TRAFFICKING
Trafficking in drugs, we all know, is a dangerous business. But have you seen what can happen when you traffic in Euclids? "What's a Euclid"? I hear you ask. A Euclid is a large truck, around 50 tonnes empty or 150 tonnes loaded. From a distance they look like Tonka toys on steroids, but up close & personal at 60 km/hr & maximum gross weight they are a formidable piece of vehicular traffic, around 21 gigaJoules of unstoppable kinetic energy. My introduction to the daunting world of Euclid traffic flow management came six months ago when we were asked to design the radio component of an 'in house' traffic control system being developed at a local quarry. The systems purpose was to prevent the unthinkable, a Euclid traffic accident. So, we've spent the interim gainfully occupied in sensing vehicle direction plus intention & organising a wireless based signalling system to prevent two or more Euclids attempting to occupy the same piece of road at the same time. Things had been progressing well, individual sub system tests where going nicely & we were getting close to a system roll out when I got to see why we were asked to develop the concept in the first place, a Euclid incident. Fortunately, I was not present to witness the event but eyewitness reports have the truck airborne for 20 metres before coming to rest belly up. The driver escaped unhurt. So road side sensor repairs are under way & hopefully Euclid prangs will soon be a thing of the past, when the 'TrafficKing' finally gets switched on. WATERMATION Watermation means water automation, & that includes waste water because water recycling is becoming a growth industry as the realisation dawns that the supply of fresh water is finite and that less potable sources are fine for many applications. Pictured is one of several dozen irrigation solenoid control points at Sydney water corps waste water recycling scheme at Picton. This PC based system controls the use of highly treated effluent for the production of silage sold to local dairy farmers. Wireless waste water management is an economic alternative to trenching underground cable. I was on site at this location recently when one of the sprinklers hit me with a blast. Now I try hard to be a no prejudice person & I know the liquid that splashed me has been so heavily processed you could probably drink it. But I have to confess to an involuntary shudder as the cold splosh caught me full on, a bit of that toilet-to-tap mental bias showing through I guess? Still its crazy to use pure drinking water to grow crops in the driest inhabited continent on earth so we just have to get smarter with our water usage. SALAD DAYS Most of our rural customers are big gruff farmers with hands like hams & a handshake grip like a vice. So I was surprised to see the two word entry in the 'phone diary the other day, "ring Angie" it said followed by the number. I fantasised briefly about who the lovely Angie might be & dialled the number. Angie Rigoni turned out to be a big gruff farmer with hands like hams & a handshake grip like a vice. He and his son Steve grow tobacco in north east Victoria & wanted to supplement their existing radio frost alarm with a couple of the new analog temperature links modified for customised alarming. The Rigonis fed me a beer & sandwiches on my first visit & then Christmas cake & coffee on my second. I've made a mental note to get out of the office & visit customers more often. The last time I left the Rigoni spread a couple of kids in swim shorts were walking along the banks of the Kiewa river carrying inflated car tyre inner tubes. I pulled up on the bridge to watch these optimists as they waded through a drought flow only four inches deep. Birds were singing, the sun shone, & a very dishy sweet young thing rode past on her push bike. I wonder if her name was Angie? 'Plug & Play' is one of those delicious phrases coined by the marketing folk, the notion that technology comes in little black boxes that just click together, all inter-compatible & groovy. But what happens when you plug but can't play? Product support for us often starts with a scratchy mobile 'phone call from a paddock. If the problem can't be sorted over the 'phone we ship a range test kit for diagnosis. But what if the devil himself has found his way into your system? THE EXORCISM It was obvious that Jim had given it his best. He had 12v supply (he had checked it with a multimeter), the power light was on, the transmitter beeped when sending, the antenna was OK, but the receiver would not switch. On the seven hour drive to Griffith my mind pondered what technical evil I would have to exorcise from Jim's system when I arrived. In the boot was virtually a replacement network in spares and enough trouble shooting hardware to play rocket science. I lugged several cartoons of gear into the pump shed & the farmer obligingly shut down his 75 kW pump so I could hear myself think. Five minutes later I was shaking my head in absolute disbelief! A plugpack filter capacitor had failed due moisture, possibly condensation drips from the shed roof. The irony of a few drops of water & the exorcism that wasn't necessary was not lost on me as I eyeballed the approaching dust storm we would have to drive through on the way back to Sydney. My head hit the pillow at 2am, the end of a twenty one hour working day. I could still feel grit under my eyelids but I was beyond caring. CONFESSIONS OF AN OEM OEM stands for original equipment manufacturer, we make radio control systems for rural & industrial applications. We are