Allan Cornish arranged for me to be posted to the Directorate of the RAAF Meteorological Service in Melbourne. I remember walking into the Head Office at No 2 Drummond Street, early in 1946, and meeting a charming lady in the personnel office on the first floor with the name of Roma Lee who walked me around to see Allan Cornish and Bill Brann.

They explained that the accuracy of radiosonde observations was doubtful, because unofficial modifications had been made to the equipment to overcome faults. They explained that my first job was to get the equipment on all stations back to standard. I met Ralph Holmes at this time. He impressed me with his friendly, happy nature which I liked very much. I will always have fond memories of Ralph.

I requested a crash course in meteorology, particularly in radiosonde and radar wind-finding calculations. Max Cassidy gave me this course in Melbourne.

I then introduced a signal generator and linearity equipment to simulate transmissions from airborne radiosondes to test the ground equipment. I carried this with me all over Australia. I checked the sensitivity of the receivers and calibrated the frequency counters and recorders.

Reg Stout checking the calibration of a rebuilt radiosonde recorder at the radio laboratory, Frosterley, No 2 Drummond Street, Melbourne, 1948.

Bureau of Meteorology