Blog from May, 2023

SOS Ops 5/24

Today we worked with the RMBL crew to move all of our equipment and sensor cases out of the tent behind Crystal Cabin into the Salamander room of the Lab and out onto the patio. All of the CSAT/EC150 cases, a pallet, and the davit are covered by a tarp and under the roof. I also ended up leaving the spare pyrgeometer and pyranometer I packed in the tote with the spare radiometer fan cable/mote cables.

As of today the road to Gothic is open. David and I were able to hitch a ride on the way out making for a speedy trip back home. 

No snow

As of today, I don't see any snow inside the tower triangle on the camera.  Yesterday, a bit still seemed to be present around the uw tower.


SOS network is down

The SOS router and everything behind it is unreachable as of about 1:10 pm local today.  This shouldn't be related to the ISP down time that happened yesterday, but at the moment I have no idea what's wrong.


Adjusted Guy Wire tensions

  • UE - 2 full turns of the turnbuckle 
    • Fwd R -  165 –> 200
    • Fwd L - 180 –> 260
    • Aft - 160 –> 200
  • UW - 2 full turns
    • Fwd R - 90 –> 200 (6 turns) - We made sure to use 2 levels after all the tensions were verified
    • Fwd L - 105 –> 200
    • Aft - 100 –> 240
  • D - 2 full turns
    • Aft L - 190 –> 295
    • Aft R - 190 –> 330
    • Fwd - 179 –> 300
  • C - 2 turns
    • Aft outer -  250 –> 340
    • Aft inner - 200 –> 320
    • Fwd R outer - 250 –> 300
    • Fwd R inner - 160 –> 300
    • Fwd L outer - 260 –> 340
    • Fwd L inner - 205 –> 350


Moved Booms/CSAT/EC150 from 2m to 1m

  • upwind west at 11:32
  • Upwind east at 11:45
  • Downwind at 12:14


Swapped USB sticks

  • UE
    • Pi-1 at 11:56
    • Pi-2 at 11:56
  • D
    • Pi-5 at 12:48
    • Pi-6 at 12:48


Cleaned Radiometers

  • UW at 11:46
  • D at 11:15


Troubleshot 9m Radiometer

  • Replaced mote at 1:07


Cleaned Gas Analyzer lenses on C 

  • 10m at 2:08
  • 15m at 2:12
  • 20m at 2:15
  • 5m at 2:19
  • 3m at 2:22
  • 2m at 2:23
  • 1m at 2:21

Ops 05/23

David Ortigoza and I drove into Crested Butte last night. Cottonwood pass was said to be open by multiple news sources... But unfortunately it was not. On the plus side, we got to see a herd of Big Horn Sheep before we had to turn around. We took Monarch pass into the Gunnison Valley. 

We left this morning around 07:30 and were on the trail by 08:00. We were able to make it into Gothic within an hour. The road in was dry and an easy hike. We dropped off our gear and headed to the site after picking up some spare mote cables and wipes from the Salamander Room. The trail going to Kettle Ponds is pretty muddy with one 20ft section of 11" snow. The snowmelt/runoff flowed over the trail on at least two accounts. The actual Kettle Ponds were filled and looked very beautiful reflecting Gothic Mountain. 

We were very busy and successful while out at the site. We stood up the barrel, checked guy tensions, moved booms/sensors, switched LiDAR USB sticks, reset UE Pi 1, troubleshot the D 9m radiometer, cleaned both sets of radiometers, cleaned gas analyzer lenses on C, and finally collected flags. 

Rumor is that the road will be open tomorrow, 5/24. Also, we have not heard back from Ben nor the other caretakers to coordinate moving the sensor cases from the tent to the Salamander room. I will add another blog post giving the specifics of what the guy tensions were and what we adjusted them to, along with times the sensors were moved, replaced, or cleaned. 


The ISP for the SOS site, XTREME Internet, texted a notice to Rochell that the Internet connection will be down for maintenance between 9am and 2pm on Wed, 5/24.  They did not say for how long, so maybe it will be a short interruption.  This means all real-time data from the site will be interrupted, but everything should catch up when the connection is restored.


Pillows 2 and 3 are bare

As of today (5/14), these snow pillows appear to be bare of snow.

Upper radiometers down

Jacquie noticed that the d.9m radiometer data stopped coming in at 16:47 yesterday (5/11).  This morning, the mote was reporting only its boot-up messages, and cycling through them.  I think this indicates a bad sensor that pulls down the I2C line and thus creates an error in the mote's program when it starts to power the I2C lines.  I became distracted and when trying a few hours later, I get no response at all from this mote after several pio power cycles and even a ddn/dup.    Looking at the high-rate data, I see good messages from all 4 radiometers until 15:39, and then none.  This gives no clue as to which (if any) radiometer went bad to cause the reboot cycling.

I can't think of anything else to do from here.  I'll add debugging/servicing of these sensors to the task list for the next site visit, which will be in a week and a half.  At the very least, we will send out another V2.7 mote.  If this has issues, we can systematically plug each of the radiometers in to see if one is bad.  If so, we might have to leave it disconnected, since changing out a spare would be a major task.  (Though, perhaps possible.)


Next visit tasks

For Will and David on the last maintenance visit:

  • Debug/fix non-reporting d.9m radiometers.  Take a spare V2.7 mote.
  • Clean radiometers
  • Change out lidar USB sticks
  • Move d, ue, and uw lower sonics to 1m
  • Dig out the barrel and move to the ground, if possible and/or needed.
    • Barrel down as of 16:00 May 15, 2023
  • Move crates and equipment out of Quonset Hut
  • Check all guy wire tensions
  • Clean EC150 lenses (with alcohol wipe) on 10m.c and 15.c, and others if you feel like it.
  • Power cycle Ethan's raspberry pi on UE (pi1).  If not labeled, power cycle both.
  • Remove flag trail markers
lidars and moonlight

Just looking at the live view tonight, with an almost full moon, I can barely see a glimmer that might be the lidars in the bottom, left of the image.  I'm assuming that the (visible) moonlight shifts the camera sensitivity so that it is less sensitive to the (infrared) lidar reflection off the surface.