Sunday 6th October 2013

Today the blizzard has reduced to about 30 knots which is great as I have a moon bounce sked today. I had a couple yesterday but I had to cancel those ones due to the high winds . I went down to the shack early and conditions were awesome and twelve meters was on fire. I put a few calls out and in no time I had a huge pile up going and made hundreds of contacts with mostly EU and JA stations. After a couple of hours I had to give it away as my mouth was so dry and I needed something to eat.

Later I came back and worked many contacts also on twelve meters using the JT65HF mode. My EME sked was at 17:40 and I successfully worked IW5DHN in Italy and also ON4GG from Belgium. I also tried to work another station in the States who I managed to get five good decodes before the moon sank too low in the sky to continue. I was thrilled with this achievement and by the time I packed up it was dark and cold outside. This weeks effort has brought my EME tally up six stations now.  

View looking west of the station

Saturday 5th October 2013

This morning when I woke up there was a 70 knot blizzard howling outside, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. After breakfast I cleaned my bathroom, did all my washing and changed sheets. It was a pretty quiet day messing around on the computer and reading the news or chatting to people.

Later on I went down to the transmitter building to see what was going on. The bands were pretty busy with the Oceania contest going on so I put a few call’s out using Olivia and ended up having a long chat with a guy I know in Taiwan and then later a guy in Busan Korea who I have spoken to before many times. It’s always nice to catch up with the regulars. 

Around five o’clock I went and had a spa which did wonders for my sore neck and back. After dinner we watched “The boy in striped pajamas” which was quite a moving movie about the holocaust.

Hydroponics

Friday 4th October 2013

Today turned out to be a very unproductive day. As Chris was away I had to do the news papers and after this I did ARPANSA. I have been suffering from bad back, neck and chest pain for some weeks now and yesterday I had a bad fall so I hooked myself up to my tens machine to give my shoulder and muscles a good shake for an hour or so. It was very painful but I felt so much better afterwards.

After smoko there was supposed to be a SAR exercise but Justin called in and said it was too cold and windy and so the exercise was called off. That only left a couple of hours till lunch time and then the fire training. Just after lunch there was a real fire alarm in the main power house due to a circuit breaker burning out. This then delayed the fire training. An hour later there was another fire alarm, this time in the red shed. It was a false alarm caused by Trent filling the cinema with theatrical smoke to be used for the fire training, so fire training was delayed again. Finally we had fire training and by then, afterwards it was a bit late in the day to do anything else.

Mawson monthly weather report

During September we recorded the highest wind run (2947 km) and wind speed (194 kph) for the year so far. The month started off with some very cold days but it then became much milder at the start of the second week. We also had the equinox happening on 23 September at 01:44 AM LT. 

Temperatures - at Mawson during September we expect:

• A maximum mean temperature of -14.3°C. The average maximum for the month was -09.3°C. The lowest maximum was –21.3°C and the highest -04.3°C

• A minimum mean temperature of -20.7°C. The average minimum for the month was -16.0°C. The lowest minimum was -29.3°C and the highest -08.9°C.

The coldest temperature for any September day on record at Mawson was -35.8°C on 04/09/1982.

Wind:

• The average daily wind run (the measure of how many kilometres of wind pass the station in 24 hours) was 1188 km per day for the month. This is well above the long term average of 959 km per day.

• The maximum wind gust for September was 194 km/h from the SE recorded on the 8th. The record gust for September is 222 km/h recorded on 17/09/1975.

• Blizzard conditions were recorded on 2 days for the month, with 5.1 expected. A total of 32 blizzards for 2013 so far.

• There were 29 gales compared to 15.7 expected for the month, 30 days of strong wind, with 27.2 the average. 7 days of snowfall were observed, well above the expected average of 4.7 days.

• A Strong Wind day has wind in excess of 41 km/h and a Gale is wind in excess of 63 km/h.

Sunshine:

• We recorded a total of 94.7 hours of sunshine for the month.

• The long term average is 153.0 hours.

Conclusion:

September was much warmer and windier and less sunny than the long term means. Every day of the month we had strong winds and only one day of the month that we didn't experience gale force winds!

We had a total wind run of 35,654.2 km for the month. Total wind run for the year so far is 290,384 km. We only had two blizzards for the month but 7 days of snowfall.

Framnes Mountains

Mt Henderson

David Range

Thursday 3rd October 2013

Today I wanted to investigate a fault with the radio console system and hopefully repair it. It appeared to be a software issue and I need to locate a manual to continue any further. I finish off the tide gauge manual and in the afternoon I had a moon bounce sked with Tim N3XX in the US. It was looking impossible for a while and then suddenly I got three returns from him and things were looking up.

