Muchea Tracking Station towards the end of
Project Mercury
Hamish Lindsay took these photos while at Muchea.
He joined the Muchea team in 1963 as part of his training for the new Carnarvon
Gemini Project tracking station.
 |
|
The Telemetry and Control (T&C) building with the security caravan in the foreground. Behind the building are the Acquisition Aid (Acq Aid) quad helix antennas. Photo and text: Hamish Lindsay. |
 |
|
The ex-military Verlort (Very Long Range Tracking) S-Band radar with its 3 metre dish and housed in a transportable van on Muchea’s very white sands. Operating on a frequency of 2800 – 3000 MHz, with a beam width of 2.5 degrees, it had an unambiguous range of 1,600 kilometres. The crappy looking trailer on the left was a SCR584 radar that was used for spare parts. (The SCR584 radar-mounted anti-aircraft guns is the radar which was upgraded to produce the Verlort. The SCR584 was instrumental in the destruction of the majority of V1s aimed at Britain.) Photo and text: Hamish Lindsay, with additions by Ken Anderson on the identification of the SCR584. |
 |
The original cherrypicker! A 44 gallon (200 litre) fuel drum was suspended from a mobile crane to allow access to the antennas. Here, staff work on the Command quad-helix antenna. Photo and text: Hamish Lindsay. Click on the image for a larger version or here for the largest (400kb) version. |
 |
Another view of the operation. Photo: Hamish Lindsay. |