the OEM that nearly wasn't because one night about eight years ago I was driving back late to Sydney from a customer's place in Dubbo when I woke up behind the wheel of my car to see a line of road side markers rushing up to greet me. The close encounter with the little white posts led to the conviction that I needed a faster mode of transport, something that could get me to our out-of-town customers & back in time for the evening meal. And so for the last five years I've had the singular pleasure of making my way to clients in four Australian states by helicopter. I'm not talking corporate turbine here. Just a little two seat, fits between grape rows, chopper. Its been the ride of a lifetime! I've landed at spots in summer where the cabin temperature was forty two degrees Celsius, making the flight controls too hot to handle without gloves. I've been to vineyards in winter where the snow lay three inches deep on the ground. I've put down on grape covered slopes so steep I worried that my machine would tip over. I've had cattle show interest in eating the tail rotor, been bailed up by the property owners dog, and got lost a few times. But despite all this I have to say that Vineyards are my favourite type of destination. Most vineyards have a dam you can have a paddle in. Many have cellar door sales. Some have restaurants. A few have breathtaking scenery. And a select handful have all of the above. This happy situation stands in stark contrast to some of my other destinations, coal mines in particular. Coal mines have dams, but not the kind you'd want to swim in. Coal mines don't have restaurants or cellar door sales, although any machine that visits for more than half a day usually leaves with a thin sample of product coating every surface. To be blunt collieries are dirty, dangerous places with great big trucks that could run over a little two seat helicopter and not even feel the bump. I've learned to never land on anything that even vaguely resembles a road. So what has led to this little bout of reminiscing? Alas the grim fact is that every twenty two hundred hours a Robinson helicopter has to be completely overhauled. And so for the next few months while my personal workhorse sits in a million pieces on the hangar floor I'm grounded. Time to sit & dream of past travels and wait for the day when I can again look down on those roadside posts from above, the only angle to see them from. At right above, a prestigious Hunter valley winery, as photographed from the restaurant. Over eating at the restaurant is a vineyard hazard. And yes that's the owners corporate jet just getting airborne mid shot. Wine grape growing is ripe for automation (nice pun eh) and the range of applications covers the full spectrum of production from field based vineyard systems like wireless frost alarms & cableless irrigation controllers to winery automation devices such as transfer pump controllers and process control links. At left, a Hunter valley coal mine. Being squashed by a coal truck is a colliery hazard. Colliery applications for short haul radio include handsets for proximal process control, links for analog signal monitoring and multipoint above ground alarm systems. Solar powered networks in particular are easy to relocate in the mining situation. Coal mines & vineyards run cheek by jowl in the Hunter, a real beauty & the beast contrast. STRATEGIC PARTNERS & BUSINESS ALLIANCES As my business has steadily drifted (sunk?) towards the deep end of the pool, technically speaking, it seems to cruise into more & more techno-babble. A recent excursion to a business development conference was a case in point. Here was a whole new world of jargon! As near as I can tell a Strategic Partner is someone you sell stuff to. While a Business Alliance Associate is someone who makes a gizmo that is compatible with your stuff. 'Value adding' (also known as Combinatorial Synergy) is when your Strategic Partner or Business Alliance Associate connects their gizmo to your stuff & sells it to their customer. I'm sure there is something to be said for business networking & I probably should do more of it, but listening to the speakers at this seminar I couldn't help wondering how many of them it would take to change a light globe? For that matter how many Strategic Business Partners does it take to form a Business Alliance Network to change a light bulb? Tell you what, I'll start the ball rolling for Mclean Automation & if anyone else wants to email me with how many of their people it takes to change a globe I'll put them on this page too. Q: How many McLean Automation personnel does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to fly the helicopter & one to lean out & swap globes Q: How many C & M Innovations staff does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to change the bulb & one to drive the forklift (C & M are in the plant nursery automation business & deploy really big Mercury-Halide lamps) Q: How many RTA operatives does it take to change a light bulb? A: Three, one to change the globe & two to direct traffic. The Roads & Traffic Authority guys were occasional contributors to our old FaxStream newsletter, their motto is "If you don't like the public's driving, stay off the footpath" (sidewalk for you stateside readers) Q: How many Orica explosives workers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to change the bulb and one to work the siren & wave the big red flag Q: How many University of Sydney staff does it take to change a light globe? A: Two, one to call maintenance & one to say "we're