Listening to the Universe

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Blog Day 1068

Citizenship Countdown 32 Days

We were ready to go, today was Friday 7th October the long weekend was here and we both had a week off ahead of us. The truck was packed, and the TVAN we had hired was down in the garage waiting to be hitched up and towed with us.

We were heading up to Parkes for the 50th Anniversary of the Parkes Radio Telescope, (The Dish), regular readers will know that we have been to the dish before and it had become a bit of an icon for us, we have been looking forward to this particular weekend for ages and with Les and Sue Briggs’s, enthusiasm had put together an ACT 4 wheel drive club trip, to attend this special weekend.

Our arrangement was to meet at the George Harcourt pub at 12.00 noon, on Friday 7th October, where we would meet, Clem and Lesley and Les and Sue for our journey to Parkes where we would stay for two nights.

A group of 3 trucks had already left at earlier today from Hall, who were John and Cheryl Southwell, Robyn and Richard Allum and Greg and Tammy Finlay, with their Boys Jake and Kyle and Greg’s mum Gaye ( with an "e" ).

On the route up, we stopped at Maccas’s for a coffee in Cowra, then at Forbes we went to a cemetery that had graves of the famous Bushranger Ben Hall, Kate Foster the sister of Ned Kelly, and there was also the grave of Rebbeca Shield who was the Great Grand Niece of Captain Cook, the explorer.

So with 6 trucks meeting up at the Spicers Caravan Park in Parkes, the final 3 trucks arrived not far behind us at around 5.20pm, Jeff and Sandra Lambert, Bob and Kim Rutten, Nigel and Jane Fredericks and their boys Patrick and Tristan.

So all in all we had nine vehicles, and 8 different camping set ups, 2 TVan Mark III’s, tents, camper trailers and other cool bits of kit that you can see by the pictures.

As soon as we arrived, It took us about 5 minutes to set the T Van up, then pull the side awning out from the cruiser, open the sides and bingo we were ready.

Someone came up with a brilliant idea of organising Pizza’s from the local Eagle Boys, so we all made our selection, chucked some money in the kitty and went over to the camp reception where we placed an order for $90 bucks worth of yummy pizza.

John Southwell, (oh hail el presidente) had called ahead and had spoken in advance of us all arriving on site in Parkes and had arranged for the Caravan Park owners to organise us a screen, laptop, projector, speakers and power board, so we could watch a special film after we had had our dinner.

At 8.15, everyone was sat down to watch The Dish, of course it was only fitting to watch the film on a weekend that was dedicated to The Dish, even though we have both seen it several times before, we enjoyed the viewing – as did everyone else, but just after 10.00pm the film ended and it was bedtime.

Possibly I was just looking forwards to snuggling up with Caroline in the T van, which we always love to do, not snuggling up, but sleeping in the TVAN, though I do love snuggling up with Caroline.

Just a note, this is the first time we have ever tried out a TVAN Mk III which is slightly higher and wider than the Mk II and we have been excited about hiring one, though we still do not know what will eventually replace the Wendy House.
We both slept really well, waking to the sound of the birds which was beautiful, gosh how we both miss travelling.

I put my boots on and wandered outside, most people were already up, sitting having breakfast and chatting to friends from the club and anyone else who would talk to them really.

We made breakfast and got ourselves ready, our plans for the day was to go out to the Radio Telescope, for its 50th Birthday Open Day, have a look around and go on a guided tour around the inside on the telescope.

I will take this time, to refresh your memories, Parkes Radio Telescope is the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere, built in the middle of a sheep paddock in 1961, by M.A.N (Machinefabric Augburg Nurnberg), who now make trucks.
The reason it was built in the middle of a sheep paddock was the fact that when the site was selected in the Mid 50’S it was radio quite, and as it is a Radio Telescope, basically listening for the faintest radio waves in the universe, any extraneous interference would upset or interfere with the signals.

As an amazing fact, we were told that all the radio signals found by the Dish, in the universe, would be enough to power a light bulb for a millionth of a second.

The Dish weighs 1000 Tonnes and pivots at the counter balance which weighs 350 Tonnes and she is just magnificent, a true Icon and monument to man’s engineering and scientific achievement.

