Daily Report for Sunday October 6
IOP1 - finally good conditions for an IOP. Fine and cool with light northerlies during the day, becoming calm this evening.
IOP started with a sounding at 4pm (22UT), and soundings approx every 3 hours afterwards. Rapid cooling at ground level (5C late evening) but warm aloft (wind profiler RASS showing 15C at 500m. Winds switched to south-westerly at ground level, but aloft the wind profiler and lidar both show easterlies.
Tethersondes operating in crater and at ISFS base. Nihanth is operating our lidar in mainly RHI scans across crater with occasional PPIs. Sebastian is in crater operating UU lidar in coordinated scans.
Some network difficulties at ISFS is affecting sounding operations because of limited connectivity between DSM based surface met there and GAUS DM and sounding laptop, so some soundings may not have surface met so may be delayed in posting to web.
Generator down to 1/4 tank so partly refilled this evening (to 1/3 tank) to ensure we get through to tomorrow afternoon (when generator due to be replaced).
Wind profiler up & down this afternoon as adjustments were made to parameters (eg, blanking, HPA, etc) to get as low measurements as possible. Both winds and RASS now often (although not always) reporting down to 200 meters in standard mode. RASS frequency also increased to a 5-minute run every quarter hour. Charlie made adjustments to sound generator; now resetting every 30 seconds.
Kate arrived this afternoon to assist ISS operations.
Daily Report for Saturday October 5
Fine and cool with northerly breeze. It should become calmer so an IOP still planned for tomorrow evening.
All systems running well. 449 seeing winds to 2km, occasionally 3km, and RASS to 1 - 1.5km. Power amp running at about 140 W in winds and 190W in RASS. Sodar seeing winds to 120 - 150 m and RASS to 120 - 200m.
The air is very clear so the lidar wasn't seeing very far, perhaps 1 - 1.5km so I increased the range gates from 25m to 50m, and appeared to get a few hundred meters extra range. Nihanth and Sebastien were doing tests for tomorrows IOP around 0:40 UT, 3 UT, and 5:30 UT this evening (Oct 6). They managed to spot the ISFS south rim tower at bearing 195.1 deg azimuth, which agrees very well with an estimate from GPS coords and Google Earth of 195.15 deg.
Switched out shuttle disk drive 1 for disk 2 to carry data back to Boulder. The log for disk 1 is at ds/logs/disk_shuttle449_1.log It covers the period Sep 25 - Oct 3 and has nearly 1TB of mainly 449 data, but also some lidar data.
At late afternoon the generator diesel was just over 1/2 full, oil press & temp 60 psi and 180F.
Daily Report for Friday October 4
Sunny, but cool with northerly breeze as a dry cold front moved through. Expecting conditions to improve Sunday with possible IOP Sunday night.
All systems working well. Profiler seeing winds to 2 - 3 km and RASS to 1 - 1.2 km, the sodar seeing winds to 100 - 150 m and RASS to 100 - 200 m, and the lidar seeing out to 1.5 - 2 km. Profiler amp power is 200W for RASS and 145W for winds.
Set up more of the web site today, and now wind profiler plots are appearing http://www.eol.ucar.edu/content/apg-metcraxii
We adjusted the lidar heading and level today, which required moving the platform a little. Previously the lidar had been pointing at about 353 deg, and from 22 UTC it was pointed directly at true north. Note that the internal compass seems to be about 2 deg off, and claims that it is pointing at 347 deg (mag) or 358 deg true. We also corrected the level.
Generator at late afternoon is about 3/4 on the dipstick, oil press & temp is 60 psi and 180 F. Set up generator servicing with Sunstate Equip for Monday afternoon at 2pm.
Daily Report for Thursday Oct 3
Fine, warm and brisk southwesterly breeze since this morning. Forecast said a dry cold front is coming through so too breezy and disturbed for an IOP.
449 Profiler working well, apart from a couple of dropped files around 18 & 21Z in both winds and rass. Occasional sound drop-outs. Average amp power 123W. Backup disk installed on DM to copy 449 data (using a Voyager docking station). DVD writing also tested - plan to use this to give lidar data to the ASU folks.
Sodar working very well since Eckhard made a couple of parameter changes yesterday. He reduced the gates to 15m (from 20m) which involved the first gate. He also switched the DBS operation to different beams - was A0 & A1 (SW & NW), now A1 & A2 (NW & NE) which improved the apparent quality of the winds considerably, although the range is a little less thanks to the shorter pulse. Today both winds and rass height ranges are quite variable varying from about 75 to 180m.
The lidar is getting returns out to about 2km range and a km or more altitude. We shut it off during the afternoon to avoid over heating.
WXT was moved to the lidar this morning from around 17Z. Last night it ran between 449 trailer and the surface met tower. A quick comparison shows that the temperature and RH agreed very well (within 1C and ~3%); the pressure and winds were a little higher on the WXT (approx 1hPa and 1m/s) but this could have been due to placement with flow around the trailer (although with the surface met wind head at 40' and the WXT at 6', I would have expected the WXT to be lower).
Generator diesel still showing well above full on dipstick, oil temp 180 F, pressure 60 psi.
Gary is returning home tomorrow, leaving Bill & Tim for the first ops period - thanks Gary!
Daily Report October 2
Sunny and warm with southwesterly breeze. No IOP tonight - too breezy.
Last night's lidar only IOP went well, however some tweaking of lidar orientations are needed.
Comms link to sodar when down yesterday evening, Gary did some adjustments today, including realigning the link antenna which seemed to help. Sodar data is now being transferred back to Boulder and plotted. Eckhard adjusted the sodar range gates, and now there is 15 meter sampling (prev 20 meter gates).
Ceilometer MLH plot software needed restarting.
Generator fuel down to 1/3 so refueled this afternoon.
449 Profiler working well, also still intermittent problem with RASS sound. Looked at some RIM plots, looks promising although phase offsets need adjusting.
WXT test at 449 site, positioned near 449 met tower from 2330UT, agreeing well so far (data is being saved in iss/data stream).
Daily Report for Tuesday Oct 1.
Today was clear and warm with a light mainly southern or southwestly breeze although it was northerly briefly this morning.
Eckhard made some repairs to the sodar speakers and amplifiers today and now it is fully operational (previously 2 or 3 speakers and amps weren't functioning, although the sodar was still working well). We were also working on the lidar on tests and tracking down an orientation problem.
Tonight we have a mini IOP to test lidar operations and coordination - unofficially we are calling this IOP-0.
The NCAR lidar (windcube 200 s leased from Leosphere) is operating on the north rim of the crater and is doing a series of coordinated test scans with the University of Utah lidar operating on the floor of the crater. An example of the scans is the NCAR lidar doing RHI scans at 190 azimuth between +10 and -10 deg elevation, while the Utah lidar is doing the same azimuth but from about 45 deg thru zenith to -45 deg, which will allow detailed dual-Doppler in the vertical plane. Both lidars are now working well, but getting their beam directions exactly calibrated is tricky.
The 449 is running well, picking up quite a few birds this evening. RASS sound was turned off for the film crew until about 4 UT. The sound intermittently cuts out at other times, Charlie is working on the problem. When it is running correctly, it works well - typically seeing up to over 1km, however the lower gates need some adjustment.
Earlier in the evening, the 449 site was visited by a film crew to record part of a documentary for middle schoolers.