Then it went quiet for another twenty two minutes and I thought it was all over and then he came back again. The moon was only five degrees above my horizon at this stage and I couldn't even see it due to the thick cloud. That’s a round trip of 774,879 kilometres and my best effort yet and I was very happy with the results.

Tonight’s foreign movie was a Norwegian horror movie and wasn't too bad. Justin and Chris rode up to Mt Henderson hut tonight to be part of the SAR excise tomorrow.

My antenna

Tim's antenna

Crossing the 60th parallel and paying homage to King Neptune

Somehow this VERY important rite of passage never got published. It could have been due to duty of care and a total media blackout at the time, but I think the real reason was that I didn’t get the photos in time, and there were lots of other thing happening at the time which quickly took over the event. Now I’m a crusty old salt, a sailor and a mariner and King Neptune and I go back a long way. We first met in 1992 when I first crossed the equator and at that time he took all my hair and also later in 1994. In 2005 I crossed the 60th parallel in Sweden but on the 20th of January during the sail down to Antarctica, I crossed the 60th parallel again but this time on the ocean and it was here we met again. To cross the equator you need the Kings permission, but to venture below the 60th parallel you not only need the Kings permission, you NEED the Kings protection as its hell on Earth down there and if you don’t want to end up in Davey Jones’ locker you had better do what the King says !!

Each virgin pilgrim was called before his majesty and a rotten fish was rubbed all over your face and then placed on your head while you state your intentions to the King, and if his majesty agreed to grant your request for safe passage then you would be baptised in the tradition of the scaley brine. The rotten fish would be removed from your head and two of the Kings scaley helpers would cover you in the most vial repulsive substance known to man and fish. This vial repulsive substance must be rubbed into ever orifice, face and hair to have maximum effect before the now fully initiated pilgrim would be allowed to continue their journey no safe in the hands of the good King Neptune. I felt the force was with me now, but it didn’t stop me from dry reaching as I swear I smelt four kilograms of parmesan cheese. Shortly after while under the shower I was pushing lunch times chewed up prawns down the plug hole knowing full well I was safe and the force was with me now and trust me it worked as we had a safe and uneventful vouge all the way down to Mawson.

Wednesday 2nd October 2013

Today I had to do my monthly report so I locked myself in my room all morning until I had it completed. It was such a beautiful day with full sunshine and very little wind by the afternoon and it was such a shame to be working indoors. Late in the afternoon I went down to the transmitter building to see if there was any activity on the bands but as expected, there was a complete radio black out due to the high level of solar activity.

IPS GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCE WARNING 13/27 CORRECTION ISSUED AT 0124UT/02 OCTOBER 2013 BY THE AUSTRALIAN SPACE FORECAST CENTRE.

A 35 degree filament erupted from the northwest quadrant of the Sun late on 29th September with an associated halo coronial mass ejection (CME). Ejecta is expected to arrive at Earth late in the UT day, 02 October to early on 03 October.

This means good conditions for auroras over the next couple of nights. It might also be best to stay indoors as much as possible to limit the amount of cancer causing charged particles smashing through you body !!

Just for something different;

On the large rock down below the mechanical workshop are painted the words “Stor Klippe”.

The language is Danish, most likely from a crewman on one of the four Dan ships that resupplied Mawson from the fifties to the eighties. (Kista Dan, Thala Dan, Magga Dan and Nella Dan)

In Danish,“Stor Klippe” translates to "large rock", which shows that the painter had a sense of humour.

Tuesday 1st October 2013

Today I was slushy once again so nothing much to report there. The southward equinox was on September 22nd and it is really apparent now the days are getting much longer than the nights. The sun is now up at 06:05 and sunset is at 19:25 and the days are getting longer every day. The best thing is I no longer have to use my head torch all the time and it now only comes out after dark.

Here are some interesting facts and figures to contemplate:-

• Recent summer population of Antarctica was – 4,490 people, with 955 of those at McMurdo.

• Current world population surpassed 7 billion in October 2011.

• The world’s population reached 1 billion for the first time in 1804. By 1927, it was 2 billion, and 3 billion by 1960. Since then, the world has added another 1 billion people around every 13 years.

• Estimated number of humans who have ever lived - 107 billion. Estimates suggest that about 40% of those who ever lived did not survive beyond their 1st year.

• The Han Chinese are the largest ethnic group on the planet being 19% of the current world population.

• The world’s most spoken language is Mandarin – 12.4 % of the world population speak Mandarin as their primary language.

• The global sex ratio is – 1.01 males to 1 females.

• Global life expectancy is 65 years for men and 69 for female.

• Global fertility rate is 2.52 children.