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Field Report from Jodrell Bank, England

April, 21 2003

by Randy McFarland - Software Engineer

Unlike Arecibo, Jodrell Bank is completely above ground level and dominates the Cheshire landscape for miles around. The size of the structure is not only impressive, but has the added benefit of helping us find our way back from the pub at night! The first I heard of Jodrell Bank was in the beginning of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The Vogon construction fleet arrived in Earth orbit undetected by the folks at Jodrell Bank and I wondered at the time, Why would a financial institution be looking for extra terrestrials?

Later, when I actually got to see the telescope in a Dr. Who rerun, I realized that the bank is really a telescope, and an amazing structure. When I found out I would get a chance to control it, (I write the software that moves the dish during Phoenix observations) I was elated. Even after working on half a dozen antennas from Beijing to Luxembourg--including the worlds largest at Arecibo--Jodrell Bank did not disappoint.

So of course I jumped at my first chance to go up "Green Tower," where I needed to verify our hardware was turned on and operating correctly. Stepping over the circular railroad tracks that support the structure as it turns on its vertical axis, my guide, Ian Morison, explained that the bearings for the horizontal axis came from the guns of a decommissioned battleship, HMS Royal Sovereign. While the view from the top of the green hills and farms of Cheshire is beautiful, the view of the inside is magnificent, lots of dust and grease and larger than life machinery. Paradise for an engineer.

Now I am at the beginning of my second observation run at Jodrell Bank. The sample transmit board, our single-point failure last time, is holding up. The software we developed is rifling through the frequencies reporting thousands of signals, but so far we have only detected signs of intelligent life in Birmingham. When I share this observation with Mark Roberts, the operator tonight, he laughs. Not bloody likely! he says as he offers me my third cuppa.

Before I started work at the SETI Institute, I wondered how often I would think, "Tonight is the night." Now that I have been at it for nearly three years, I know I have pushed that to the back of my head and I just focus on my immediate problems. Why do I have an error on my test signal generator? Has the STX failed again? Is the GLID light on? Still, in the back of my mind I think "tonight!"