In the summer of 1982/83, in the long break between my first and second years at University, I worked for the Electricity Commission of NSW as a trainee electrical engineer at the Tamworth Regional Centre.
I could only find two photos from that time, that were included in the work placement report I had to write. Its interesting to note how much work safety standards have changed in 35 years.
Electricity Commission of NSW, 1983.
Electricity Commission of NSW, 1983.
In the summer of 1983/84, in the long break between my 2nd and 3rd years at University, I worked at Eraring Power Station near Newcastle, as a trainee electrical engineer.
At this time some of the generating units were in production, and some still under construction.
See also my other posts with photos of
While working at Wallerawang Power Station in the summer of 1985/86, I had a chance to visit Mt Piper Power Station nearby which was in the early stages of construction.
In the summer of 1985/86, in the long break between my 4th and 5th years at University, I worked at Wallerawang Power Station near Lithgow, as a trainee electrical engineer.
While working at Liddell Power Station in 1987, I snapped a couple of photos of Bayswater Power Station across the highway.
Bayswater Power Station, from the top of Liddell Power Station. 1987.
Bayswater Power Station.
Not Liddell power station – ABC News gets it wrong. (Actually Bayswater.)
Liddell power station (near Muswellbrook NSW) has been in the news this week, with a bit of a public stoush between its owners AGL who intend to close the station in 2022, and Malcolm Turnbull who wants to keep it open for five years beyond that date.
One of the frustrating aspects of this has been how frequently the media shows a picture of a power station other than Liddell when reporting on Liddell.
I’m familiar with Liddell power station as I worked there as an electrical engineer from December 1986 to January 1988 in my first job after graduating from university. Since the media is incapable of showing pictures of Liddell, I thought I’d scan and post some of the photos I took while I worked there. It was an interesting time, as there was a lot of repair and remediation work going on, and I got to look inside a lot of equipment that would normally be unseen.
Today is Day N – the day I got connected to the National Broadband Network. Finally after years of waiting my broadband internet connection has progressed beyond third world standards.
After years of waiting, the National Broadband Network is finally available at my home address from today. I had pre-ordered an NBN deal from a different provider than my current phone/ADSL provider which is Optus. My new soon-to-be provider rang me this afternoon to tell me that they are ready to connect me, but to do so they needed me to confirm my ULL ID with Optus.
What is a ULL ID? It seems that it is a 10 digit number (starting with 161) that uniquely identifies the copper line connected to your house. Given the frustrating and time consuming interactions I’ve had with Optus in the past, I wasn’t too excited or hopeful about extracting this information from them.
So how long does it take to confirm a ULL ID with Optus? The answer turned out to be 44 minutes.
| Time | Duration (minutes) | Activity |
| 18:44 – 18:50 | 6 | Try to find a phone number on the Optus website to ring technical support. It is almost unbelievable how hard it is to find a phone number to ring a phone company! |
| 18:50 – 19:04 | 14 | Give up on ringing Optus and have a go with their Live Chat support. After initiating a request for live chat, wait ….
|
| 19:04 – 19:10 | 6 | Live chat with service agent for six minutes before she decides that it would be better to ring me and have a vocal instead of written conversation. |
| 19:10 – 19:12 | 2 | Brief conversation with service agent where she understands what the request is and that she will need to transfer me to the technical support team. |
| 19:12 – 19:24 | 12 | Waiting … listening to horrid hold ‘music’. |
| 19:24 – 19:28 | 4 | Brief conversation with technical support agent who reasonably quickly understands what I’m asking for, confirms my details, puts me on hold for a minute or so while he looks up the ULL ID and then supplies me with the ULL ID.
Yay. |
| TOTAL | 44 |
Lets see how things go now with my new provider in connecting me to the NBN.
