People at work – page 2



people at work

Hamish Lindsay, took this photo of the Children’s Christmas Party at Honeysuckle in 1974. (It’s not really an “at work” photo!)

It’s in the staff car park, with the Skylab Command Van in the background.

John Saxon ventures these names for the men standing in the distance at left:

“Alex Sommariva or John Hart: Jerry Bissicks: Les Hughes: Poss Geoff Ruck judging by Hat: Tony Salvage: Possibly Col Power talking to small girl.

(Plus Len Litherland with back to camera.)

Photo by Hamish Lindsay, 2020 negative scan by Colin Mackellar.


people at work

Hamish Lindsay, John Mitchell and ? at SDSS (the Signal Data Demodulators).

Photo possibly by the Australian News and Information Bureau.
Preserved by Hamish Lindsay, scanned by Colin Mackellar.


people at work

Brian Hale at the Honeysuckle Recorders, shortly before Apollo 15.

Thanks to Brian Hale.


people at work

Brian Hale at the Honeysuckle Recorders.

Thanks to Brian Hale.


people at work

Maintenance on the bull gears on the Honeysuckle Creek antenna.

Hamish Lindsay writes:

I think it is Paul Mullen or Ted Burt checking the Y axis bull gear tooth clearances.

Large, Larger.

Transparency by Hamish Lindsay, scanned by Colin Mackellar.


Laurie Turner
Laurie Turner, Telemetry – photographed in the Ops area on 3 May 1973 by Hamish Lindsay.

Removing the feedcone

There were times when the whole feedcone had to be removed which meant borrowing the crane and another cherry picker from Tidbinbilla. Here you can see the feedcone swinging out out from the dish before being dropped to the ground.

Photo and text: Hamish Lindsay.

(Notice someone on top of the feedcone.)

TSS Secretaries

The TSS Secretaries Judy Wise (left) and Lisa Jensen making use of a good snowfall in August 1971.

Photo: Hamish Lindsay.


Bernard Scrivener

Bernard Scrivener, the Department of Supply Administration Officer in his office at Honeysuckle. Among other things, Bernie served as the media liason for the station. When Tom Reid becaame Station Director of Tidbinbilla in 1970, he requested Bernard join him in a similar role there. (And, at that time, Milton Turner came from Tidbinbilla to Honeysuckle.)

Photo: Hamish Lindsay. Scan: John Saxon.


Nev Eyre at video

Nevil Eyre, the Test Equipment Supervisor, operating the video equipment during an Apollo Lunar EVA.

Nevil writes, “I don't know what Apollo mission it is but if you compare it with some of the photos of Ed von Renouard you will see that the layout of the video equipment changed considerably from mission to mission.

I arrived at HSK just before Apollo 11 and was employed to supervise the Test Equipment and Standards Laboratory. During Apollo missions Dave Ralph (also from Test Eq) and I were required to staff operations equipment. Dave worked in the communications section and I worked in video as a backup to Ed von Renouard.”

(Later checking determined that this was taken during Apollo 17, in December 1972. See also video section in the Station.)

From a Polaroid, scanned by Nevil Eyre.


Hamish Lindsay and John Saxon

Hamish Lindsay (standing) and John Saxon.

John writes: “It was taken in the DSN days and I think I was showing Hamish how to update the Ops department records. The keyboard was my pride and joy – a Texas Instruments ‘Silent 700’ with built in (acoustically coupled) modem – max speed 300 BPS!

I used it to run databases on the JPL Univac mainframes, using a language called Vulcan written by a great JPL programmer called Jeb Long. Later a firm called Ashton Tate brought the program from Jeb and it became DBase2! But in the mid-70s it was quite a big deal to store records on a computer 10,000 miles away...”

Photo supplied by Rhelma Lawrence and scanned by Nevil Eyre.


Hamish Lindsay and John Saxon

Hamish Lindsay (standing) and John Saxon.

This is a scan of the full frame from the original negative. The negative sleeve records that it was taken during Viking shifts (1975 or 1976).

Photo: Hamish Lindsay, Scan: Colin Mackellar, March 2018.


Mike Dinn and Ian Grant

Mike Dinn (left) and Ian Grant at the Operations console, December 1968.




People at Work – page 3.

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