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Welcome to Garys’ Web Page (Updated May 2025)

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Smith Domain Incorporated

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My Story (Gary)

I, (Gary) have always been interested in electronics and engineering and that sort of stuff, trying to work out how things tick, but sometime that is not good because after I dismantled the item, sometimes it never ticks again!! At least I know how it was supposed to tick!!!

I (the author of this family tree) was born on the (Smithvale) farm that originally belonged to George Smith. He was raised on the portion of the farm that was handed down to Percy (my father) and Mary (my mother), I lived here until I was 10 years old. Percy then handed the farm over to his two eldest sons and moved to a section of the farm five miles away (that previously belonged to the Pryor family) with Mary and the four youngest children. I was there for five years and the when the house burnt down in 1964, the family move into the township of Wagin. I passed the "PMG" entrance exam to be a telephone technician so I went to Perth for a year in 1966 for training. I then returned to Wagin to continue with the job. I stayed in Wagin for fifteen years as a technician (except for a two year stint of Nation Service in the army in 1971-1972). In 1981-1984, I worked at the 6WA National Broadcasting Station and then moved to Katanning in 1985 to continue working for the PMG / Telecom Australia / Telstra. Telstra in its "wisdom" downsized its workforce and one of the ones to become redundant was Me, I left Telstra after 33 years and at present (2018) I am still in Katanning, since leaving Telstra (communications corporation), I has gained his Australian Communications Authority cabling license and his Security Agents license, Security Consultants licenses’ and Security Installers license, and also installs satellite pay Television. I then worked for a research and development crowd developing a pump to chlorinate potable water. Grace left her work so we went and worked on a cattle station near Newman from 2004 -2005, then on another cattle station from 2005-2006, I loved that life. In 2007, I worked in a nickel mine until 2009, the mine shut down so I worked in a gold mine in 2010 for 3 months then the original nickel mine I worked at, re-opened with a different owner, so I worked for them for 3 months, I decided I didn’t like the fly in fly out lifestyle, so I did casual work in Katanning and in 2013, I worked for the local shire, installing a security system and networking at the new sheep sale yards until the end of 2014. In 2015, I retired. We still revisit the cattle stations we worked at in the previous years and still enjoy it. Really, retirement is not really stopping work, but working at things that you enjoy. In 2017, we had a new 4x4 wagon and decided to go the old cattle station we had worked at in 2005, but it was under new management, and it wasn’t good, so we moved on in 4 days to the NT, we loved the work on Stappleton cattle station in the NT and also Tara station in QLD, we were away for some 6 months that year, In 2018, we decided to catch up on the place we lived, so we stayed at home and it being a change from what we did in the previous years, we both really enjoyed the stay home. Because I love electronics, in 2019, we (Grace and I) went to another cattle station at the top of the Tanami desert, called Limbunya Station to help out with solar off grid problems, which we managed to get sorted, also trying to get the solar bores up and running, my electronics background come into play, and with my wife, Grace, by my side to help me, a very exciting year. Now the year 2020 and it started quiet, the coronial virus started to hit late February and then we had the border shutdown in March, April, this just meant that we got more work done around the house, I managed to get a quite a few solar panels at a very good price, and this was installed to heat water, it worked out really successful and haven’t needed to turn mains power on to heat water all year. Our youngest daughter had a baby boy in October. I am helping to keep the electronics going at Tally Tags in Wagin, so to make the electronic enclosures, the company supplied me a 3D printer, but overall, it has been a very quiet year. Hopefully the Covid19 virus will reside and we may be able to visit some of the cattle station we love to see. Now, 2021 to come…

My wife (Grace) has been the perfect wife to me and an excellent mother to our two children (and pets).