Parakeet CSA & RRA Info

[Perentiewrecker]

Any idea how much weight is the Parakeet CSA and RRA? Does it own power supple? How many of them were made? Are they built by British Aerospace Australia?

[ECN405]

gather you are referring to the units on Grays (VIC) up for grabs. They dont show the insides, so hard to tell what state they are in. Each unit came with a genset, behind one of the canvas covers, wonder if they are there? They do have their own DB internally, but you cant see if they have been gutted or not. The CSA unit you can climb inside and work on the switch, pretty pokey though. As for the RRA units, its work off the side and open it up. You would have to do some mods alright to turn them into a camper. They were built by BAE. If the radio gear is still in there it would be awesome, but I see the external straps are void of the antennas. Front box on RRA units held the pump up mast (see picture). No idea how many are out there, but at a guess on field sig units, there is a good few more to come, I'd say these belonged to school of sigs, watsonia at a guess being Melbourne, they would be the first to get rid of them being a training establishment.

[Perentiewrecker]

Thanks ECN405 for information. Yes, I thinking about to buy CSA for my Perentie 6x6 GS as camper/parakeet replica. I will be interested to see what inside if I get

[ECN405]

it would be very cool to get one, get inside if you can to poke around. I just had another look at the pics, the mast is there on some of the units if you look carefully, I think that a CSA came only with one mast and RRA with two. There should be green kit bags that have all the guys and pegs there too. The pump up mast is the same as whats in my picture above. With a bit of redecorating you could make something of it. One thing with the RRA one is the awning that lifts up, that lifts fully up as the tech would stand next to the gear facing you and the awning above would protect you from the elements, then there is a blackout curtain that goes around it, so dont write off the RRA units either. I'd like to get one, but I have an FFR.

There is little info to be found on this stuff in general, this guy has some info on his blog:
https://andrew.london/parakeet/

Although BAE have their name all over it, I recall Tadiran Communications having a part in the radios etc, dont think they exist now.

[Perentiewrecker]

I bought CSA, last week and It will be arrival tomorrow to put it in my 6X6 on tray    

It looks like It come with mast and possible equipment inside. I will post later.

[ECN405]

thats awesome, well done, yes please post some pics once you get time.

[Perentiewrecker]

Here some photos from yesterday. It has several fault labels found in CSA. They are dated 2014 and 2015. Some cables have damaged pins, bented binding post, etc. It got heaps of load inside. Batteries, chairs, posts, 5 cable rolls, 1 bag of wires and cables, 1 bag of earth test device, distribution boxes, CSA handbook and a desktop mount. I just found my CSA’s unit history was from School of Signal.

This time, I working on restoring power. Any idea where I find PSU-M? I still can’t find it.

Sorry for photo quality

[Perentiewrecker]

CSA handbook

[Mick_Marsh]

I have a trailer for one, I think.

[ECN405]

thanks for sharing the pics, 19 years since I played with one of them and I have to say I'm impressed with what you got. Have you got the rugged PC type box with a key board, get power and you can run some DVT's and have a switch going! I see one in the pic, thats the telephone, DataVoiceTelephone. As for power, PSU-M, is it not on the far wall when you climb in, otherwise outside flap somewhere. I'm in Adelaide, so not much use to you, otherwise I'd try and help you.

[ECN405]

blimey, just noticed in your last pic you got the extension unit, huge double stack, name of it escapes me, thats like a switch extension that you plug a drum of 26-pair between CSA and some other location, ha ha, run your own local network, cut the NBN out, speeds will be low!

[AGAS 5]

The 3 level frame is a Subscriber Access Multiplexer Frame (SAMF). It contained a TAD-30 multiplexer, an Optical Line Terminating Unit (OLTU) and a Power Supply Unit - Small (PSU-S).

The SAMF supported up to 28 subscribers utilising the Digital Voice Terminal with Data Access (DVT(DA)).

Cheers

[ECN405]

SAMF!, wow, my memory is being woken up. You either have a great memory AGAS 5 or some good reference material. Thanks for the info. So you could run 28 subscribers from the SAMF and how many from the CSA itself? Not sure what I was thinking when I said 26Pair for the SAMF.  Can you recall what the OLTU was capable of, probably laughable by todays standards, something like 2.048 Mbit/s?

[Perentiewrecker]

Thank for info AGAS 5 and ECN405.
I still working on it....I read CSA equipment controller aide memoire several times, tried to understand how it work. None of these words from handbook understand me. Can someone help me through this?

I was doing Prepare for connection of 240Vac power according to CSA power-up sequence. What does Install CSA power mean for? I notice EITS has two missing jumper wires. what LRU stand for?

Kind regards,
Perentiewrecker

[ECN405]

I got all excited about the Adelaide Auction that started yesterday, CSA and RR up for grabs. They have been butchered! What a shame.