Blog

Weather: Chilly morning turning into a balmy afternoon. Stratus until about 1300 local, followed by cumulostratus through the rest of the afternoon

Tasking:

• Met with Lou to catch up on ISS and cover their needs for the remainder of the project:
  • switching out secondary storage drive as they approach full
  • make sure water does not pool on 449
  • make sure corn and debris does not build up around 449 electronics
  • do a complete sounding with Matt and Andy with the new rs41 system
• Data check, everything is looking acceptable
• Did some housekeeping on the tablet and removed all the Perdigao and GRAINEX paired devices
• Truck clean
• Contacted Shaff Implements to try and expedite the shipping of the batteries. Still have not received word so chances aren't great
• Spent a few hours cleaning the swale of rubbish and straightening equipment due to the impending rain
• Showed Andy access to the remaining pressures sites we have not visited

Tomorrow morning Lou asked for some quick help with a couple of tasks. We pivoted from data entry this afternoon to a swale clean due to the nice weather, so that will be part of the rainy day activity tomorrow. The soil samples are cooling down after baking for 24hrs so we will weigh those as well. Matt will be landing in Chicago tomorrow and plans to catch a ride down to Champaign Saturday morning.

Weather: Cool and breezy. Clear with cirrostratus throughout the day.

Tasking:

• Attempted to pick up the replacement station batteries from Shaff Implements, however they accidentally delivered absorbed glass mat instead of gel. The correct set are not slated to arrive until next Monday unfortunately, perhaps this can be expedited.
• Morning data check looked good.
• Finished theodolite survey of the UW temperature profiles.
• Took soil samples from the corn, swale and bean sites, they are currently drying in the oven.
• We bumped into April this afternoon, she said the IOP last night was the best yet! The smoke is finding the low points of the swale even better then they imagined. Tonight it will be too windy for another IOP, but the hope is that there will be a couple of good evenings by the end of this weekend.
• Afternoon data check also looked good.

Tomorrow we will catch up on data entry and figure out which batteries we will swap out when the new ones finally arrive. Also, Lou is suppose to be on site to assess ISS's equipment.

Weather: Cool and breezy. Slightly hazy with occasional wispy cumulus throughout the day

Tasking:

• Started the day with data check showing one issue:
  • uconv 0.2m Gill sonic was inop, showing 999,999.99 for both component fields but otherwise streaming as expected. Upon inspection we found heavy corrosion between the connector pins due to moisture ingress. To be safe we replaced both the sonic and cable, leaving the old cable waterproofed and zip tied to the tower. Do we have a s/n table anywhere set up yet? (Just so I don't lose it, Gill 1536012 is now inop and replaced with 1335016)
• We did a quick visual check of the power monitor board at relm and the fuse did not seem to be seated due to being angled. I removed and reseated it. After doing a double check of the data this appeared to have killed all streams from the serial board at relm. Returned to the tower and found the serial board fuse had blown. Replaced it and data streams returned to nominal with a loss of less than 15 minutes.
• Decided to attempt to waterproof all Gill connectors a bit more with ziplock baggies and some electrical tape. Hopefully this will stop pooling of water in the boom mount which ultimately may be the culprit of the last two dead gills.
• Continued theodolite survey of the UW temperature profiles. This is now mostly complete, one more survey position should be sufficient. I will create or add to an existing page explaining our methods and nomenclature for shooting them.
• Spent the lion's share of the afternoon assisting April with the alignment of her LIDAR (lasers woot!). The manufacturer sent her an incomplete assembly so we helped with a makeshift temporary fix and got to learn about aligning the device.
• Ended the day with another data check due to an IOP this evening, looking good.

Forgot about picking up the batteries until we were almost at site this morning, so that will be first thing tomorrow. Also it has been quite dry and rain is in the forecast for Thursday, so we plan on taking soil samples tomorrow. Good luck to all of the IOPers tonight!

Weather: Warm and breezy. Clear with occasional cumulus throughout the day.