She was loaned to Nasa, and took part in the Apollo program and received the telemetry and TV pictures from the Apollo 11 Moon landing on 21st July 1969. I can still remember to this day, being off school, and watched when Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin first stepped on the moon for the first time, wow, one of the most momentous achievements of man and watched by 600 million people worldwide, never in my wildest dreams would I ever had thought we would be at the 50th Anniversary of the Radio Telescope here in Australia, where we now live.

We left the camp site at 08.30 and followed in convoy, until reaching the telescope site at around 9.00am.

The Car park was nearly full when we rocked up, we were lucky to get a parking space. Once we were all parked we wandered in and queued to have a look at the inside of the dish.

The tours were being organised and guided by the CSIRO staff, because we were in a group of 18, we were separated for the tour, the first group in blue hard hats and the rest of us in red hard hats, at all costs we needed to keep our helmetson.

A CSIRO member of staff was whizzing around on a "Segway", he tried to convince us he was Neil Armstrong, and our President, John, "Buzz Lightyear"" Southwell had hispicture taken with the so called Astronaut, on the Segeway, but great fun all the same.

We started the climb up the temporary scaffolding that had been put up so you entered one way and exited the other, it took you to a level where you had to climb a few more steel steps, to what they call the Azimuth Track where the telescope rotates.

The Dish is huge, 64 meters across or 210 Feet, 4 small 12 horse power motors rotate the giant dish, as it is so well balanced it, doesn’t take much to move it.

Something that fascinated me, was the “Twister Room” where all the cables are run up through the centre of the telescope and are loomed in such a way that when the dish rotates, there is enough slack laid out in the twister room, that the cables don’t break.

After our tour of the dish, we walked down to another part of the complex to the CSIRO, radio telescope test bed for the new SKA project, Australia has been bidding with other nations, to build the next generation of Radio telescopes, somewhere in the world, Australia's bid is in Western Australia, and it is called SKA (Square Kilometre Array). It is hoped to be based in Western Australia, and will be made up of 2000 + 12 meter radio telescopes.

The pack of contenders have been whittled down to 2 countries, Australia and Africa and the decision is expected to be announced on 29th February next year.

At Parkes I attended a lecture of what the SKA will look for and it’s just mind blowing, the data these new 12 meter dishes will receive, is comparative to the same amount of data as 140 Million DVDs being played for one hour, and they will be able to handle this amount of information every minute.

The whole thing was absolutely amazing and I was so glad to be able to walk through the radio telescope, something we have wanted to do for ages.

Some of the team decided to go and see some other touristy things and Caroline and I decided to go back to camp and have an easy afternoon, before we had to go back to the Dish for the Opera later that afternoon.

To be continued.

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Photos

The President meets Neil Armstrong
John Southwell, ACT 4 Wheel DrIve club President, and Astronaut, Neil Armstrong (Not Really) some one from CSIRO, dressed up

Clem and Leslie Toser
At Forbes, New South Wales

Misty Morning
Camp Set up at Parkes

So Shy
Cheryl Southwell, talking about something, I could not possibly share with you guys.

Our Set up!
The TVAN mK III, Hitched to the truck, this is our camping set up at the moment. Plenty of Storage, we are virtually self sufficient.

Parked at Parkes.
A very misty morning, would turn out to be absolutly beautiful

A Team Photo
Canberra 4 wheel drive club, team Photo, Parkes Radio Telescope trip 50th Anniversary

This View
If you have watched th efilm, you know where thi sview is.

Coloured Helmets
The smart way to collect the coloured safety Helmets.

M.A.N
Machinefabric, Aurgsburg, Nurnberg, the manufacturers.

Tour of the Dish
You needed to climb the scaffolding to access theAzimeth Track, so it was one way in and one way out.

Different Coloured Helmets
Identified which group you were with.

Nice Car
Ford Mustang

The Blue Helmets
Jeff, Sandra, Clem, Les, Sue, and Leslie from the 4 wheel drive club.

The Red Devils
In our Red Safety Helmets

The Counter Weight
350 Tonnes of it

Comments

[ThePass]

Campomatic
Boy, this sure looks a lot like the Cub campers. Just checked out their web site and they appear to be very well constructed and with some really great options. We have a basic Cub camper. Nothing inside but the bed, storage and the 'living room'. Carry everything else in the camper or our 'crossover' vehicle (not 4wd). The Camp-O-Matic looks very interesting

[kangaroojack]

Campomatic
Hi Gary, that's exactly what I said, but no it's not. I will find out, what it is and report back. Andy