Today I was slushy
L
Tuesday, 13 August 2013
Monday, 12 August 2013
Monday 12th August 2013
It was a pretty quiet day today. Chris was slushy, it was still blowing about thirty knots and there was a fair bit of snow blowing about and quite overcast. I sorted out all my emails and made a few phone calls. Jeremy came in with a laptop that wasn't working so I spent a bit of time getting that sorted.
I managed to track down a new ceramic GU84B tetrode for my amplifier from Alex UR4LL in Ukraine for US$390 which is not a bad price since they are now out of production so I ordered one. If I can't get the Quadra operational then I will get this valve sent down on V1 in November.
I had to do a bit of election stuff also. I am the electoral officer and I had to do a bit of paper work for that as well as register myself. I got an email from Mack who came across my blog and saw a photo of Fred Elliott who was his school teacher. I was able to put him in touch with Fred which was nice.
In the afternoon Luc and I had to do the gash run (rubbish run to the incinerator) as we couldn't do it during the blizzard. There was a bit of dry reaching as the garbage water leaked into the back of the Hag. I'm not very good with that sort of thing but it gave Luc a good laugh. All evening I spent updating my blog.
I managed to track down a new ceramic GU84B tetrode for my amplifier from Alex UR4LL in Ukraine for US$390 which is not a bad price since they are now out of production so I ordered one. If I can't get the Quadra operational then I will get this valve sent down on V1 in November.
I had to do a bit of election stuff also. I am the electoral officer and I had to do a bit of paper work for that as well as register myself. I got an email from Mack who came across my blog and saw a photo of Fred Elliott who was his school teacher. I was able to put him in touch with Fred which was nice.
In the afternoon Luc and I had to do the gash run (rubbish run to the incinerator) as we couldn't do it during the blizzard. There was a bit of dry reaching as the garbage water leaked into the back of the Hag. I'm not very good with that sort of thing but it gave Luc a good laugh. All evening I spent updating my blog.
Sunday, 11 August 2013
Sunday 11th August 2013
Well today was pretty much the same as yesterday. Woke up, blizzard still raging, read the news, had a coffee, warmed up some old crusty pizza then wandered down to the ham shack for the afternoon. Once again propagation was excellent and the first thing I came across was a SSTV (slow scan TV) competition happening in Japan. I sent a few of the pictures from Antarctica which should boost their points off the dial. I also exchanged some photos with a station in the USA. That's pretty good going and very unique from Antarctica.
Then I heard a very strong Olivia signal (key board to key board digital mode) which is my favourite digital mode. This guy was an expatriate in Taiwan and we had a good chat for a while. After this I switched to JT65-HF which is another digital mode that is the most sensitive. There were many stations coming through very strong and I made contact with quite a few before I got bored with the slow speed.
By now I had had enough, so I wandered over to the green store for a spa and to read my book. After this I went back to the red shed and scrounged up a bit of tucker to chew on, then wandered up stairs to find a movie playing in the cinema. It was "The Thing 2" so I grabbed a beer and sat down to watch it. These movies (both 1 & 2) are about a UFO being discovered in Antarctica and the alien gets loose and runs amok. Pretty good movies, but every expeditioner has a flame thrower, flares and a box of hand grenades. What I want to know is WHERE OUR OURS?
Either we are being ripped off or our station leader is holding back on us........Hmmm.
Then I heard a very strong Olivia signal (key board to key board digital mode) which is my favourite digital mode. This guy was an expatriate in Taiwan and we had a good chat for a while. After this I switched to JT65-HF which is another digital mode that is the most sensitive. There were many stations coming through very strong and I made contact with quite a few before I got bored with the slow speed.
By now I had had enough, so I wandered over to the green store for a spa and to read my book. After this I went back to the red shed and scrounged up a bit of tucker to chew on, then wandered up stairs to find a movie playing in the cinema. It was "The Thing 2" so I grabbed a beer and sat down to watch it. These movies (both 1 & 2) are about a UFO being discovered in Antarctica and the alien gets loose and runs amok. Pretty good movies, but every expeditioner has a flame thrower, flares and a box of hand grenades. What I want to know is WHERE OUR OURS?
Either we are being ripped off or our station leader is holding back on us........Hmmm.