Tasking:

• Started the day with data check, everything looking good!
• Secured Aprils solar panels at uconv and lconv with stakes and straps
• Cleaned all EC150 and NR01 lenses
• Checked guy tensions at four tall towers
• Started theodolite survey of UW PVC temperature profiles
• Helped April move her LIDAR assembly from Release Tower platform to trailer where it will remain for the rest of the project. They plan on disassembling the platform/LIDAR enclosure and leaving the trailer about 15m north of the original platform location

Received word from Shaff Implements that our batteries arrived this afternoon, we will pick them up tomorrow morning.

Weather: Cool and calm. Clear with occasional cumulus throughout the day.

Tasking:

• At least one power outage last night, most likely due to high winds. Ken said power was lost from about 4am until 9am local this morning. He has a standby generator that powers the circuit the ISS trailer is on however the ISFS trailer is on a circuit without backup power. That generator kicked on almost immediately but there most likely was a momentary loss of power for the ISS profiler system. After checking it out this morning the profiler plots seem nominal, however Bill said there is a problem with his webplots as of 10:15pm local. This may be due to an earlier power surge or loss.
• lconv a2 1.5m CSAT3A started reporting again yesterday afternoon and data looks acceptable
• Had a chance to speak with Ken about what to do with the corn collected on our tarps. He requested we dump it on his treeline due to mold and decay that most of it had succumb to.
• The instruments are all looking good today, surprising after winds reached almost 45mph at the 20m sonics
• Moved the tarp corn to a couple of dump spots on Ken's treeline.
• Replaced thinner gauge wire I used for grounding with recently found ground strap at all four towers
• April's solar panels at uconv had been blown over and partially sagged at init. Secured init panels. Uconv will need a stake and ratchet strap to secure them in case of another high wind event
• Zip tied cables with excess play to tall towers to limit abrasion in case of another high wind event

Tomorrow hopefully our replacement batteries will arrive!

Weather: Cool, high winds (25-35 mph constant!) from mid morning through sunset. Clear with occasional cumulus.

Tasking:

• Andy's first day. Started with an overview of duties & tour of the base trailer
• Proceeded to cover methods of checking data with a focus on qctables, ncharts and cockpit
• Continued tour at the swale. Went over all NCAR and user sensors and their locations
• Upon cockpit data check at SODAR trailer, found two issues
  • initb 0.2m 2D Gill was not reporting. Attempted PIO power cycle to no avail. Sensor came back after DSM power cycle and is still reporting
  • lconv a2 1.5m CSAT3A stopped reporting at 08:22 this morning. Power cycle failed to bring it back. We intended to return with a DMM further troubleshooting this afternoon but excessive winds were disconcerting enough to table this until tomorrow
• The soybean field to the north of lconv was harvested last night and this morning. It was then safe to rerun the serial cable from the beans tripod mote to its DSM. No issues with those streams

The wind already made a bit of a mess blowing packaging and other materials around. I suspect tomorrow will be a bit of a cleanup day. We will also knock down the remaining standing crop the harvester missed for consistency, particularly around the corn and beans NR01/Soil Sensor combos.  Hopefully we will run into Ken to find out what he wants with the corn collected on our tarps.

Originally posted by Dan, reposted as a blog.

Weather: Cool, low stratus throughout the day with scattered showers around noon

Tasking:

• Hendrik continued his remote support for the local Argentina crew
• Replaced 65W panels for 145W panels at lconv & uconv. We will hold off on doing the same at rel but will keep a close eye on it
• Data seems nominal
• Andy arrived this afternoon
• Hendrik's last day was today. Big thanks for all his hard work out here!
• April, Hendrik and I had dinner and checked in
  
  • IOPs are going well. The smoke has been pooling as desired for recent IOPs
  • They currently have had four successful ones with the goal of 10 by project end
  • UW may return before project end to do another IOP flight with their UAV
  • Critters chewing through the ctemps fiber continues to be an issue. They just received a new shipment of splices and will start fixing breaks downstream of the rel tower

Tomorrow I will be giving Andy a tour of the sites and overview of duties.

