Garry Cardinal

Welcome to my Professional Page.

Professional

I am retired, having worked for 37 years as an Electronics Technologist at a government research facility.

During the summer between my years at NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology) doing Electronics Technology (Digital), I worked at the Edmonton Industrial Airport as a summer student at Canada's MOT (Ministry Of Transport) supporting electronic systems for Communications, ILS (Instrument Landing Systems), VOR/DME (Very high frequency Omnidirectional Range/Distance Measuring Equipment), Meteorology, Radar and ATC (Air Traffic Control) displays and controls. I remember slamming the floor hatch in the ATC control tower and being chided by my senior who said that ATC's had a problem with loud events like that.

On 01 December 1974 I began my career in support of the Research Council of Alberta, later renamed Alberta Research Council, Atmospheric Sciences Department, Alberta Hail Project radar systems located at YQF, the Red Deer Airport, at Canadian Forces Base Penhold, now Springbrook, Alberta. My work expanded to include site Meterological Instrumentation, Research Aircraft Data Acquisition and administration Data Processing support. The radars and project equipment have since been decomissioned.

Penhold Radars 1975

Penhold Radars 1981

I assisted with Radar Signal Processing and Data Acquisition technology transfer to an Edmonton, Alberta company and supervised the prototype installation at the Fundação Educacional de Bauru radar system at Bauru, Sao Paulo, Brazil.

1980-08_ARC-Nl-v1n6p5

1980-08_ARC-Nl-v1n6p6

1980-10-12_JdC

1980-11-13_DdBpf

1980-11-13_DdBpl

1980-11-13_JdCp1

1980-11-13_JdCp5

I designed, constructed and implemented modifications to Enterprise C-Band and X-Band radar transceivers, Enterprise S-Band transmitter and Enterprise C-Band pedistal controller (antenna motion control unit) for remote controlled calibration and operation via a Tektronix TM5000 series interface linked to a PDP11 computer system. The Penhold C-Band radar system could be calibrated and controlled from 160Km away in Edmonton. S-Band and X-Band radars had limited remote control as antenna pedistal remote control had not yet been implemented mainly due to safety considerations. Only the C-Band antenna was enclosed by a restricted access radome. These systems would not have been possible without the highly valued assistance of Computer Technologist Reinhard Drobig and my supervising Electrical Engineer Martin Stanley-Jones, P.Eng.,.

I designed, constructed and implemented an interface between a Distromet RD-69 Disdrometer (rain drop impact energy analyzer) and a vanilla PC-XT computer system. An RCA Cosmac microboard computer and a custom ADC (Analog To Digital Converter) was used to acquire analog raindrop pulses, perform high speed waveform analysis for peak detection and output data via RS-232 (serial stream) to the host PC-XT. All system programming was performed by myself, RCA 1802 real-time microcode in assembler, ProComm terminal emulator scripting and DOS configuration and scripting.

The TRS80 Model 100 was a valuable tool during my 1802 programming experience, it was used as a terminal, text editor and file manager. The Model 100 also served as a remote site terminal to a Campbell Scientific 21x data logger and I programmed the Model 100 to automate 21x field programming and data collection.

I ruggedized and interfaced a Polaroid sonar ranging module to a 21x data logger. The 21x was installed on Edmonton's low level bridge and was measuring ice surface soundings and air temperature. Researchers hoped to calculate ice thickness with this data in conjunction with under water pressure data collected by other data logging systems.

In 1988 I was promoted to Research Technologist IV. In 2001 I became supervisor of the Electronics and Instrumentation Laboratory at the Alberta Research Council site in Millwoods, Edmonton, Alberta. I actively continued in this capacity until 31 January 2012. By which time the Alberta Research Council had become ARC Inc, and then, Alberta Innovates-Technology Futures. Which has recently been rebranded as Innotech Alberta Inc.

AnSBandLowNoiseReceiver (pdf)

E&I Fact Sheet 1995 (pdf) Production notes (page)

Retirement Plaque 2012

I wrote a technical report "An S-Band Low Noise Receiver" (February 1981) and implemented associated upgrades to the S-Band Polarization Diversity weather radar system at Penhold, Alberta. I am cited as co-author of "Field Site Radar Systems, Atmospheric Sciences Department Report 510-2/R2-D" (1984). I am cited as co-inventor for two patents: "Animal Health Monitoring System And Method" CA2591902A1, and "System And Method For Detecting A Damaged Machine Part" US8411930.

Garry Cardinal, Electronics Technologist.

Garry Cardinal, mailto:mail@garrycardinal.ca, http://garrycardinal.ca/