The technical side of radio communications has been my lifelong interest and it has brought me here to Davis Station doing what I enjoy.
So, what does a comms tech do to unwind after hours? Well, I get on the radio, using amateur or 'ham' radio as it’s called, operating portable from a mountaintop, or from the station radio hut using the call sign VK0D.
The current atmospheric conditions, (solar cycle maximum) has made global high frequency radio work very well recently with regular contacts around the world possible. And new advances in digital radio data communication modes have made translating from English to all other languages easy as well.
It was during an evening on the radio that I met Ron Crenshaw from Elberton Georgia in the USA. Ron is a retired Level V Communications Officer for the Disaster Services division of the American Red Cross, serving with the armed forces in the Middle East as well as other places.
The grid locator associated with my call sign enables those receiving my call to identify my location. Ron received my call and finally got through on the second night, after competing with so many other callers who were all trying to call Antarctica!
His granddaughter Myra, who is in grade 6 at Jackson Trail Christian School, was very interested that her grandad had contacted Antarctica on his radio and decided to do a presentation to her class mates about Davis station. They were so impressed with it, she was then asked to present it to the 4th to 8th graders.
The AAD media unit fortunately provide a vast amount of useful information on Australian Antarctic science activities for just this purpose. In addition, I sent Myra some recent photos of life here at Davis as well as some notes about daily activities. The school is planning to videotape the presentation and put it on the school's website. Ron is sure that Myra will be a research scientist!
It’s very pleasing to be able to interact with the rest of the world via radio from down here, especially with friends from back home. We no longer have the difficulties experienced in the early days of radio using primitive equipment.
Then, we would make calls from the Antarctic to mainland Australia – with Macquarie Island acting as a radio relay site – using morse code, spark gap transmitters and crystal receivers. These days station comms to the mainland is high-speed satellite-based voice and data services.
An excellent example of early wireless equipment is on display at the Mawson Huts exhibit in Hobart.
- Dave Scott - Senior Communications Technical Officer -
