Work, work, work...

Bas, PE4BAS, recently raised an important point about telling others, either during QSOs on the radio, or otherwise, about our various work activities.  So here's a break from the usual radio waffle, and a brief diversion into what I've been up to so far.

I started my career way back in 1986, when I became a laboratory analyst for Welsh Water.  This was very routine and, for the most part, very uninteresting work, though it carried the heavy responsibility of making sure everybody's drinking water was safe, which kept the focus going.

I've spent a lot of my career looking at bacteria like these.

After about a year of that job, I became a dairy product analyst at a local creamery which made butter and dried milk powder (practically all of which went immediately into EU intervention stores, rather than being consumed).

That job was also extremely boring, made worse by 19th century management styles.  I was grateful that the damned place was shut down in early 1988, as I had come to hate the place.

Don't say I never give you a laugh.  Here's me, centre rear, almost looking happy that I no longer had to work at that stupid place, back in 1988.  What a strange photo set-up that was, looking skyward!

It took about a month to find another job, though it wasn't much of one, really - frightening birds off the local RAF base!  I knew nothing at all about birds, but I wore the right type of suit and spoke confidently, and got in!   This was without doubt the worst job I ever had.  Mostly, it consisted of sitting on an empty airfield under a hot summer sun, as I was engulfed in petrol fumes from the Land Rover's fuel tank, positioned nicely under the driver's seat!  At least I could enjoy the aircraft, and I did once set part of the airfield's grass on fire with a flare; the RAF fire service was happy to have something to do that day!

RAF Valley, when Harriers were still operational.

Thankfully, I then found a job that would last me for 20 years at the local university.  In fact, I had two interviews on the same morning, the other being at the local nuclear power station (a health monitoring role).  I decided to take the university job, which carried on my earlier experience of microbiology.  This was very varied, as one had to find solutions to new problems on most days.  It involved lots of work with students from all over the world, which was wonderful in an area of Wales that is otherwise almost uniformly white Christian.  The work also occasionally carried me out to sea on the old R.V. Prince Madog, now no longer with us, and sometimes under the sea as a diver.

R.V. Prince Madog, moored for incoming bad weather when I was on board, off the west coast of Anglesey, mid-1990s.

Me, extreme left, with a bunch of diving friends.  Ca. 1997.

During my long period at the university, I also had a parallel career in science writing, almost all of it about astronomy, in magazines like Astronomy Now and Popular Astronomy.  In the days before the internet was widely available, I used to cover major NASA projects like SOFIA, the telescope-in-a-Boeing 747 jet.  I also did a lot of 'homebrew' equipment building articles, which included a year-long series that was very popular, much to my amazement.

SOFIA, topic of one of my earlier astronomy articles.  Image: NASA.

One of my articles about the aurora led to my realising that sounds some people have claimed to hear in association with the aurora (with no delay between what is seen and what is heard - which is problematic) might be due to synaesthesia.  I found myself inviting a former Caltech researcher to write an associated piece on this fascinating phenomenon, which I believe is the first time this potential answer to auroral sound had been realised and published.

Extract from aurora article, (C) Popular Astronomy.

Eventually, in 2007, money ran out and I also had done enough laboratory work for one lifetime.  We had little children by now, and one salary was going to pay for their care.  I didn't have children in order to stick them in a prison with some young, underpaid 'carers', so I gave up my job and looked after my own children.  In fact, I enjoyed this very much, whilst also doing some occasional consultancy work, such as light pollution surveys.  I've been a campaigner against light pollution since 1989.

One of the darkest areas of Anglesey, compared to one of the brightest, seen in fisheye images.

From 2005 to 2011, I  had a nice little aerial archaeology project going.  I started out surveying the entire area of Anglesey, where we made several important new discoveries.  Eventually, the work spread to large areas of Wales.   Our now-defunct web site, Pixaerial.com, became a standard aerial images database used by various public authorities.

Not a new discovery, but the level of detail under very low winter sun can be exquisite.  This is one of the many Iron Age defended enclosures ('forts') on Anglesey.

For a while, the aerial work changed to planning enforcement for local authorities in certain areas of Wales.  This was mostly to check on caravan and camping sites, where the attraction to owners of extra money by increasing capacity without permission, and beyond the fire safety limits on certain holiday weekends, was considerable.

Summer holiday periods generate an enormous pressure on campsites, some of whom (not the site depicted, about which no claim is made or imputed) accept more than they should, generating a serious fire safety problem.

In 2010, I became a very minor national radio celebrity, when I took part in some form of competition on a BBC Radio 4 science programme.  I wasn't interested in the competitive part, but I did like the idea of entering and possibly then telling a large audience about my interest in noctilucent clouds.  Much to my surprise, my idea for an experiment was selected as one of four to be broadcast, out of a total 1300 entries.

Preparatory meeting at the Unviersity of Bath, with Quentin Cooper, then presenter of the BBC's 'Material World' (now 'Inside Science') and Prof. Nick Mitchell.  If I look tired, it's because I had just come off a 5 hour train journey to Bath!

Noctilucent clouds, seen from the north coast of Anglesey, 2013.

This all sparked a mini-career in broadcasting and atmospheric science.  I found myself hosting TV crews from NHK Japan, radio interviews with Falklands Radio, and all sorts of other strange experiences!  This eventually all linked-in with my interest in amateur radio, which I began to take my current level of interest in shortly thereafter, in 2011. 

So that, dear reader, is a summary of my career, both paid and unpaid, so far.  Quite varied, sometimes well paid, sometimes not.  But always interesting, at least to me!