Formerly part of the historic multi-telescope array at Fleurs in Western Sydney, this instrument has been re-furbished by the handwork of the Club's dedicated Radio Astronomy Group.
The discovery was a result of a happy accident, like so many other scientific breakthroughs. While listening to the background microwave radiation of the galaxy on a day of high wind, a radio aerial on the water tower blew across both the radio dish and the adjacent farm fence.
Reconstruction from satellite photos, together with observations from ground parties later established that this linked up the dish with a grid of 3,700km of continuous farm fence stretching between Narrabri and Wagga.
This grid included 2,497 km of rabbit-proof fencing, 242 km of electrified fencing, 70 km of chain wire fence, 18,892 farm gates of differing designs, 72 Real-Estate agents signs, 2 wrecked cars, 3 windmills and a water tower.
The battery power operating the scope could not have coped with the increased load, but for a multiple lightning strike on a connected water tower at Gulgong in the state's Central West.
This grid in serendipitous fashion replicated with precision, the interfaces of an optimally designed computer chip of extraordinary proportions.
There were, of course, some side effects. Over 7 million rabbits were instantly sterilised, while a small capsule containing 2 silicon-based pizzas materialised in the middle of the radio dish. Gulgong is now in Cuba from time to time.
Conversion of the signals via a computer to slow scan TV images produced a series of frames from the equivalent of a TV mega maxi series in 3-dimensional holographic format.
These images were analysed by the TAB Local Area Network on a non-racing day.
Initial evaluation of the frames suggest that the radio waves are part of an intergalactic sitcom concerning the doings of four dysfunctional sentients sharing the same asteroid, the first signals detected, representing episode 2,374,408 according to the Rorscach evaluation of the binary code preceding the show.