Other Q-6 tales

Bob Hocking remembers one Musketball track particularly well: email to PD, 06 March 2007

"I had only two techs on my shift; they shall remain unnamed.

The calibration and bore-sight checks were complete and we were waiting for AOS. Suddenly there was a flash and a loud bang followed by a clatter of contactors as the whole radar shut down. A shocked tech emerged from the receiver section. His face was black and he was still clutching a pair of pointed nose pliers now about an inch shorter than they had been. I asked him what he had been doing.

It turned out he had decided to replace a voltmeter on the load centre panel. As he reached around the back of the panel with a nut gripped in the pliers he had shorted one of the few circuits in the radar not protected by a local circuit breaker. The main critical power breaker had tripped. I won't repeat my comments.

I raced downstairs and reset the breakers. The Q-6 did the right thing by us and we supported the track OK. The guy was quite upset, he couldn't understand my objection to his doing non-urgent maintenance at such a critical time."

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Ken Anderson remembers the same technicisn and Bob: email to PD, 06 March 2007.

Len Algate arrived back at CRO as the Chief Engineer and, of course, was touring around the sites. When he arrived at Q6 I took him on the 2/6 tour. When we got to the antenna I opened the doors to show him the ‘new’ paramps [new since his days as FPQ-6 Site Engineer]. I was surprised/mystified by the presence of a 6" file, [laying] loose in the cabinet. Needless to say I removed it.

For some time prior to this event we'd been having problems with the system noise figure, which would be OK for a day or so then plummet to unacceptable level. The receiver "tech" [same guy whe was responsible for Bob's "mishap"] would be asked to replace the mixer diodes, the noise figure would now be OK, only to fail miserably again [the next day]. So, I one day asked him to bring the diodes he removed to me. It was late in the afternoon and I just put them on my desk. When I arrived next morning I picked them up and nearly fell over when I realised that the tips of all of the diodes had had 50 to 60 % removed, very coarsely, with a file. [These diodes were extremely sensitive to static electricity and there were strict instructions as to their handling, in order to protect them] I asked the receiver guy, "Would you explain to me how these diodes came to be filed?" His reply was, “I will not speak to you when you question me like that." My blood pressure immediately disappeared through the roof, and my memory of the event includes the sight of Bob Hocking, my 2 i/c disappearing between two cabinets. After this was all over I asked Bob why he'd disappeared and he replied, "You were so angry I thought you were going to hit him. I just got out of the way so I could say to any subsequent inquiry that I didn't see what happened."

It turned out that ...[the culprit] being so ham-fisted,... had found the diodes difficult to insert into their holders and had taken the 'easy' way out.

Needless to say the culprit was transferred to a system where he could do less harm.

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