My work at Mawson (part 4 of 4)
Friday 14th January 2000

... continued

Other work on the Ionosonde required drilling some holes in the rock to put antenna supports in. Drilling holes in the rock requires an environmental impact assessment (PA) to be done and approved by the Antarctic Division. Two weeks after Nick & I submitted the PA, it was approved and we set about drilling some 300mm deep holes in the granite rock. Enough of the Ionosonde !.. Some of my other tasks include general cleaning and rubbish removal back to Australia - termed 'RTA' (Return To Australia) .

Rock drilling for the Ionosonde Antenna - a great workplace with excellent views!

I spent one other afternoon de-blizzing, or cleaning the snow, out of an ASP storage container located directly behind the Aeronomy building. During a blizzard, very fine particles of snow can penetrate small holes - smaller than a needle - and gradually build up inside. This means that any container has to be carefully sealed because in summer the snow melts and the resulting water can do a lot of damage.

De-blizzing the ASP container

These activities are just a small part of my work at Mawson - which I find both tiring but extremely rewarding. I have never been without a task to do, rather my list of things to do is gradually increasing! It is also very easy to become sidetracked from a task because something such as an experiment stopping becomes top priority and demands my attention.

The other thing that gets in the way of progress is the 'A' factor or Antarctic factor. This is basically just the general term used for the time that is wasted because of things that back in Australia would not make much of a difference. These include waiting for the weather to clear (because it's very hard to work outside when there is a 100kph blizzard), the lack of tools / parts (because they did not make the last boat trip), suddenly discovering that you need a very special part to repair something, and you do not have one - meaning a 4 month wait until the next boat. Improvisation occurs quite a lot because sometimes things just have to be fixed, and this is where the ability to be resourceful comes in very useful.

Cheers,

Kym

back to part 1, part 2, part 3