okay here thanks" Q: How many New Zealanders does it take to change a light globe? A: Three, one to hold the globe & two to rotate the chair (this one contributed by an Aussie expat masquerading as a New Zealander) Off the record, OK? Most OEMs keep records on the products they source. My maternal grandmother was from German stock and I think I must have inherited a bit of that Fritzie penchant for documentation because over the years I’ve accumulated an impressive array of data on what happens to our custom proximal radio designs after they leave the comfort of the design bench and go out into the big bad world. The sad thing about a lot of this data is that much of it is destined never to see the light of day. Things you would rather the world at large (and your customers in particular) did not know about. Like the running sheet which shows that every unit shipped with a particular brand of trimmer capacitor was returned with the device short circuited. Fortunately the sample set of 10 units was only half used before the trend became glaringly obvious. Over the years my company has acquired a database of interesting applications for our bread and butter, the Cobra (Contact Oriented Bi-stable Radio Annunciator), a simple on/off link for monitoring and control. For example:
WATERMATION
Watermation means water automation, & that includes waste water because water recycling is becoming a growth industry as the realisation dawns that the supply of fresh water is finite and that less potable sources are fine for many applications. Pictured is one of several dozen irrigation solenoid control points at Sydney water corps waste water recycling scheme at Picton. This PC based system controls the use of highly treated effluent for the production of silage sold to local dairy farmers. Wireless waste water management is an economic alternative to trenching underground cable. I was on site at this location recently when one of the sprinklers hit me with a blast. Now I try hard to be a no prejudice person & I know the liquid that splashed me has been so heavily processed you could probably drink it. But I have to confess to an involuntary shudder as the cold splosh caught me full on, a bit of that toilet-to-tap mental bias showing through I guess? Still its crazy to use pure drinking water to grow crops in the driest inhabited continent on earth so we just have to get smarter with our water usage. SALAD DAYS Most of our rural customers are big gruff farmers with hands like hams & a handshake grip like a vice. So I was surprised to see the two word entry in the 'phone diary the other day, "ring Angie" it said followed by the number. I fantasised briefly about who the lovely Angie might be & dialled the number. Angie Rigoni turned out to be a big gruff farmer with hands like hams & a handshake grip like a vice. He and his son Steve grow tobacco in north east Victoria & wanted to supplement their existing radio frost alarm with a couple of the new analog temperature links modified for customised alarming. The Rigonis fed me a beer & sandwiches on my first visit & then Christmas cake & coffee on my second. I've made a mental note to get out of the office & visit customers more often. The last time I left the Rigoni spread a couple of kids in swim shorts were walking along the banks of the Kiewa river carrying inflated car tyre inner tubes. I pulled up on the bridge to watch these optimists as they waded through a drought flow only four inches deep. Birds were singing, the sun shone, & a very dishy sweet young thing rode past on her push bike. I wonder if her name was Angie? 'Plug & Play' is one of those delicious phrases coined by the marketing folk, the notion that technology comes in little black boxes that just click together, all inter-compatible & groovy. But what happens when you plug but can't play? Product support for us often starts with a scratchy mobile 'phone call from a paddock. If the problem can't be sorted over the 'phone we ship a range test kit for diagnosis. But what if the devil himself has found his way into your system? THE EXORCISM It was obvious that Jim had given it his best. He had 12v supply (he had checked it with a multimeter), the power light was on, the transmitter beeped when sending, the antenna was OK, but the receiver would not switch. On the seven hour drive to Griffith my mind pondered what technical evil I would have to exorcise from Jim's system when I arrived. In the boot was virtually a replacement network in spares and enough trouble shooting hardware to play rocket science. I lugged several cartoons of gear into the pump shed & the farmer obligingly shut down his 75 kW pump so I could hear myself think. Five minutes later I was shaking my head in absolute disbelief! A plugpack filter capacitor had failed due moisture, possibly condensation drips from the shed roof. The irony of a few drops of water & the exorcism that wasn't necessary was not lost on me as I eyeballed the approaching dust storm we would have to drive through on the way back to Sydney. My head hit the pillow at 2am, the end of a twenty one hour working day. I could still feel grit under my eyelids but I was beyond caring. CONFESSIONS OF AN OEM OEM stands for original equipment manufacturer, we make radio control systems for rural & industrial applications. We are the OEM that nearly wasn't because one night about eight years ago I was driving back late to Sydney from a customer's place in Dubbo when I woke up behind the wheel of my car to see a line of road side markers rushing up to greet me. The