Australian T-connector power plugs. At left, Vic wires (+) to the top. At right, NSW wires (-) to the top. Not very sensible, eh?
As an active Australian amateur radio operator, I often camp out on weekends for ham radio type field days and other events. I find this enjoyable, sometimes challenging, and a great way to stay prepped to help out with radio communications for special events or emergencies.
It’s a little bit like the ARRL promotes in the US, they say “Amateur Radio — when all else fails”. Hopefully it won’t fail, but we hams have fun keeping our skills up.
So yes, some of this running around erecting aerials and so on is for emcomms type events, and that is why I became a member of WICEN, an organisation which offers amateur radio communications in times of emergency, and also for safety control and marshalling during various public events. WICEN is uniquely Australian. Other countries’ ham radio organizations hav their own names for their radio volunteers, such as ARES in the USA and I think it is called RADAR in the United Kingdom.
When hams go off on these emergency exercises and field days, they usually bring their own radio equipment and interface it with other people’s gear. And sometimes we have to plug our radios into another group’s power supplies or generator. Most of us have now standardized our 12 volt power leads to use 30-amp Anderson Power Poles. They work pretty well, and the great advantage is that you cannot accidentally reverse their polarity (as long as the plug was built correctly in the first place, that is).
Other popular connectors included the Molex, and a few others… but mostly the Anderson Power Poles have become the standard. And that’s a good thing.
Much more sensible. 30-amp Anderson Power Pole connectors, as used by ARES in the US and WICEN in Australia.
Now there is still one Australian standard that, in my opinion, is start raving mad. Why? Because it isn’t standardised between the different Australian states and territories. I’ll say that again, it is NOT standardised. This crazy “standard” is for the Australian low-voltage T-plug (pictured) which has two flat prongs that are at right angles to one another. This is supposed to prevent anyone from accidentally plugging a device in to the DC power supply with the terminals reversed.
As long as the red wire always goes to the positive terminal and the black wire to the negative terminal, everything ought to work fine, isn;t that right, boys and girls?
Well folks, here in New South Wales (Sydney and its surrounds) we have one standard, and south of us in Victoria (that’s Melbourne and its surrounds) they use the exact opposite standard. So if we ever have joint operations near the NSW/Victoria border, then there’s a lot of electrical and electronic equipment in grave risk of being damaged.
And since these T-plugs are still used in caravans (trailers and campers) here in Australia, there is more scope for blown fuses or DC wiring catching fire if your caravan expects the Victorian state standard and connects with something giving the New South Wales state standard electricity.
Australian low-voltage T-shaped DC power plugs, showing my + and - marks. The Vic is on the left and the NSW one (with green tag below) on the right.
If you look at the Australian T-plugs the way I am holding them below for the camera, the horizontal bar of the T is on top, and the vertical bar is underneath it. The horizontal bar (top) is negative (black wire) in Victoria (that’s the left plug). The power plug on the right (New South Wales) should be positive (red wire) at the top.
So when you go into Bunnings and buy a cheap Chinese-made generator for Field Day, some of them have an Australian T-connector power plug for charging 12-volt batteries. I wonder which standard yours will be when you buy it, and I wonder what standard your other gear has been wired to work with. All I can say now, is we’d better not get our wires crossed, had we?
Historical Aussie Trivia
Overseas readers may be amused to know that we had a similar farce with the gauges of our railway networks, which were originally built in each separate state to compete and even try to intercept trade and transport from their rival state. Passengers crossing state lines between New South Wales and Victoria, or NSW and Queensland had to change trains at the border. And sometimes they would wait while the same railway carriages were lifted off their wheels by a large crane and lowered onto a different set of wheels (in a different gauge or width) to continue the rest of their journey.
Image by Andi.bxg via Flickr
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