Clear skies today with light haze, and warmer with a high in the mid-40’s. IOP 6, the “Quiescent IOP” started at noon today.
ISS1 – No issues at the ISS1 site with all systems still running nominally. Profiler status this morning: @ 0926 100m: 4.64A @ 50V & 1.837A @ 32V, and @0930 150m rass: 3.87A @ 50V & 1.887 A @ 32 V. While walking around the antenna array during the RASS, the speakers were noticeably louder than they have been in the past. However, the volume level did drop after a minute or so back to the level heard every day since my arrival. I checked the audio connections from the PC to the amplifier and the speaker wire connections and found no issues. I will keep an eye... er, and ear on it and see if the level stays stable.
ISS2 – No issues here today.
ISFS – Spent the morning and early afternoon visiting all 11 remote sites with Jacquie to install Sebastian’s fine-wire thermocouples that connect to the EC100s’ temperature input. We were trying to get the thermocouples installed at all 11 sites before the start of the IOP at noon. We managed to get them all installed, and checked that they were functional by logging into the DSMs, by 1 pm. I checked the wiring for the sonic at the Lake Creek site and may have resolved the intermitted data issue by adjusting the wires coming out of the base of the sonic such that the wires apply pressure to the sonic, possibly fixing an intermittent broken wire/solder joint issue. Jacquie monitoring the data to see if the problem persists.
Soundings – Launched soundings at 2:03 and the 4:15 pm today without any issues with Jacquie’s husband assisting on the earlier launch.
There is one sonde that the students could not get to pass the ground check. I tried twice to get the sonde working, but it is broken as the ground station is not even able to detect it when placed in the cradle. The sonde is in its box, sitting on the sounding computer table, to the right of the system. I would suggest hanging on to it for future demonstration and/or outreach events. During the second sounding, we moved to the 3rd to the last helium cylinder, i.e. we have just under 3 full cylinders left.