close encounter with the little white posts led to the conviction that I needed a faster mode of transport, something that could get me to our out-of-town customers & back in time for the evening meal. And so for the last five years I've had the singular pleasure of making my way to clients in four Australian states by helicopter. I'm not talking corporate turbine here. Just a little two seat, fits between grape rows, chopper. Its been the ride of a lifetime! I've landed at spots in summer where the cabin temperature was forty two degrees Celsius, making the flight controls too hot to handle without gloves. I've been to vineyards in winter where the snow lay three inches deep on the ground. I've put down on grape covered slopes so steep I worried that my machine would tip over. I've had cattle show interest in eating the tail rotor, been bailed up by the property owners dog, and got lost a few times. But despite all this I have to say that Vineyards are my favourite type of destination. Most vineyards have a dam you can have a paddle in. Many have cellar door sales. Some have restaurants. A few have breathtaking scenery. And a select handful have all of the above. This happy situation stands in stark contrast to some of my other destinations, coal mines in particular. Coal mines have dams, but not the kind you'd want to swim in. Coal mines don't have restaurants or cellar door sales, although any machine that visits for more than half a day usually leaves with a thin sample of product coating every surface. To be blunt collieries are dirty, dangerous places with great big trucks that could run over a little two seat helicopter and not even feel the bump. I've learned to never land on anything that even vaguely resembles a road. So what has led to this little bout of reminiscing? Alas the grim fact is that every twenty two hundred hours a Robinson helicopter has to be completely overhauled. And so for the next few months while my personal workhorse sits in a million pieces on the hangar floor I'm grounded. Time to sit & dream of past travels and wait for the day when I can again look down on those roadside posts from above, the only angle to see them from. At right above, a prestigious Hunter valley winery, as photographed from the restaurant. Over eating at the restaurant is a vineyard hazard. And yes that's the owners corporate jet just getting airborne mid shot. Wine grape growing is ripe for automation (nice pun eh) and the range of applications covers the full spectrum of production from field based vineyard systems like wireless frost alarms & cableless irrigation controllers to winery automation devices such as transfer pump controllers and process control links. At left, a Hunter valley coal mine. Being squashed by a coal truck is a colliery hazard. Colliery applications for short haul radio include handsets for proximal process control, links for analog signal monitoring and multipoint above ground alarm systems. Solar powered networks in particular are easy to relocate in the mining situation. Coal mines & vineyards run cheek by jowl in the Hunter, a real beauty & the beast contrast. STRATEGIC PARTNERS & BUSINESS ALLIANCES As my business has steadily drifted (sunk?) towards the deep end of the pool, technically speaking, it seems to cruise into more & more techno-babble. A recent excursion to a business development conference was a case in point. Here was a whole new world of jargon! As near as I can tell a Strategic Partner is someone you sell stuff to. While a Business Alliance Associate is someone who makes a gizmo that is compatible with your stuff. 'Value adding' (also known as Combinatorial Synergy) is when your Strategic Partner or Business Alliance Associate connects their gizmo to your stuff & sells it to their customer. I'm sure there is something to be said for business networking & I probably should do more of it, but listening to the speakers at this seminar I couldn't help wondering how many of them it would take to change a light globe? For that matter how many Strategic Business Partners does it take to form a Business Alliance Network to change a light bulb? Tell you what, I'll start the ball rolling for Mclean Automation & if anyone else wants to email me with how many of their people it takes to change a globe I'll put them on this page too. Q: How many McLean Automation personnel does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to fly the helicopter & one to lean out & swap globes Q: How many C & M Innovations staff does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to change the bulb & one to drive the forklift (C & M are in the plant nursery automation business & deploy really big Mercury-Halide lamps) Q: How many RTA operatives does it take to change a light bulb? A: Three, one to change the globe & two to direct traffic. The Roads & Traffic Authority guys were occasional contributors to our old FaxStream newsletter, their motto is "If you don't like the public's driving, stay off the footpath" (sidewalk for you stateside readers) Q: How many Orica explosives workers does it take to change a light bulb? A: Two, one to change the bulb and one to work the siren & wave the big red flag Q: How many University of Sydney staff does it take to change a light globe? A: Two, one to call maintenance & one to say "we're okay here thanks" Q: How many New Zealanders does it take to change a light globe? A: Three, one to hold the globe & two to rotate the chair (this one contributed by an Aussie expat masquerading as a New Zealander) Off the record, OK?
