Blog

Restarted soil.a mote

June 4, 10:54 - recycled power on soil.a mote.  It quit yesterday at ~19:15 CDT.

Status June 4

SOAS ISFS Status, June 4, 2013

Gordon spent most of yesterday getting power to Pond and troubleshooting its sensors.  Now only Rainr.tb is missing.  Pond will be a lower priority today.

Sonics: ok 

TRH, P, p: 8m TRH is RIP

Wind speed & direction: ok

Soil, Rainr: soil.a mote went down at 19:15, June 3.  
        Vmote.(a,b,rad) ~ 13.1V (@19:15), 12.4, 11.8.

Radiation, Wetness: Tsfc.32m is RIP (might be just disconnected)

h2o, co2: Gordon did a software reset yesterday for the 32m Licor.

System (GPS, Vdsm): ok

June 3

4:06 pm CDT- Recycled power on mote at site soil.b, which stopped this afternoon at ~13:45  

4:10 - replaced mote battery at site soil.a. New battery = 12.97V

32m Licor restarted

June 3:

h2o.32m (licor) appears flaky starting around 17:00, June 2.

Around 12:00 CDT, June 3, Gordon restarted the 32 m Licor over an rserial connection.

Turnipseed sonic

June 2:

Gordon installed Andrew Turnipseed's RMYoung sonic on the tower.  The bracket is 120 cm above our 38m sonic bracket.  The boom is 60 degrees counterclockwise (viewed from above) from our sonic booms (the boom is installed on the 'climbing' face of the tower).

He plans to use this for periodic REA measurements of trace gas fluxes.  He will pull up a sample line with a rope on a pulley attached to his sonic boom.

K&Z CNR4 height

June 2:

Gordon measured the height of the CNR4 bracket.  It is 275 cm above the 38 m sonic bracket.

June 2:

Gordon installed two new Everest Tsfc sensors on tower late this afternoon.

13.9m: 3389-1

32m:   3577-3

Could not read data with mote dump until Gordon changed the sensor type in the XML.  He did this at 13.9m, but not yet at 32m (12:30 CDT June 3).  There is also the possibility that he did not remember to plug in the Tsfc at 32 m!

Status, June 3

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???

Reset soil.a (rad) mote

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.

Reset 13.9m TRH

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.

Status, June 2

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???

4G modem

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.

Cleaned surface radiometers

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