24/7

Today at 1700, MacOps ceased 24/7 operations for the
season. With no more helos flying and the last group
of folks back from the Black Island Road Camp, there
was no reason to be operating. The Firehouse is taking
all traffic calls from now until WINFLY. I've enjoyed
working in MacOps the last couple of months and I feel
like I've kind of come into my own on the radio the
past few weeks, reaching a pretty high level of comfort
with it. It was nice hearing people tell me that they
thought I was doing a good job when they heard me on
Channel 3, or having the people who were in a recent
SAR situation thanking me for "being there" on the
radio when they needed help. However, I'm ready for
winter to start and to do the main job I came down here
for. I'll still be in MacOps every week, talking to
the Pole, and I hope someday to work in MacOps again,
but a page for this season has definitely turned.

Lake Vanda...Brrrrr

Our friend Matt is getting back to McMurdo from Lake
Vanda, Wright Valley and Bull Pass out in the Dry
Valleys. Not everyone who goes out to the Dry Valleys
gets to sleep in a cozy building. In fact, most people
there sleep in tents. Matt was leading a couple of
grantees on a small walking expedition through the
Wright Valley. Although it is similar in many ways to
to Taylor Valley, this time of year it's more isolated
by the fact that they have a hard time communicating with
the other camps. The Wright Valley repeater doesn't
reach the camps at Lake Hoare, Bonney or Fryxell easily
so they did their check-ins with us at MacOps. They
had to move camps to the Bull Pass Hut last night
because it was getting down toward -35 Fahrenheit and
one of the guys had the zipper break on his sleeping
bag. -35 is cold, but not unheard of...but sleeping
in a tent at -35...I don't think so!

South Pole Comms

800 miles due south (as the skua flies) is Amundsen-Scott
South Pole Station. Or "The Pole" as most of us at McMurdo
call it. From now until late August, I'll be speaking to
Shaun at the Station Operations Center (this pictured
room)once a week to basically verify that the South Pole
Station is still...I guess for a better term...there. I
don't think anyone's going to walk away with it or aliens
will scoop it up in the middle of the night, but for one
hour each week I will be contacting Shaun, who will be in
this small room and we'll be testing our HF radio systems.
Exciting stuff? Not so much, but since I find it rather
doubtful that I will ever winter at the Pole, this is about
as close as I can get. There are thousands of Ham Radio
operators around the world that would probably give almost
anything to speak to either one of us during the winter and
we're getting paid to do it. Hopefully there will be some good
stories coming out of this room at Pole this winter instead
of...yep, it's still cold...yep, it's still dark. I have
enough of the still cold and still dark stuff on this
end of the radio.

Troubles at Black Island

I had one of those days yesterday at MacOps where things
seemed to happen from beginning to end. Things weren't
happening to me...just things happening during my shift.
While wrapping up the transfer of the Medical patient back
to the Nathanial B. Palmer, we received a call from the IT
department that the ventilation system had dropped at Black
Island and it was getting difficult to remotely operate
the equipment there. Almost immediately a Helo transport
was arranged for 1600 hours and when our friend Antz got
out there, it looks like he had to shut the system down to
begin fixing the problem. This caused us to lose communications
completely on the station except for Iridium phones and a
more difficult method of connecting through the NZ lines at
Scott Base.

"A satellite dish problem at Black Island has caused all
McMurdo Off-continent communications to fail".

My boss, the Site Manager, came to Mac Ops to call his
boss in Denver via Iridium to tell him all was well and
we were still here, albeit hard to contact. About an
hour later, comms was restored, but it sounds like they're
going to have to replace some equipment that helps them
run the Communications center via remote control.


Black Island is about 25 miles due south of McMurdo and
is fairly easy to reach (if you have a helicopter).
Otherwise it's a 7 hour drive over treacherous and
bumpy frozen ice, travelling over McMurdo Sound. On
a clear day, you can just see it as a tiny dot on the
horizon from McMurdo. It's one of the most important
facilities in the area though. Communications signals
from McMurdo bounce off the satellite dish at Black
Island and up to space, coming down in Australia.
This process is reversed for incoming communications.
This includes phone, several types of radio, television,
email, internet...the whole works. We are far enough
north that we can "see" the correct communications
satellites on the horizon, while the South Pole, which
is 800 miles farther south, is out of these satellites'
range. So when something goes wrong at Black Island,
it takes us back to the old days in a hurry.