Operating in Antartica
I worked on a Metox at Davis Base in '82. From what I remember it was a great
little machine. It always reminded me of the time machine in that old movie
called "The Time Machine".
There were 4 funny looking aerials poking out the back of an Oscilloscope sitting
in front of a bar stool enclosed by a black curtain. The whole lot was inside
a fibreglass dome with a little fan heater blowing on my feet.
It was always easy to lock-on at Davis 'cause the wind was blowing in the one
direction at the same speed every day except for a few calm days on a summer
afternoon. The book said readings were too inaccurate below 15 deg. and above
75 deg. That was true for high elevations ( especially after a few beers) but
we always managed to get good readings in low elevations because the wind was
strong with a constant direction. It just took a bit of extra concentration
and staying sober for the flight. I found it enjoyable as it was warm, comfortable
and we hooked up a radio to Radio Australia to listen to while doing the flight.
It's reliable when properly maintained & tuned. Glen McAulliffe was the Tech
the year I was there and must have kept it tuned and maintained although I didn't
notice him spending much time on it. as I don't remember it breaking down. We
did four flights a day for 365 days.
The screen had 4 boxes drawn by thin green lines. 2 on the sides and one on
top and bottom. If you adjusted the gain according to temperature of the Metox
and distance of the balloon a good strong signal would see the 4 boxes touch
each other in the centre of the screen. If the left box was longer than the
right box it was just a matter of turning the Azimuth wheel a fraction clockwise
to face the Metox a bit to the right to even up the strength of signals. Then
just read off the azimuth and elevation readings of the aerial and compute the
winds. Pretty much like the WF2 which had a circle
instead of 4 separate signals.
Greg Crow (1)
(1)
Bureau observing staff - June 2001 (private communications)