This is all we have if get attacked by aliens
Saturday, 10 August 2013
Saturday 10th August 2013
This morning when I woke I could hear a raging blizzard outside so I just went back to sleep. I woke up gradually and just relaxed with the sun shining through the window, later rolling out of bed and reading the news on the computer, answering some emails then off for a shower. It's so nice to have a free day to do what I WANT without a worry in the world. I don't even have to do the gash run because of the blizzard.
I heated up a bit of last nights pizza and washed it down with a coffee then decided to head down to the ham shack for the day. I was a refreshing stroll down to the transmitter building in fifty knot winds and zero visibility but I am so used to it now I can do it with my eyes shut. The worst bit is that tiny little bit of uncovered skin you always seem to end up with that burns like hell till you get back into shelter.
Propagation was excellent and strait away I picked up my neighbour Ken in Perth and we had a good chat for a while, then I had a chat with a guy in Victoria and then my old mate Mark from Perth who I haven't heard for about thirteen years game me a call. He was sitting in his car having a sun downer on Cable beach in Broome the lucky bugger where he now lives. I was great to catch up after so long. After Mark faded out I had a chat with a few America stations before calling it quits.
I wandered back to the green store for a spar and read my book for an hour, had a shower and then wandered up to the red shed for dinner. After the obligatory after dinner chat most of us adjourned to Klub Katabatic for a little socialising and unwinding after such a hectic day.
The lawn bowls got rolled out again and once more I cleaned up so it looks like I'm going to be a pensioner to be reckoned with. This might have had something to do with the Sambooka and CSCB shots that were going down at a great rate. Any way all was going well and some how Keldyn got gaffer taped to his chair while watching Red Dwarf and apparently I fell asleep during the second episode and I woke up suddenly with what seemed to be a bucket full of million year old icy cold Antarctic glacial water landing on my head. Gee, that was refreshing J, funny how when I looked around everyone had gone off to sleep, so I figured I should too.
I heated up a bit of last nights pizza and washed it down with a coffee then decided to head down to the ham shack for the day. I was a refreshing stroll down to the transmitter building in fifty knot winds and zero visibility but I am so used to it now I can do it with my eyes shut. The worst bit is that tiny little bit of uncovered skin you always seem to end up with that burns like hell till you get back into shelter.
Propagation was excellent and strait away I picked up my neighbour Ken in Perth and we had a good chat for a while, then I had a chat with a guy in Victoria and then my old mate Mark from Perth who I haven't heard for about thirteen years game me a call. He was sitting in his car having a sun downer on Cable beach in Broome the lucky bugger where he now lives. I was great to catch up after so long. After Mark faded out I had a chat with a few America stations before calling it quits.
I wandered back to the green store for a spar and read my book for an hour, had a shower and then wandered up to the red shed for dinner. After the obligatory after dinner chat most of us adjourned to Klub Katabatic for a little socialising and unwinding after such a hectic day.
The lawn bowls got rolled out again and once more I cleaned up so it looks like I'm going to be a pensioner to be reckoned with. This might have had something to do with the Sambooka and CSCB shots that were going down at a great rate. Any way all was going well and some how Keldyn got gaffer taped to his chair while watching Red Dwarf and apparently I fell asleep during the second episode and I woke up suddenly with what seemed to be a bucket full of million year old icy cold Antarctic glacial water landing on my head. Gee, that was refreshing J, funny how when I looked around everyone had gone off to sleep, so I figured I should too.
Friday, 9 August 2013
Friday 9th August 2013
This morning I was a little tired after yesterday's travels. The morning was taken up with my usual comms duties emails etc. After smoko I decided to make a new interface cable for the Quadra amplifier, this time using the proven Band - Data 2 connection but once again it still didn't work. The problem is the software is talking to the radio but not to the PC as the PC parallel port data pins are not changing state on a band change. So it's back to the drawing board. I will try and contact the software engineer who wrote the program DDUtil and see if he can help me out.
After lunch I decided to install the Q-Mac HF-90 radio into the blue Hagglunds. Should be a strait forward job and take no more than an hour, any way three hours later the Hag rolled out of the green store with a shiny new HF radio and me with little patents left and needing a beer. There was a great sunset going off as I walked up to the red shed.
Tonight was pizza night and a good night was had by all.
After lunch I decided to install the Q-Mac HF-90 radio into the blue Hagglunds. Should be a strait forward job and take no more than an hour, any way three hours later the Hag rolled out of the green store with a shiny new HF radio and me with little patents left and needing a beer. There was a great sunset going off as I walked up to the red shed.
