Today I visitted with Shelly Campbell in MacOps. MacOps is the communications center for McMurdo field operations. They monitor radio communications and provide the primary safety contact for anyone who is away from the station or in a distant field camp. The operators occupy a space on the second floor of building 165.
Building 165-home to MacOps. Can you tell that it's where radio communications happens?
While talking with Shelly I found that she has been working at either McMurdo or the South Pole for 16 years. Her background is mechanical engineering, but she found that she enjoyed the contacts she made with people through her communications work and as a result has been working in the communications operations that whole time. She said that the best people for this job are those that have a desire to provide good customer service and be ready to help people. That quality was obvious in her and in the other operators that were on duty when I was there.
Working with people is really important in her job. If I were in a field camp far from McMurdo and I needed information or had another need, my request would go through MacOps and they would send it on to the people that would help me get my job done.
The main control and communications console at MacOps. All radio communications goes through here.
Safety
Equally important is their role in keeping people safe. One of the requirements here at McMurdo is that if you are away from McMurdo Station you must file a travel plan which includes where you are going, how you will travel, and most important, when you will be getting back. You are required to check in with MacOps when you get back into town or on a schedule so that everyone knows that you are OK. People in field camps have to check in at least once a day. If you don’t check in on time, MacOps immediately sets an emergency procedure into operation that can result in 50-60 people being contacted AND the Search and Rescue team being sent out to look for you. Being late on a check in is REALLY bad! There are no do-overs.
International Cooperation
Another part of her job that she enjoys is the international cooperation that exists among the research stations on Antarctica. The Italian station is fairly close to McMurdo so she gets to know the scientists and staff at that station fairly well. The same with the New Zealand station. She gave me an example of how important that coordination is.
Many years ago she said that they received a call for emergency help to get a person at the Norwegian station evacuated to New Zealand. This required that the injured person be flown from the Troll Research station to the U.S. South Pole station on a small Twin Otter airplane. At South Poll the U.S. had an LC130 waiting to transport them to McMurdo. At McMurdo a C17 was waiting to transport them to Christchurch New Zealand. The person made a full recovery and Shelly said that years later when she was at the South Pole she met that same person whom she had helped arrange the evacuation for. She found a great deal of satisfaction in seeing a happy ending to her efforts.
This is the route that was taken to evacuate an injured Norwegian from their research station at Troll (dot on the right side of the map) to the South Pole and on to McMurdo. From there they were flown to Christchurch New Zealand where the made a full recovery. Total distance was over two thousand miles .
Tourists
The last bit of information I learned is that both McMurdo and the South Pole get visits from tourists – not many, but they do show up. At the South Pole they average around 150 visitors a year from commercial tour groups that fly the tourists to the pole for a day. McMurdo sees a few more, mainly from a small number of ice-hardened cruise ships. The most unusual thing about the cruises that come to McMurdo is seeing children on the streets of the station – there aren’t any the rest of the year.
MacOps is an important part of the day-to-day operations in McMurdo. Above all else they provide a safety net for the people who work here every day and make sure that someone is available to take messages and track the movement of everyone at the station.