On 14/06/2007, at 11:30 AM, robertelms wrote:

> The reliability of trackers could be dependent on the location, James. 
> In
> our capital city trackers and, for that matter any organ with slider 
> chests,
> fared badly in the climatic conditions of that city. In the 1920s, 30s 
>  and
> 40s wet  winters, 100F+ dry heat in the summer with no AC and no 
> heating in
> winter, ciphers, runnings, sticking sliders caused through warping of
> timbers were common in organs of the 19th and early 20th Centuries. 
> Many of
> these were electrified as a matter of course to overcome these 
> problems.
> With modern materials the latest trackers seem to have overcome these
> problems.

Brisbane's first Klais tracker was installed at Queensland University. 
Over the years it was regularly unusable through most of the winter -  
the airconditioning also supplied the Library, had little control over 
humidity  (hate to think what happened to the Fryer Library 
collection), and was turned off at weekends. Westerly winter winds here 
have travelled across the whole of Australia and have lost most of 
their water by the time they get here. In August, average humidity is 
73%  at 9 am, falling to  45% at 3pm.
A revamp of the hall a few years ago saw the hall turned into a 
combined art gallery and organ recital space. The gallery's historic 
collection suddenly needed archival space. Consequently archive, 
gallery and organ now receive the utmost care: 21degC  50%RH
This page shows a little of the organ  in one of its pictures:
http://www.maynecentre.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=16058
Despite the loss of line-of-sight in the building, the organ sounds 
better than ever, and is quite reliable.
The fact that the Music Department no longer offers organ tuition means 
that nobody practises on it, although there are about half a dozen 
recitals a year.
Bit of  a waste - at the moment.

Best wishes

Lesley de Voil
hoping to be around long enough to see a local Renaissance here!

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