Weather was warm and sunny.

Last night there was an IOP.  We have not heard any word on how it went.  All our towers and sensors appear to have been functioning well though some sensors have slightly strange waveforms.

• The night frost and/or due seems to throw off the EC150 CO2 and H2O data.  I don't see a short term solution this.  Long-term, we may want to use the built-in heaters, though the power budget implications are not trivial..
• The Release tower Tsoil channel 2 (1.9cm) is noisy and showing signs of failing. 

Dan cleaned out the truck of all unnecessary items.  The generator is now being stored underneath the base trailer.

Hendrik spent time on the phone with Univ Cordoba students who have been doing an ops trip.

We received 6 solar panels from Boulder today, shipped air.  We began the process of swapping P6's 65W panel for a 145W panel.  Then, Dan had a better idea of doing this swap at Release.m, UConv.m, and LConv.m, where we're actually negative in the power budget.  Gary's ubiquity-power-cycle fix eliminated the need for additional charging at the pressure stations.  However, we still need more charging at the sites mentioned above.  We will begin this swap tomorrow.

Agenda for tomorrow

• Swap in 145W panels at Release.m, UConv.m, and LConv.m
• Give April 5-min avg geo/tilt-cor data from 10/12 - 10/17 (for her and U of W students.  Covers 2 IOPs)
• Finish EC5 soil experiment. 
• Meet with Andy, who arrives in Champaign at 5PM
• Hendrik's last day in Champaign.

Weather: Cold and windy, scattered cumulus throughout the day

Tasking:

• Hendrik periodically provided remote support for the local Argentina crew as they began their maintenance visits
• Troubleshooting  and repair of ISS DSM at 449 site
• Replacement of 15m TRH at Release Tower due to failing fan bearings. Data still looked acceptable but it was getting quite
• Paid for the remaining two months at the storage unit
• Picked up squeegee for ISS 449 antenna radomes

Weather: Cold morning warming up to a pleasantly warm afternoon, scattered cumulus throughout

Tasking:

• Spent part of the morning troubleshooting my VPN issues, which have been resolved (thanks Ted)
• Power cycled P1 & P2 to bring them back on the net so Gary can implement his radio schedule script
• Checked streams at SODAR trailer, all seem nominal
• Hendrik participated in a RELAMPAGO telecon related to upcoming maintenance visits
• Brought accumulated trash and recycling from base trailer to hotel. They are very receptive about large amounts of waste so there is no need to find a landfill/recycling center going forward

Tomorrow we plan to troubleshoot the ISS 449 site DSM and replace a TRH with a failing fan at Upper Convergence Tower.

Weather: Cold and breezy. Low stratus early followed by scattered cumulus through the afternoon.

Tasking:

• Did the rounds to all six pressure sites to perform a power cycle. The pi sleep command was supposed to bring the antennas back up after a period of time, however they failed to do so. Battery voltages were looking acceptable but Hendrik planned to power down the antennas again so there is no risk of a site dying during the IOP tonight
• Gary has been working on a script to periodically power the antennas on and off to limit the draw down of the batteries on site. This is nearing implementation.
•  Hendrik continued the soil moisture experiment.
• Hendrik helped ISS troubleshoot 449 issues. One of the main culprits was determined to be water pooling on the radomes.
• I surveyed the 2 University of Wisconsin's temporary met stations they installed south of the swale.
• A collection of students and a professor from an instrumentation class will be around for the IOP this evening to test different instrumentation, including some that will be utilized for the CHEESEHEAD field campaign. As I finished up they survey they were testing a UAV with a thermal camera. They plan to do a flight at dawn tomorrow morning when the maximum gradient in the swale will be measurable (in theory)

Hope all goes well for everyone out there this evening!

Today was a relatively short day.  The morning was cold, humid, and cloudy.  The sun came out at times in the afternoon.

