On Monday, April 22, 2013 7:53:25 AM UTC+1, Lindisfarne Poacher wrote:
yttiw wrote:

On 2013-04-21 20:15:12 +0000, James Brown said:



I am embarking on a series of articles regarding my ventures into

remote imaging via meteorological satellites - I began receiving images

from home-brew equipment back in the 1970's.

One small technical point, would anyone know when the Met office

stopped using the wet paper facsimile machines for chart and imagery

read out? I remember visiting the Cardiff Met office and carrying off

some of those slightly fuzzy purplish print-outs, but can't quite

remember when that would have been.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

James



I would say that would be the early to mid 1990's?



I think that until then, the file size of a satellite photo was too large

to be transmitted in less than a day, by the communications systems that

were in place at the time. I remember using a 2400 and/or 4800 baud

modem, and when the 9600 came out we thought it was almost unbelievably fast.



I have vague memories of a rather noisy device slowly turning out soggy

charts which had to be hung out to dry when I worked at a certain

establishment near High Wycombe in the 70's. Was this one of the machines

you guys are referring to?

I briefly worked at the same establishment, though I mainly worked at another main met office located in the SW Midlands.

As I re-trained as a technician I came to maintain and repair these Muirhead made fax machines (Mufax). They used ancient valve technology and I distinctly remember having to be careful that I didn't contact the test points at the rear, because one of them was at 120V.

The forecast office at the time was a heady mixture of Mufax fumes and carbon tetrachloride (used to erase charts drawn on perspex with chinagraph pencils - a common occurrence then). All this added to cigarette, pipe and cigar smoke - not an ideal atmosphere for retaining wakefulness during the night shift.

MartinR