14-Oct-12
A6 trh out ~12:00-17:00 MDT (18:00-01:00Z on 15th). I was checking for corrosion on trh binder connectors in the wagon wheels and on this station decided to clean and coat the connection with nail polish. Unfortunately I didn't plug the dsm cable back in when I finished.
A17 out ~??-22:00 MDT ( - 04:00Z on 15th). Cockpit was down for awhile due to a flux computer crash and I didn't see that both trh's at 17 were down. At the site the mote was blinking normally, however, when I did a 'scan-i2c' it locked up and continually reset indicating further problems. Presuming corrosion on the connections I brought everything back to the base and swapped in 2 hubs that had been previously cleaned/coated. I also tried reprogramming the mote with newer code to avoid the \r insertion before a \n value in raw data. This worked but I couldn't get polling back down to 1sec (2 was fastest) so decided to retain the original code. After going back and forth outside a few times while using the acer computer to check the mote sensor data before plugging them into the dsm I finally discovered that the 'procomm decoder' version on that machine was old and not able to report the trh's correctly. After finally updating that utility on the acer and rechecking it, I installed the stuff back on the tower and then things looked good on cockpit, etc. I don't know if any of the problems SteveO had with trh's could have been due to the faulty procomm decoding while directly talking to a mote for testing.
Cable Problem at A17: Examining the shields/cables from a17 last evening reveals that the lower cable has 3 cuts, with at least one wire severed. It probably occurred when pulling the cable through the galvanized boom, whether I did that last night or it happened earlier and moisture/vibration eventually caused the problem I don't know. That shield doesn't work at this point.
Meanwhile, mild green oxidation was observed on all of the trh connections I had checked out earlier in the day. More later...
Finally, it appears tonight could be a good case for Larry: clear and winds calming down.