Peter Copland Works in Meteorological Electronics (continued)

Actually, since being in New South Wales, I seem to have spent a fair bit of time turning off switches. First, of course, was the original SNW51 weather watching radar at Cape Byron. This radar had been operated by the lighthouse staff for about 30 years. Being a 3 cm radar it was never a great machine, but it was a lot better than nothing. The SNW51 radar now belongs to the Queensland Aviation Museum; I have no real idea what they will do with it since it doesn't seem to have any real historical aviation significance. Next, the Tamworth meteorological office was decommissioned and the equipment removed. Then to the old Moree meteorological office, and lastly to the original Macleay Valley flood warning system which, I believe, was first operational in the early 1960s subsequent to the disastrous Kempsey floods in, I think, 1958. I believe that the system was rebuilt using semiconductor components, replacing valves, about 1970. Each of the original rain gauge stations had to be mains operated because of the large power requirements. The old warning system has now been replaced by a new state-of-the-art system with more than double the number of sensors, and which, of course, is PC controlled.

Coffs Harbour may be a good example of the explosion of the PC within the Bureau. When I arrived there in 1988 there was one basic laptop PC, a NEC 5300 for the radar Rapic (Ed—remote radar picture transmission) system. Now, with the recent upgrade of the WF100 radar to the PC-Radwin system we have no less than seven operational PCs and three laptops in the meteorological office and workshop.

A new weather watch radar will be installed late in 1998 in the hills behind Grafton to replace the old Cape Byron SNW51. Weather watching using the Coffs Harbour WF100 radar is not too good with the hills to the north and west, and in some instances it could be dangerous.

Now we are in a land of AWSs and I think that it will take a lot more than a rabbit virus to get rid of them, and I fear that they will reduce the number of working staff in the Bureau. Then this must happen to make room for more meteorologists, though it is a pity that the forecasts do not seem to have improved in line with the demand for, and the supply of, more and better technical advances. In reality are the forecasts that much better now than they were thirty years ago? I expect that the future of the Bureau will continue along its present path for a few more years, until the next generation of accountants and meteorologists take over complete control.

I cannot complain too much after having worked for the Bureau for a fair while, but hope to be gone before it converts to a complete machine. And, no, the pay has not been too bad, and always there every second Thursday, though some of our staff people of yesteryear gave the impression that it was their own money. Our children were able to obtain a good education, and we have been to a lot of Australia not even visited by most people. And we have known a much more interesting and diverse lot of people than most city dwelling Australians. Coffs Harbour should be a reasonable place to spend a few more years, after all, there are already five Bureau retirees here now. And who knows, with a little help from two engineer sons, I could come up with a better anemometer design than the one the Bureau uses today.

Bureau of Meteorology