16 October 2007
Mawson will have an all-women telecommunications team this year, a first for the AAD.
A skilled RF (radio frequency) technician, Supervising Communications Technical Officer (SCTO), Jodi Wruck, works in a world inhabited mostly by men. She is about to undertake her second trip south on Voyage 2 in 10 days time along with Communications Technical Officer (CTO) Roselin Bali, an electrical engineer from Sydney.
 Roselin behind the controls of the fork lift truck in the AAD store |
|  Jodi concentrates as she climbs the mast during training |
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Jodi joined the Australian Army in 1994, training and later working in radio communications and equipment testing. She took a year's leave of absence to spend twelve months on Macquarie Island last year as the CTO, an experience which inspired her to leave the Army earlier this year and head south again for another stint.
I just loved the diversity of the work on Macquarie Island, especially the range of equipment I had to use, a lot of which was new to me. The wildlife was fantastic, and I really got into photography. The community living is great as everyone is so friendly, it's a great work experience.
For Roselin on the other hand, Mawson will be her first Antarctic experience. Going to Antarctica has always been a dream for me. I watched lots of documentaries on it when I was young which inspired me. It's such a unique place and I've always wanted to go there to experience its isolation and beauty. I also want to experience the weather, the darkness and the harshness.
Roselin trained initially as an electrical engineer, and then went into network engineering with Cisco Systems, where she gained experience working with routers and switches. The skills she has will complement those of her colleague Jodi.
 Roselin learns to operate the forklift truck in the AAD store |
|  Roselin's first lesson on climbing the mast |
|  Jodi learns to shift heavy containers with the Caterpillar 950 front end loader |
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Both women have undertaken a range of new and refresher training courses prior to departure, including mast safety and rescue operations, and various telecoms-related work such as networking, cabling and satellite equipment maintenance.
As they will be in the station fire team - Jodi will be the Deputy Fire Chief - Roselin and Jodi have also completed the fire training course. Jodi has also done anaesthetics training, and Roselin the boating, hydroponics and theatre nursing courses. Both women have obtained tickets to drive a forklift truck, and Jodi has also learned to drive a JCB and a Caterpillar 950 front-end loader. The week before they go both women will do the basic search and rescue training.
 Mawson will be home for the two women for the next year |
|  Working in the Communications Centre at Mawson |
|  SCTO repairing broken antenna wires at Mawson during 2006 |
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As well as day-to-day communications-related work, the Mawson telecommunications team also maintains a number of experiments for both the AAD and other organisations. These include magnetic observations and maintenance of the seismic and GPS equipment for Geoscience Australia, maintenance of the ionosonde for IPS Radio and Space Services, an upper atmosphere spectrometer in the Aeronomy laboratory for La Trobe University and the Cosray observatory for the AAD Ice, Ocean, Atmosphere and Climate programme. They also download automatic tide gauge data and provide technical support for the Bechervaise Island penguin monitoring programme.
Roselin and Jodi will be joined on Voyage 2 by 3 female Communications Operators heading south to support the summer air and field operations programmes. This will involve providing a safety radio net for helicopters, CASA-212s and the new A-319 Airbus as well as scientific research parties living and working in the field. Voyage 2 is scheduled to depart on 20 October.
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