Peter Copland Works in Meteorological Electronics (continued)

Giles was equipped with the AA3 Mk VII radar. For the uninitiated, this was a trailer mounted military designed, second level anti aircraft gun control radar. Even built from steel plate to withstand battle damage, and was claimed to be able to follow a Hawker De Havilland Vampire overhead at 150 metres. One did not stand next to the dish with the power on. I believe it was the first auto-follow radar used in Bureau service. With its large complement of 1950 vintage octal type valves it was a fair beast to keep on the air. There were some other strange quirks as I remember, like the spark gap modulator which had to be cleaned every few days and the monster air-conditioner which would freeze everything if left in continuous run, which was the normal operating mode. It was built as a high speed short range radar and even on a good day 37,000 metres was about its limit.

Out test equipment also left a lot to be desired; one AVO 7 (1,000 ohm/volt), with the glass pushed in. I had to borrow an AVO 8 from the WRE guys. A couple of weeks later I found a complete AWA VTVM (vacuum tube voltmeter) in a shed and things improved no end. In another shed were two crates of unused (overheated and useless) 350 gram balloons. The radar sat on a concrete slab on a 2.4 metre high man made hill. Trouble was the slab was broken in the middle some years before and the front of the radar was several inches lower than the rear. I think this put it out of calibration by over two degrees in two quadrants. Much better with a bit of adjustment, and probably ok 'til the next rain.

All communication was by voice using HF radio to Woomera or to the Royal Flying Doctor Service or DCA in Alice Springs; there were, I think, six or eight selectable frequencies. The different alphabets used by these organisations made for some fancy footwork on the mike, sending observations and then checking a flying doctor schedule next minute. As I remember we had to run an unofficial three man 2300 UTC flight in stormy weather to get through all the communications. Whole messages would have to be repeated two or three times. The RAAF would drop in every month in a Bristol Freighter with the essentials, like food and 60 to 70 dozen bottles and a couple of 18 gallon kegs of beer. This lot, with a couple of kegs of home brew, was usually enough to stop anyone from getting too thirsty. There was also a gentleman, Frank?, who would leave his home base of Finke every month with a 15 tonne or so load of fuel and heavy supplies, heading across the sand dunes for Giles. One load that I saw started with a tonne of cement loaded on top of the fuel drums by the Department of Works. Most of the bags arrived but I think only one had cement in it. Frank was not too happy about the mess in his truck either.

Bureau of Meteorology