Friday 6th September 2013

Today I really got stuck into the auditing all day. It was so boring and I really had to force myself not to get distracted but I got a fare bit done. My sledge mystery got published in Icy news and you can view it here:

 http://www.antarctica.gov.au/living-and-working/stations/mawson/this-week-at-mawson/page?id=116890&st=116890&dt=MjAxMy0wOS0wNg==

I was a bit disappointed they didn't publish the original scans I made of the old log book as they added to the value of the story, but they said under their new policy everything now has to be black and white so as not to discriminate the reading impaired and dyslexic people.

It was Peter L birthday today and he got a fantastic cake.

The 53 year old 7 stringer Norwegian sledge

Which one is the cake and which one is the carving he made?

Thursday 5th September 2013

Today was around minus eight, very little wind and overcast.
I decided to repair my power supply. How hard could that be?

I replaced a resistor that was 30% out of specification and narrowed down the fault to a transistor. Of course we didn't have one down here so I had to try and find an equivalent one to try. It took me over an hour just to strip the bloody thing down to replace the transistor and about the same to put it all back together again and guess what? Same bloody fault.

So I strip it all back down again and decide to replace the other transistor and then put it all back together again and guess what? Same bloody fault although it was working a bit better. So I strip it all back down again and decide to replace the transistor I just replaced with a different type. So I put it all back together again and this time it seemed to be working much better but it wasn't allowing any adjustment but it was regulating when I placed a load on it so I thought I had finally has success.

In the late afternoon I carried the bloody heavy thing back down to the transmitter hut and hooked it up to my amplifier and powered it up. All the lights and fans came in and all was looking pretty good, that is till I transmitted and the bloody thing died again. How disappointing after all that hard work.

I fired up my radio and the band was very quiet. I put out a few calls using Olivia and a bloke in Japan answered me. We had a good chat and then I gave it away for the night.

 I decided to take my amplifier back to the workshop and install another type of power connector so I could use one of the power supplies in the work shop to power it so I can fix my power supply at my leisure as I need to focus on getting the auditing and reordering completed.

Tonight's foreign movie was funny but a bit weird. It was a French comedy. What spoilt it was the French talk too fast and it was very difficult to keep up with the sub titles and watch the movie at the same time. Afterwards we watched three episodes of Tailor park boys. That show is so funny I hang out all week to see it.

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.

Tuesday 3rd September 2013

Because Chris was away, today I had to print the news papers and cross words which I hate doing. It takes quite a while but at least I can do it from my room. After smoko I did ARPANSA and then did my usual morning duties. After lunch I repaired my power supply and it’s now working fine, so tomorrow I will check my amplifier and make the bias adjustments if all is working OK and then I will be back in business on 6m once again.

It was a really nice day outside with zero wind and about minus twenty six degrees but 100% cloud cover. At four o’clock I went and did the weather balloon flight with Luc our senior MET officer. He ran through the procedure with me and then he let me release the hydrogen balloon carrying the radiosonde. We watched the balloon float up to a couple of thousand meters and then we went inside and followed the flight watching all the data being displayed on a computer. It was very interesting watching the temperature drop down below minus seventy and the high upper atmosphere winds. The balloon finally burst at an altitude of 25,600 meters and all this information is sent to the BoM to aid in their weather forecasting. Today was Geoff’s 66th birthday so after dinner we celebrated his birthday with a cake and a bottle of Vodka.

Radiosonde with GPS and UHF transmitter

Luc our senior MET officer

Happy 66th birthday Geoff

Monday 2nd September 2013

It was a beautiful day today without a cloud in the sky but it was bitterly cold being minus twenty four degrees and the wind blowing twenty two knots.This morning was spent writing my monthly report and tidying off a few things like the tide gauge gear, having a bit of a cleanup and chipping away at the comms audit. Chris, Cookie and Trent are heading off to Fang for a couple of days and Darron and Keldyn are heading off to Auster for a couple of days. After work I spent a bit of time looking at my dead power supply. I discovered both regulator power transistors are blown but lucky I have some to replace them with. Hopefully that is all, the driver transistor checks fine leaving only one other transistor that I haven't checked yet. I will replace these transistors tomorrow and see how it goes. Last night there was a fantastic aurora that seemed to be going all night every time I looked out the window. I thought about going out to photograph it but I was just too tired and my bed seemed so warm and comfy.

Friday 30th August 2013

This morning started out OK but around smoko time all the phones and computers stopped working. When I got down to the operations building everything was dead. We had lost the brand new UPS and everything had shut down. Luckily we got the UPS operating and gradually brought everything back on line again. We still had quite a few issues to resolve but the majority was working. At eleven thirty we all assembled in the red shed to vote and it was all very official with a locked ballot box and officials watching over the proceedings. As with every special event, this called for a sausage sizzle.

[Photo to be added]

After lunch I did a bit more auditing, had a clean up and went over to the green shed where I put the spa ozone injection system back together and I was shocked to discover someone had drained the spa. Dinner was fish and chips and later we watched 3 episodes of Trailer Park Boys.

Just for something completely different

When the air temperature drops below about minus twenty five a strange thing happens to boiling water when it is thrown into the air. It will turn directly from boiling water to steam, well more like talcum powder before it hits the ground. It's great fun to see it happen.

And again

Sunday 1st September 2013

Today was very similar to yesterday, sleep in followed by reading emails, reading the news and then doing a bit of work on my blog. Outside was a magnificent day, blue sky and zero wind so I decided to go fishing. Justin, John and Jeremy had gone to Auster for the day.

After brunch, I packed the orange Hag with a jiffy drill and all my fishing gear and headed out onto the sea ice. This time I chose a spot over near west arm close to the rocks which I hoped to be about fifteen meters deep. I drilled two holes and lowered my camera down one and started fishing in the other.

It was bitterly cold at minus twenty six but the sun was warm on my frozen face. I got lots of nibbles from tiny fish but no decent bites and I realised I was fishing on the edge of a steep cliff face which dropped down to about ninety meters so I decided to move to the shallow channel between east arm and Hump Island. 

Here I drilled another two holes and lowered down my camera. I started to fish with bate again but only got the usual little nibbles by small fish and lost my bait a lot. Although I did get a few decent bites now and then. Finally I managed to catch a small Antarctic cod and then I caught a good size nototheniid. I decided to change tactics and removed my hook and rigged up a live bait lure and every time I lowered it down I caught either one, two or three nototheniid at the same time. I had a bit of fun for a while catching thirty one fish in total before packing up and heading home.

Antarctic cod

Nototheniid - Pagothenia borchgrevinki