Will I ever get to the AGO?
Whether someone is trying to go out into the field or return, delays due to bad weather, lack of planes available, or delayed cargo is a part of daily life here. Our AGO team was planning on departing for AGO 4 on Wednesday, December 14th. We were delayed because the plane we were scheduled to go out on broke down. Yesterday our twin otter plane finally arrived and we were planning on sending out our cargo today and leaving tomorrow. I woke up early to help load the cargo to discover that the plane couldn't fly out because of bad weather at AGO 4. Hopefully we will be able to get started tomorrow and leave Wednesday, yet more bad weather is supposedly on its way.
Our twin otter plane tests the runway while it waits to take our cargo to AGO 4 tomorrow (hopefully).
Meanwhile, back at the station
Although we are delayed, there is plenty to see and do here at the South Pole Station. It's a pretty great place to be stuck! Curious about what it is like here? Watch the video link below:
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Craft Time!
Since we have nothing to do but wait, Susan and I are making Christmas gifts. Susan is a talented seamstress and together we are making monogrammed covers for the green brain notebooks that everyone has here. Susan is making gifts for the groom team who is stuck out at AGO 3 due to bad weather. The groom team is a group of people that go out to field sites to clean up all of the leftover propane tanks and fuel. They also have to prepare a runway on the ice for the plane to land. They went out to AGO 3 a while ago and haven't been able to return yet.
Susan Whitley, our field guide, sews notebook covers while waiting to leave for AGO 4.
Monogrammed covers pile up for South Pole Station members' green brain notebooks.
The craft room & barbershop
Susan and I are working in the craft room, which has just about every kind of craft available. There is fabric, a sewing machine, yarn, paper, markers, watercolors, silk screening and much more. The room also doubles for the barbershop. Twice a season, the hairdresser at McMurdo, Ildiko, flies down to cut hair at the South Pole.
Hungarian hair dresser, Ildiko, cuts hair in the craft room which doubles as a barber shop!
Hamming it up
Another way to pass the time is to use the HAM radio here. A HAM radio allows people from all over the world to talk to each other using a low radio frequency. Every licensed HAM operator has his or her own call signal. Andy is a licensed HAM radio operator and let me sit in and listen as he talked to people from all over the world. It was amazing to think that a radio antenna at the South Pole could send a message all the way North to people in Canada! Our call signal at the South Pole is KC4AAA. Unlike the internet and phones here, HAM radio is independent from satellites.
Andy Stillinger communicates with people thousands of miles away using the HAM radio at the South Pole Station.
Getting the amplifier
At first the HAM radio at the South Pole was not working as well as it could have. It needed an amplifier so that the radio signal could be louder. Andy took apart an old television and found the piece he needed. The television was from Skua. Skua is where people put used items that other people can take for free. Items in Skua range from clothing to electronics and everything in between. Once Andy installed the amplifier from the television into the radio antenna, our signal was much stronger.
Andy opens up a T.V. to take an amplifier.
Questions
What would you do while you were waiting to leave the station to go to the AGO site?
What are the benefits of using a HAM radio to communicate with people all around the world from the South Pole? What makes technology like the telephone or the internet a better tool?
Why do you think items that are free to take are called "Skua"? (Hint: what is a Skua? Look back to the McMurdo Station Journals to learn more.
Andy was able to take a part from a T.V. and make it work in a radio! He knows a lot about building things and making things work because he is an engineer. What aspects of engineering do you find interesting?
Math Connection
If it takes me 5 minutes to cut out fabric for the notebook covers and it takes Susan 20 minutes to sew the journals, how long will it take for us to make 6 journals?