SALAD DAYS
Most of our rural customers are big gruff farmers with hands like hams & a handshake grip like a vice. So I was surprised to see the two word entry in the 'phone diary the other day, "ring Angie" it said followed by the number. I fantasised briefly about who the lovely Angie might be & dialled the number. Angie Rigoni turned out to be a big gruff farmer with hands like hams & a handshake grip like a vice. He and his son Steve grow tobacco in north east Victoria & wanted to supplement their existing radio frost alarm with a couple of the new analog temperature links modified for customised alarming. The Rigonis fed me a beer & sandwiches on my first visit & then Christmas cake & coffee on my second. I've made a mental note to get out of the office & visit customers more often. The last time I left the Rigoni spread a couple of kids in swim shorts were walking along the banks of the Kiewa river carrying inflated car tyre inner tubes. I pulled up on the bridge to watch these optimists as they waded through a drought flow only four inches deep. Birds were singing, the sun shone, & a very dishy sweet young thing rode past on her push bike. I wonder if her name was Angie? 'Plug & Play' is one of those delicious phrases coined by the marketing folk, the notion that technology comes in little black boxes that just click together, all inter-compatible & groovy. But what happens when you plug but can't play? Product support for us often starts with a scratchy mobile 'phone call from a paddock. If the problem can't be sorted over the 'phone we ship a range test kit for diagnosis. But what if the devil himself has found his way into your system? THE EXORCISM It was obvious that Jim had given it his best. He had 12v supply (he had checked it with a multimeter), the power light was on, the transmitter beeped when sending, the antenna was OK, but the receiver would not switch. On the seven hour drive to Griffith my mind pondered what technical evil I would have to exorcise from Jim's system when I arrived. In the boot was virtually a replacement network in spares and enough trouble shooting hardware to play rocket science. I lugged several cartoons of gear into the pump shed & the farmer obligingly shut down his 75 kW pump so I could hear myself think. Five minutes later I was shaking my head in absolute disbelief! A plugpack filter capacitor had failed due moisture, possibly condensation drips from the shed roof. The irony of a few drops of water & the exorcism that wasn't necessary was not lost on me as I eyeballed the approaching dust storm we would have to drive through on the way back to Sydney. My head hit the pillow at 2am, the end of a twenty one hour working day. I could still feel grit under my eyelids but I was beyond caring. CONFESSIONS OF AN OEM OEM stands for original equipment manufacturer, we make radio control systems for rural & industrial applications. We are the OEM that nearly wasn't because one night about eight years ago I was driving back late to Sydney from a customer's place in Dubbo when I woke up behind the wheel of my car to see a line of road side markers rushing up to greet me. The close encounter with the little white posts led to the conviction that I needed a faster mode of transport, something that could get me to our out-of-town customers & back in time for the evening meal. And so for the last five years I've had the singular pleasure of making my way to clients in four Australian states by helicopter. I'm not talking corporate turbine here. Just a little two seat, fits between grape rows, chopper. Its been the ride of a lifetime! I've landed at spots in summer where the cabin temperature was forty two degrees Celsius, making the flight controls too hot to handle without gloves. I've been to vineyards in winter where the snow lay three inches deep on the ground. I've put down on grape covered slopes so steep I worried that my machine would tip over. I've had cattle show interest in eating the tail rotor, been bailed up by the property owners dog, and got lost a few times. But despite all this I have to say that Vineyards are my favourite type of destination. Most vineyards have a dam you can have a paddle in. Many have cellar door sales. Some have restaurants. A few have breathtaking scenery. And a select handful have all of the above. This happy situation stands in stark contrast to some of my other destinations, coal mines in particular. Coal mines have dams, but not the kind you'd want to swim in. Coal mines don't have restaurants or cellar door sales, although any machine that visits for more than half a day usually leaves with a thin sample of product coating every surface. To be blunt collieries are dirty, dangerous places with great big trucks that could run over a little two seat helicopter and not even feel the bump. I've learned to never land on anything that even vaguely resembles a road. So what has led to this little bout of reminiscing? Alas the grim fact is that every twenty two hundred hours a Robinson helicopter has to be completely overhauled. And so for the next few months while my personal workhorse sits in a million pieces