WIA 2020 Annual Conference Weekend

The WIA Annual Conference 2020 is only two months away and is shaping up to be one to remember. It is being held over the weekend of the 8-10 May 2020 in Hobart Tasmania and the theme is "Antarctic Gateway".

Sunday the 10th May 2020 is packed with half day options.

The first option is a trip out to the Grote Reber Museum Link and Radio Telescope at Mount Pleasant - about a 20 minute bus ride into the Coal River Valley.

Grote Reber was the father of radio astronomy, being the first person to build a "big dish" antenna for the purpose of mapping the sky at radio frequencies. He discovered many discrete radio sources, and he mapped the band of bright radio emission from our Galaxy, the Milky Way.
Reber came to Tasmania in the late 1950s because of its unique location at high magnetic latitude in the southern hemisphere. He spent 40 years studying low frequency emissions with telescopes he built himself, first in partnership with the University of Tasmania School of Physics, and later on his own at Bothwell.

His accomplishments are remarkable, not only in radio astronomy but also in electrical powered transport, in carbon dating of aboriginal settlements, and in the genetic patterns made by growing bean plants. His creative vision had no limits.

The museum has exhibits that show Reber's telescopes, his life's work, and his many other interests. A unique feature is Reber's original radio shack, the control building for the radio telescope array at Bothwell, which is installed at the Museum with Reber's original radio equipment in place.

The museum also shows the radio frequency spectrum with graphic illustrations and physical demonstrations of electromagnetic waves. The radio sky is shown, with matching illustrations of galaxies as seen in the radio and optical spectrum data acquired by the Hubble Space Telescope.
A feature of the Museum is a Virtual Reality Theatre, provided by the Swinburne University of Technology. The museum will show entertaining and educational movies and demonstrations in three dimensions.

The tour takes about 1.5 hours.

This is a very unique and one off must see museum about a fascinating radio pioneer. Link

Next to the museum is the University of Tasmania 26m radio telescope that is used for research and you are able to get up close and personal with the dish!

In future new releases we will run through some of the other tours on the Sunday.

To book goto Link

See you in Hobart.

73, from Justin VK7TW and the WIA Annual Conference Organising Committee

(Image sourced from the UTAS/Grote Reber Museum Website)

Page Last Updated: Monday 24 February 2020 at 16:15 hours by Justin Giles-clark

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