Tonight was pizza night and a good night was had by all.
Thursday, 8 August 2013
Thursday 8th August 2013
This morning I was up at 0630 to decide if we would go to Auster rookery today. The weather was pretty dodgy and I was going to call it off as the wind was nearly thirty knots. Luc was insistent it should drop and it could be completely different ninety kilometres up the coast. To go all that way to take photography you want to have blue sky and little wind but in the end we decided to give it a crack. We got our selves organised and at 0730 John, Luc, Keldyn and I headed off up to Auster in the blue Hag. Justin and Lloyd departed later on quad bikes.
It was quite a long trip out in the Hugglunds and nearly all the way was deep Sastrugi which we were running perpendicular with making for a very uncomfortable ride. The consolation was there were many fantastic ice bergs along the way with fantastic shapes and large caves to see. Along the way we saw quite a few Emperor penguins just wandering around. I guess they may have had access to the ocean through a tide crack or maybe they were just lost?
When we finally arrived Justin and Lloyd were already there. The birds have now formed one large group and there were lots of single stragglers just wandering about or sanding or laying around. As soon as they sore us they came wandering up towards us stopping about a meter away just to look at us. They are so funny; they will just stand there for ages. Some get bored and flap their flippers and wander off squawking. I slowly moved towards the main group to get photos of the chicks but as soon as you stop all the single stragglers just wander in forming a wall between you and the main group.
They are totally non aggressive but their caring instinct is to protect the eggs and chicks at all cost. Using my telephoto lens I was able to zoom in quite close and get some good shots of the chicks. Many of them were feeding regularly from the parent that hasn't eaten for several months and some chicks were more persistent and louder than others. I looked back at my camera case and tripod I left quite a distance behind and they were surrounded by curious birds.
For ages I just lied on my side or back and watched all the birds surrounding me. I had forgotten how tremendous this place is. Last time we had extreme temperatures around minus twenty five and it was difficult to take photos while this time it was a mild minus ten, blue sky and zero wind, perfect conditions and you couldn't ask for more.
We stayed for about three hours before we had to reluctantly drag our selves away to make the long trip home before dusk. I am told there are a few penguin biologists who want to close this rookery to everyone but themselves like most other breeding rookery's down here. That would be so selfish and such a crying shame if this were to happen as this rookery has been visited since its discovery around 1956 and the penguins are not phased at all from cautious well behaved visitors and you can tell the birds actually enjoy the visits as I think it is a distraction to their daily monotonous life during the breeding season. If the fun police take away many more privileges from the expeditioners who give up their lives and risk wintering for flag and country, then there will come a time when no one will want to apply for a job to come down here.
We departed the colony a little behind schedule around 1345 only to stop at Macey hut to drop of a generator. As rough as it was on the trip home I managed to sleep most of the way. I usually don't like to miss a thing but if I'm not driving the Hag I always tend to get a wobbly head on the trip home.
When we arrived on the station we unloaded and refuelled the Hag and headed on back to the red shed for a hot shower and a feed only to hear the Doc had had a bad fall from his quad and a SAR had to be initiated to recover him and take him back to the hospital for urgent medical treatment. The poor bugga had broken his nose and maybe his cheek bones as well but the x-rays confirmed everything else was all right. At seventy something I take my hat off to the guy as he runs rings around people half his age but this really knocked him around a bit. He looked terrible with a smashed nose and two black puffy eyes and I imagine every bone and muscle aching. It was a wakeup call for everybody and we are so lucky it wasn't worse than it was.
Get well quickly Lloyd as you are my favourite Doc !!
It was quite a long trip out in the Hugglunds and nearly all the way was deep Sastrugi which we were running perpendicular with making for a very uncomfortable ride. The consolation was there were many fantastic ice bergs along the way with fantastic shapes and large caves to see. Along the way we saw quite a few Emperor penguins just wandering around. I guess they may have had access to the ocean through a tide crack or maybe they were just lost?
When we finally arrived Justin and Lloyd were already there. The birds have now formed one large group and there were lots of single stragglers just wandering about or sanding or laying around. As soon as they sore us they came wandering up towards us stopping about a meter away just to look at us. They are so funny; they will just stand there for ages. Some get bored and flap their flippers and wander off squawking. I slowly moved towards the main group to get photos of the chicks but as soon as you stop all the single stragglers just wander in forming a wall between you and the main group.