on the hangar floor I'm grounded. Time to sit & dream of past travels and wait for the day when I can again look down on those roadside posts from above, the only angle to see them from. At right above, a prestigious Hunter valley winery, as photographed from the restaurant. Over eating at the restaurant is a vineyard hazard. And yes that's the owners corporate jet just getting airborne mid shot. Wine grape growing is ripe for automation (nice pun eh) and the range of applications covers the full spectrum of production from field based vineyard systems like wireless frost alarms & cableless irrigation controllers to winery automation devices such as transfer pump controllers and process control links. At left, a Hunter valley coal mine. Being squashed by a coal truck is a colliery hazard. Colliery applications for short haul radio include handsets for proximal process control, links for analog signal monitoring and multipoint above ground alarm systems. Solar powered networks in particular are easy to relocate in the mining situation. Coal mines & vineyards run cheek by jowl in the Hunter, a real beauty & the beast contrast. STRATEGIC PARTNERS & BUSINESS ALLIANCES
'Plug & Play' is one of those delicious phrases coined by the marketing folk, the notion that technology comes in little black boxes that just click together, all inter-compatible & groovy. But what happens when you plug but can't play? Product support for us often starts with a scratchy mobile 'phone call from a paddock. If the problem can't be sorted over the 'phone we ship a range test kit for diagnosis. But what if the devil himself has found his way into your system?
THE EXORCISM
It was obvious that Jim had given it his best. He had 12v supply (he had checked it with a multimeter), the power light was on, the transmitter beeped when sending, the antenna was OK, but the receiver would not switch. On the seven hour drive to Griffith my mind pondered what technical evil I would have to exorcise from Jim's system when I arrived. In the boot was virtually a replacement network in spares and enough trouble shooting hardware to play rocket science. I lugged several cartoons of gear into the pump shed & the farmer obligingly shut down his 75 kW pump so I could hear myself think. Five minutes later I was shaking my head in absolute disbelief! A plugpack filter capacitor had failed due moisture, possibly condensation drips from the shed roof. The irony of a few drops of water & the exorcism that wasn't necessary was not lost on me as I eyeballed the approaching dust storm we would have to drive through on the way back to Sydney. My head hit the pillow at 2am, the end of a twenty one hour working day. I could still feel grit under my eyelids but I was beyond caring. CONFESSIONS OF AN OEM
Shortest link, 5 m across a laboratory for monitoring a rotating kiln. Longest link was 15 km in the Northern Territory in two hops with one solar powered repeater.
A SmartLink version had the receive sites cut out on signal loss, the transmit site was prone to flooding (gurgle, gurgle).
A half duplex version for activating a remote pump from an overflying helicopter, needed the pilot to confirm a pump start.
Repair statistics over the six years have averaged 4.8%. The breakup being:
Vandalism 34%, mainly at local government sites
Water damage 26%, mainly rainwater running down unsealed aerial cables, the current version mounts with the antenna’s socket pointing down thereby forcing the installer to put a drip loop in the cable. Electricians can’t make watertight seals, that’s what plumbers are for.
Lightning strikes 9%, worst case was a return where the backup battery took a direct hit, blowing the front cover off.
Others 31%, including shotgun damage (receiver fired on by a disgruntled employee), vehicular damage (transmitter knocked from its mounting and run over by a truck), chemical attack (aerial loading coil dissolved by sulphuric acid), incorrect installation (415 V applied to the volt-free transmitter inputs), bird-strike (aerial broken off by an albatross), internment (transmitter buried under a shipment of coal).
But my all time favourite gem of information concerns a client who ordered a batch of eight solar powered transmitters to link back multiple remote site data to a central point. Within a month of delivery we got a faxed order for a replacement transmitter. Curious as to the fate of the original unit I rang the property owner. He put me onto his leading hand. The guy was vague, "Thought it might be a good idea to have a spare mate" he drawled. "But your foreman has ordered specific coding to replace unit No 8", I said, "I thought you might want the other repaired"? "Jeez", came the reply, "look don’t tell the boss but we lost it. We was going ‘round the dams puttin’ ‘em in and when we got to the last one there was nuthin’ in the back of the ute, it must have bounced out on the way. This is strictly off the record, OK!"
Click here if no menu side bar McLean Automation 518 Terrace Rd, Freemans Reach, NSW, 2756 Australia phone 0245796365 (+612 45796365), fax 0245796942 (+612 45796942) This page was last updated June 2006
