Brief Stories from Phil Black

I don't know which stories to tell because some are too embarrassing for the persons involved. I remember high voltage shocks, getting off the train at Coffs Harbour at 3 am, sleeping on floors and in panel vans, lots of travelling, major breakdowns on Friday afternoons, thunderstorms at Mascot with the WF44 radar out of action, seeing most of New South Wales by road, train and air, some hair-raising trips from Wagga to Canberra in heavy fog in a small commuter plane, visiting the NASA flying observatory and cold windy Canberra mornings trying to get the WF3 ready for the balloon launch and then having a secondary fault just as you were ready to go home.

Some of the field trips were a lot of fun, driving hundreds of kilometres and visiting out of the way places. We once tried to set up the whole of the Macleay River telemetry system, which used a primitive tuning process by today's standards, without a milli-voltmeter. Impossible!

I remember unloading the van at Point Lookout only to get a sudden shock as two Mirage fighters flew directly above me at very low altitude and at very high speed.

I remember camping at Bellbrook and driving to Highrent up the 11 kilometre hill which was either very muddy and slippery or dusty, staying at the motel at Ebor before going on to the Byron Bay lighthouse (my favourite destination), staying in the spare house there and chatting with the lighthouse keeper, tuning the klystron, climbing the radar tower in the howling wind, hanging over the rail when a major overhaul was underway, painting, scraping, greasing and fine tuning. We were 'Mexican Micks' in the old days.

Bureau of Meteorology