They are totally non aggressive but their caring instinct is to protect the eggs and chicks at all cost. Using my telephoto lens I was able to zoom in quite close and get some good shots of the chicks. Many of them were feeding regularly from the parent that hasn't eaten for several months and some chicks were more persistent and louder than others. I looked back at my camera case and tripod I left quite a distance behind and they were surrounded by curious birds.
For ages I just lied on my side or back and watched all the birds surrounding me. I had forgotten how tremendous this place is. Last time we had extreme temperatures around minus twenty five and it was difficult to take photos while this time it was a mild minus ten, blue sky and zero wind, perfect conditions and you couldn't ask for more.
We stayed for about three hours before we had to reluctantly drag our selves away to make the long trip home before dusk. I am told there are a few penguin biologists who want to close this rookery to everyone but themselves like most other breeding rookery's down here. That would be so selfish and such a crying shame if this were to happen as this rookery has been visited since its discovery around 1956 and the penguins are not phased at all from cautious well behaved visitors and you can tell the birds actually enjoy the visits as I think it is a distraction to their daily monotonous life during the breeding season. If the fun police take away many more privileges from the expeditioners who give up their lives and risk wintering for flag and country, then there will come a time when no one will want to apply for a job to come down here.
We departed the colony a little behind schedule around 1345 only to stop at Macey hut to drop of a generator. As rough as it was on the trip home I managed to sleep most of the way. I usually don't like to miss a thing but if I'm not driving the Hag I always tend to get a wobbly head on the trip home.
When we arrived on the station we unloaded and refuelled the Hag and headed on back to the red shed for a hot shower and a feed only to hear the Doc had had a bad fall from his quad and a SAR had to be initiated to recover him and take him back to the hospital for urgent medical treatment. The poor bugga had broken his nose and maybe his cheek bones as well but the x-rays confirmed everything else was all right. At seventy something I take my hat off to the guy as he runs rings around people half his age but this really knocked him around a bit. He looked terrible with a smashed nose and two black puffy eyes and I imagine every bone and muscle aching. It was a wakeup call for everybody and we are so lucky it wasn't worse than it was.
Get well quickly Lloyd as you are my favourite Doc !!
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Wednesday 7th August 2013
This morning was very windy, overcast and blowing snow, not exactly what was forecasted and it doesn't look good for going to Auster tomorrow. As usual I spent most of the morning sorting through all my emails then I had a go at setting up Bria for Cookies iPhone. All when well for a while then the system locked up, so I will have to speak to the engineers in Kingston to see what the problem is.
After lunch I decided to make up a bracket for the blue Hagglunds Q-Mac HF-90 radio. I have been putting this job off for ages as I was hoping to get sent the correct bracket from Kingston, but they said they don't have any and for me to make one. Well it might sound easy, but we don't have a lot of materials down here and this radio's case is extruded aluminium and has no mounting holes for a mounting bracket. Anyway I came up with what I thought was a good robust and simple idea but it took many hours just to make up and I will have to wait till tomorrow to install it.
Afterwards I gave the workshop a bit of a clean up as it was getting way out of hand. This is the last area I haven't yet tackled and it is hurting my eyes. Before I knocked off I made up some signs for two of the new UPS's and an instruction sign for the video conference in the bar.
For the peoples night tonight we watched all the Antarctic short films to vote on whose is best. There some fantastic ones and some really really bad ones. Ours was not too bad, but not in the winning category. Luc also showed us footage he took with his go pro 400 meters up attached to a weather balloon.
After lunch I decided to make up a bracket for the blue Hagglunds Q-Mac HF-90 radio. I have been putting this job off for ages as I was hoping to get sent the correct bracket from Kingston, but they said they don't have any and for me to make one. Well it might sound easy, but we don't have a lot of materials down here and this radio's case is extruded aluminium and has no mounting holes for a mounting bracket. Anyway I came up with what I thought was a good robust and simple idea but it took many hours just to make up and I will have to wait till tomorrow to install it.
Afterwards I gave the workshop a bit of a clean up as it was getting way out of hand. This is the last area I haven't yet tackled and it is hurting my eyes. Before I knocked off I made up some signs for two of the new UPS's and an instruction sign for the video conference in the bar.
For the peoples night tonight we watched all the Antarctic short films to vote on whose is best. There some fantastic ones and some really really bad ones. Ours was not too bad, but not in the winning category. Luc also showed us footage he took with his go pro 400 meters up attached to a weather balloon.
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