands to start going off and once they do the pain is excruciating and it is very difficult to warm them up again. Mitts are warmer but impossible to work in. Any way I just assumed we would be issued the best gloves other wise I would have bought some better ones back down with me. The worst thing that could happen is for one of your gloves to blow away in a blizzard. I almost lost one just walking between buildings.

Not much happening today so I decided to get my 6m amplifier I built and make some modifications that have been bugging me. Now I consider it finished. After work I went down to the shack only to discover my Emtron amplifier has developed a fault. I am totally gutted. It looks as if the valve is arching out and gone caput. I have been having so much fun with this amp and now it's all over. If I can purchase a new valve I might be able to get it flown in on the first plane around October / November. What a bloody mongrel.

Last night I looked out the window around 3am and saw the most awesome aurora display. There were amazing green curtains swirling all over the sky and I was mesmerised for about fifteen minutes before I decided to go out and photograph it. By the time I got all dressed up and got all my gear ready and went outside it had completely disappeared. I waited for about an hour and a half out in minus twenty five but it never came back. On top of that I lost the lens out of my glasses out in the dark some where.