Blog from June, 2013

SOAS ISFS Status, June 3, 2013

11:00 CDT - Pond is still down

Sonics: ok

TRH, P, p: 8m TRH is RIP;

Ifan.13.9m now down to ~38 mA

Wind speed & direction: ok

Soil, Rainr: ok; Vmote.rad=11.9V, soil.a=11.0V, soil.b=12.25V

Radiation, Wetness: Tsfc.13.9m, Tsfc.32m are RIP in cockpit, but 13.9m okay

h2o, co2: 32m Licor is RIP for both h2o & co2;

kh2o recovered yesterday, around 15:00 CDT for 13.9m and sometime overnight for 2m; kh2oV ~ 0.1-0.15V

System (GPS, Vdsm): ok;

(Icharge, Idsm, Tcharge).m0???

June 2, 15:45 CDT:

No data from soil.a or SPN1 since 02:45 CDT, June 2; found green light blinking in mote 22, but not red light.  Cycled power and started running okay.

June 2, 2:38 pm

Ifan.14.9m was acting pretty wild since late yesterday afternoon.  Gordon did a reset (^R) and it is now behaving better.

June 2:

Heavy rain last night, but quit around 10 am this morning.  

Pond station has problems: Gordon found water in battery box, charge controler is shot.

Configured cockpit with 7 pages devoted to related individual variables, e.g ??(Soil, Precip, Vmote), (Radiation, Wetness), etc

Sonics at 2 and 14 m are down, sonic at 32 m was down but recovered.

10:02 - Tried restarting 2 & 14 m; fixed 14m but not 2m

10:28 - Sonic at 2m recovered by itself

P, T, RH all okay; Ifan.13.9m ~ 62 ma at 12:00

Wind speed, Direction ok

Soil mote a not reporting, stopped around 02:45 this morning with Vmote = 11.7V

Radiation:  SPN1.a  not reporting; it's on the same mote as the "a" soils.

Tsfc at 13.9 and 32 m were previously removed for replacement.  Replacements arrived yesterday.

kh2oV=0; IRGAs look okay

System: Tcharge.m0???

Gordon, June 1

I tried to repair the 4G modem, whose tiny RF connector had broken off from the PCB. Split open the plastic case and removed the loose connector, hoping that it would receive an acceptable signal with the internal antenna.

This morning, put the 4G back on the router at the top of the tower, but the reported signal levels are bad: 0%, RSSI:-125(dBm). Time to order another.

May 31

5:48 Gordon completed moving the router and Verizon modems to the top of the tower.  He discovered that the antenna connector on the 4G modem was broken off.

Prior to this move the signal levels of the 3G modem were in the range -84 to -75 dBM, which the router showed as 82% to 100%, which is, I presume, a percentage of what is regarded as a good signal. Perhaps each cell phone bar is 25%.

After moving it to the top of the tower, the 3G signal levels are always -72 or -73 dBM, which are shown as 100%.

In the trailer, I (Gordon) split open the case of the 4G, and removed the loose RF connector. It would have to be micro-soldered back on the PCB, not field repairable, at least by me.

May 31

4:24 Tom cleaned the SPN1 and 4 Kipp & Zonen radiometers on the dark horse at soil site A (rad).  There were a few cobwebs strung to the incoming K&Z radiometers.

May 31

4:50 Tom replaced battery with low voltage (~9V) at soil site B (rain).  The new battery reads 11.9V

May 31

3:33 Gordon climbing tower

3:39 Removed 14m Tsfc # 4078-3

4:00 Removed 32m Tsfc # 3389-3

5:48 off tower

May 31

On tower today from 3:33 - 5:48 pm to remove bad Tsfc sensors and move Verizon modems and router to the top of the tower.

June 1 

Gordon and Tom worked on improving the ethernet connectivity.  Gordon opened the low DSM and discovered that the ethernet surge protectors for the connections from the mid and high DSMs were extremely hot.

12:13 Gordon pulled the fuse on the eth1 port in the mid DSM

12:17 Gordon removed the fuse on the eth1 port in the high DSM

(I removed the fuses because I didn't know which jumper controlled the output voltage on these eth ports.)

From the low DSM, Tom pinged, in succession, the high DSM, mid DSM, the router (192.169.0.5), and google.com.  In all cases, 50 pings were returned with no missing returns.  At the same time the ethernet surge protecters in the low DSM cooled appreciably.  Vmote (3,19) at the high DSM now reads a voltage of 12.22 V.

Gordon added an ethernet surge protecter to the cable between the ethernet switch and the router now at the top of the tower.

Previously we saw about 10% loss of packets on pings to high. The CBR400 router was also not stable, frequently it would stop responding to http requests. Data samples from the high DSM over the network were being discarded because the TCP connection would not keep up.

The networking to high and to the cbr400 router on the tower now seems to be much improved. It appears that the DSMs were putting a +V on the ethernet cable and the surge protectors were trying to discharge it, getting very hot, and having an adverse effect on the comm signsls.

May 31

Kurt measured guy wire tension, first while Gordon was climbing tower, and second after Gordon was finished on the tower:

*This turnbuckle is maxed out.  You will have to pull a link.

#3 links taken in on 6/21.