A very hot day with a high at the nearby airport AWS of 104F. There was some high level cirrus and variable SW to W winds and a few dust devils (one of which damaged our shade canopy).
John Sobtzak joined us for a couple of days and worked with David and I on the 449 MHz Modular Profiler. He and David did a number of checks and adjustments, such as checking the range calibration, tuning parameters, We found that the 451.4 MHz signal that I had detected previously was made up of a number of narrow band components. On the Aritsu portable VNA in spectral analysis mode, connected to the channel 0 antenna just at the LNA reported a signal level of about -78 dBm. We tried rotating the array array about 20 deg to line up better with the orientation towards the antennas on Mount Butler, only made a small difference, perhaps reducing the RFI signal 2 or 3 dB. The profiler is getting good signal (up to around 5 km AGL, probably thanks to the moisture inn the clouds aloft). The wind analysis indicated low cross-correlations involving antenna channel 0 (perhaps suggesting a problem with that antenna), however when David switched toughs it appeared to improve so it may have been a connection issue rather than a problem with the antenna itself. We will do further checks tomorrow. John also cabled up the MISS wind profiler and we plan to turn that on tomorrow.
We also started up the Metek Halo lidar on top of the MISS container (starting in a default VAD winds mode), rearranged the contents of the lidar container, and moved the Helium into place. Isabel worked on the network further, getting the broadband connection running in both trailers. Josh set up the sounding system antennas, with the coms antennas on a temporary portable mount while we investigate radio interference from the Modular Profiler.
BTW, yesterday (July 15) was a down day for the ISS crew, David and Josh went skiing/boarding (! ) while Isabel & I checked out a local museum.
John and David working on the Modular Profiler
Josh and Bill working on the Helium and the Metek Halo lidar