Bill Miller and one of the Clearance signs at Red Lake.

Bill worked in the Telemetry section at Red Lake through Project Mercury.

The Red Lake Telemetry Building.

Bill writes,

“The set up at Red Lake was: A small team of Yanks came into the empty building and began installing racks, running cables and generally setting up the skeleton.
We got the antennas working and other outside things.

The racks were filled with commercially available equipment:
Tape recorders from Ampex, receivers from Nems-Clarke, power supplies etc.
They did a great job which I watched with envy.

Tom Reid’s team calibrated and got all going.
I was responsible for the Ampex recorders and their operation.

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Transparency: Bill Miller.
Scan and photo restoration: Colin Mackellar.

Inside the Red Lake Telemetry Building,
in the Telemetry Area.

Bill Miller writes,

“I had three tape recorders to mind. Two instrument recorders: half inch tape and 120 ins per second, and a wonderful Magnacorder quarter inch tape and was the machine all audio Hi Fi freaks desired (it recorded the voice transmissions).”

Large, Much larger (3MB).

Transparency: Bill Miller.
Scan and photo restoration: Colin Mackellar.

The 25 foot (7.6 metre) Telemetry antenna for Project Mercury, at the northern end of the Telemetry building, looking north.

Bill writes:

“The height diversity antennas were not auto track. They were driven by data from the FPS 16 radar. A very useful part of things, because it could find the horizon point that the capsule would emerge from.”

Photo: Bill Miller.

The 35 foot (10.7 metre) Telemetry antenna, looking south.

Photo: Bill Miller.

Alan Christie (ex-Navy) with test equipment.

Photo: Bill Miller.

Bill Miller with test equipment.

Photo: Bill Miller.

Bill’s desk, “full of Rohde & Schwarz test equipment”.

Photo: Bill Miller.

Bill Miller at Red Lake Mercury Space Tracking Station Number 9.

Photo: Bill Miller.

In 1963, Jan Delgado (DSS41 and Minitrack at Island Lagoon) and Dick Roberts (Comcen Adelaide) took a day drive to Red Lake.

This photo is looking from the intersection with the road to the FPS-16 radar.

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Behind Jan is the T&C building and the 25 foot telemetry antenna.
(The additional antenna in the photos by Bill Miller and the 1962 footage has been removed.)

Photo: Dick Roberts. Scan: Jan Delgado.

The telemetry antenna at the northern end of the Telemetry building.

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Photo: Jan Delgado.

The FPS-16 Radar.

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Looking NNW.

The FPS-16 boresight tower is just visible on the right.
Photo: Jan Delgado.

The Red Lake FPS-16 Radar.

Tom Sheehan, who who visited Red Lake when working on the IRACQ modification for RCA, says that the specifications for FPS-16 radars included an all-white painted building, for thermal control. The Red Lake building was not painted white, for reasons best known to WRE.

Photo from the book Woomera, by Ivan Southall, © Angus and Robertson Ltd., 1962.