FIELD TRIP TO VISIT RADAR
A guided bus tour to the radar sites at Buckland Park, South Australia.
Bureau of Meteorology Radar: The Buckland Park S-band radar is one of six new Doppler radars being deployed by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology to provide enhanced real-time operational services, especially severe weather warnings, and to support the development of improved analysis and forecasting techniques. The radar is a Gematronic Meteor 1500S klystron-based radar with an 8.5 m antenna aperture for 1 degree beamwidth. The radar frequency is ~ 2.9 GHz, with resolution 250 m. Peak power is ~ 750 kW. The receiver dynamic range exceeds 90 dB. A high rigidity 20 m tower enables the radar to monitor conditions to ranges in excess of 250 km.
Web site: http://mirror.bom.gov.au/products/IDR644.shtml
MF radar: The Buckland Park MF radar is located 35 km North of Adelaide and operates at a frequency of 1.98MHz with a peak power of 100 kW. The antenna array consists of a 1-km diameter array of 89 individually accessible north–south and east–west aligned half-wave dipoles. By employing a variety of waveforms and scanning techniques, many different phenomena can be studied to an altitude of ~ 100 km, including atmospheric winds and turbulence, electron density, collision frequencies and meteor parameter distributions.
Reference: D.A. Holdsworth and I.M. Reid, Annales Geophysicae (2004) 22: 3815–3828
Web site: http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/atmospheric/mf.html
VHF radars: The main VHF radar exploits spatial and Doppler analysis to measure structure and dynamics of the lower atmosphere, 2 – 15 km altitude. A second VHF radar – the VHF boundary layer radar – is used to investigate the altitude range 0.3 – 5 km.
Website: http://www.physics.adelaide.edu.au/atmospheric/vhf.html
A number of other atmospheric research facilities are located within the Buckland Park precinct.
Included are morning tea, 3 course lunch at Krondorf Road Café, wine tasting at Kabminye Wines and a visit to Whispering Wall in Williamstown.
The trip will begin from Adelaide City at 8:15 am (picking up from Bowen Street, see the map below).
Another pick-up location will be at the Mowson Lakes Hotel, Mawson Lakes (see the map below) at 9:00 am.
It is expected that the coach will arrive back to Mawson Lakes at 4:15 pm and to Adelaide City at approximately 5 pm.
Lunch
Format: Private tasting upstairs followed by sit down lunch downstairs in the restaurant.
Menu
| Entrée: | Barossa platters placed down the table to share |
| Main, choice of: | Free Range Chicken w bacon, roasted potatoes and cucumber and cream salad Silesian Heaven - Kassler w Dried fruit and brandy sauce Roast root vegetable stack w quark and rocket Sides – mashed potato and buttered egg noodles |
| Dessert: | Cheese plates placed down the table to share Tea and coffee included |
Useful Links
Radar site at Buckland Park, SA
Kabminye Wines and Krondorf Road Cafe