Unloading HBA tiles

Once the lorries have arrived and driven down onto the site itself, it is time to unload them and place the tiles in the storage area. The tiles are unloaded from the side of the lorry.

There is not a lot of clearance, so they have to be lifted out carefully.

As it turned out, the front tiles had slid forwards slightly, so that they could not come straight out directly. What we needed to do, was lift the tile slightly and then get the lorry to drive forward. For a brief moment, there was a sense of 'relativistic confusion' as the movement of the lorry, made it look like the tile and front-loader were sliding the other way!

Once safely out of the lorry, the tile is taken across the site to the storage area.


The tiles are lined up against the storage container and the barracks, to provide stability in the event of high winds.


Today (4^th July 2011) we received two lorry-loads (8 HBA tiles in total). These are now all safely in storage. Due to the other organisation work, training and set-up, we did not attempt to deploy any framesets or tiles onto the array. That will be tomorrow!

Photos: D. McKay-Bukowski