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Immediate Report of Victoria University Of Wellington Antarctic Expedition 1987-88: VUWAE 32

Radio Communications

Radio Communications

A Codan SSB installed in NZ-1 and 2 Tait VHF radios were used this season. This combination of radio systems was generally very satisfying with the VHF radios giving us flexibility for surveying and route finding. Some minor problems were noted and these are listed below for future consideration.

(i)Some of the Tait VHF batteries are tired and could not be charged from a solar panel and would not hold the charge even when a generator was used.
(ii)NZ-1 wannigan requires a greater solar panel charging capacity (see NZ-1 in the field transport section).
(iii)The VHF system repeater at Mt. Newall has some unexpected blind spots such as close along the coast from Spike Cape. It is also obscured in much of Granite Harbour and north of Cape Ross as expected.
(iv)The surveyors (K191) used high gain aerials on the VHF radios which improved performance, especially over long distances without elevation, eg sea ice. These aerials are light in weight and very useful for our sea ice work.

On 2 or 3 occasions we travelled late into the night and could not contact Scott Base after stopping between 0100-0300 hours. We had understood Scott Base was operating a 24 hour radio watch and we felt unfairly criticised when we did not respond to the 0800 hours schedule. There seemed to be some breakdown in communication between the radio operators' and field operators' organisation at Scott Base.