Ken Anderson and the FPS-16 at Red Lake, Woomera. Base photo: Jan Delgado. Inset: Ken Anderson.

 

Ken Anderson was born on 14 April 1935.

Ken was called up to carry out his National Service in the RAN in January 1955, He qualified as an Ordinary Seaman and Radar Plotter 3.

On completion of his National Service he joined the RAN as a volunteer, agreeing to an initial engagement of six years. He was sent to HMAS Cerberus and after his basic disciplinary training to the RAN Electrical School and trained there as a Radio Electrical Mechanic 3. [REM 3] On completion of his training he joined HMAS Melbourne, an aircraft carrier, where he was employed on the maintenance of radio and radar, working predominantly on the Type 262 gunnery director radar. He was then transfered to HMAS Anzac, a Battle Class destroyer. Again he worked on radio and radar equipment, once more with an emphasis on Type 262 gunnery radar. During this period he was promoted to REM2.

After eighteen months service in HMAS Anzac he was posted to the RAN Radar Training School, HMAS Watson, located on the South head of Sydney Harbour where he served as senior technician with a staff of eight, maintaining several radar sets, many radar displays, HF, VHF, and UHF radio systems, and VHF Direction Finding equipment. In his time at HMAS Watson he passed a Fleet Board examination and was promoted to LREM.

He then served in HMAS Swan which carried out survey work on the Great Barrier Reef, as the senior radio and radar technician.

He then served in HMAS Watson briefly before leaving the RAN in June 1961.

He was then employed for about a year by IBM before joining AWA Ltd as part of a crew recruited to operate and maintain the AN-FPS 16 precision radars on the Weapons Research Establishment Range at Woomera in South Australia. This lasted for 4 years and in that period Ken was promoted to Radar team leader, in charge of the operation and maintenance of a radar.

In 1966 he was transferred to the NASA Applications Technology System [ATS] Project for service at the Transportable Ground Station [TGS] located near Toowoomba in Queensland. He was included in a cadre of technicians and engineers sent to the USA for training on the ATS System, which was carried out at the NASA Tracking Station at Rosman, N.C.

The group then worked at the Sylvania Inc plant at Waltham, Mass., where the integration and testing of the TGS took place.

On return to Australia he took up duty as a Shift senior Technician and, subsequently, Shift Operations Controller, the person who was in voice communication with the NAA Control centre during all satellite access periods.

In early 1968 he took up the duties of Microwave Supervising Technician, responsible for the maintenance of the station Low Noise Amplifier [LNA] and the SHF Transmitter, as well as the station timing sub-system.

 

Ken Anderson at Cooby Creek in August 1969. Click the image for the full photo and key.

 

When the Cooby Creek site closed down he worked at AWA Ltd's North Ryde factory as a technical representative.

He then transferred to the NASA Carnarvon Tracking Station as Radar Supervisor, in charge of the AN-FPQ 6 radar maintenance and operation.

He then became the manager of AWA Ltd’s Sale, Victoria facility. This provided communications maintenance services to the Esso Australia Ltd offshore oil and gas platforms and the associated onshore facilities.

In due course he joined Esso Australia Ltd as a production controller, responsible for controlling the flow of oil and gas from the platforms to the onshore facilities. He then transferred to the Process Control Systems Group which maintained the carious electronic control systems employed and, ultimately, carried out duties as an instructor for engineers, technicians and operators of the various control systems and of a sophisticated radar system.

Ken died in Sale, Victoria, in July, 2019, and is sadly missed by his friends and colleagues.