• Last night, I did a power budget on the pressure sites, which I should've done long ago.  We need more solar charging at all the pressure sites.  A single 145W panel at each site should be adequate.  We will likely be requesting that a total of six 145W panels be shipped from Boulder for this purpose.  We'll then swap those in and use the 65W panels to beef up the main towers.
• We checked the sensors using Cockpit.  P5 was down due to power.
• We cleaned all radiometers and EC150s, and checked cable tensions

  • Upper convergence tensions

    • see Guy tensions page
  • Lower convergence tensions
    • see Guy tensions page

  • Release tower tensions

    • North low 360

    • North mid 320

    • North hi 400

    • Southwest low 360

    • Southwest mid 290

    • Southwest hi 370

    • Southeast low 370

    • Southeast mid 300

    • Southeast hi 370

  • Init tower trensions

    • Northwest 300

    • Southwest 300

    • East 320

• P5 came back online by 11:30AM, when we were done with sensor cleaning.
• We added an extra (well used) battery to P5.  It now has two dying batteries (better than one, right?).  We plan to double up batteries at the rest of the pressure sites as soon as we receive the new batteries we ordered, and purchase three additional coolers from Target.  We'll add an extra battery back to init.b too.
• April emailed and mentioned the next IOP is the evening of 10/15.  Additionally, U of Wisconson students will be arriving tomorrow to set up sensors.

Weather: Low stratus early followed by nimbostratus throughout the afternoon. Rain began around 13:00 and was heavy at times. Transitioned to wintery mix/snow at 14:30.

Tasking:

• There was an IOP last night. We have not yet heard how it went.
• Started the morning with a visit to MUTI-Sabre Industries Telecom Services. A couple of weeks ago, Steve and Hendrik noticed a winch up trailer tower in their yard while on the way to SAVANT site from the hotel. They dropped in but no one was able to meet with them at that time. We decided to give it another shot. Met with their VP of Operations Barry Schlickman. He showed us two towers, an AllTech 150' and and a ITS 100'. Both are about ten years old and have been used as temporary platforms for telecom equipment. The insight he provided into issues and benefits of these types of platforms was quite valuable.
• Hendrik checked the raw data files and found the USB speed change seemed to be working. Performed the change to the remainder of the DSMs.
• Checked streams at SODAR trailer. 0.5m TRH at Init Tower (DSM initb, usb2) was down. The sensor still appeared to be streaming data but it was hex and seemingly much longer than a TRH message. This would repeat about once every two seconds. Switched the SHT probe and power cycled the port but this incorrect message format continued. Finally after a power cycle of the DSM, TRH started transmitting normally.
• Ordered ten more DEKA 8G-24M batteries for station power
• Hendrik continued his soil moisture probe calibration experiment
• Continued with Base Trailer deep clean
• All the corn around the swale has been harvested. Reconnected the release tower mote.

It is still snowing but there is sun in the forecast for tomorrow. We plan on cleaning NR01s and EC150s if conditions permit.

Today was a busy day.

• Much colder today.  
• But, thankfully sunny.  The batteries need to be charged!  P3 and P4 went down due to power (cloudy days, single battery at each site).  P6 was on its way out due to battery issues too.  So, we spent the morning swapping the three Deka batteries we just bought yesterday at those stations.  Then, we went back to the base trailer.  
• Dan got on a Safety meeting conference call.
• I edited the config for RELT in an effort to fix the USB reset issues.  /boot/cmdline.txt now has a command that reduces the USB speed to 12MBPS, in an effort to reduce resets.  Since, it has reset once, and therefore hasn't solved the problem but possibly reduced the frequency.  I'm holding off on editing other DSMs until results are more definitive.
• April and Junming have decided there is an IOP tonight.  
• On Junming's request, we helped Noctis calibrate the 3m 8530 dustracks on Release and Lower Convergence towers, and 6m 8530 dustrack on Upper Convergence tower. 
• After lunch, we just happened to drive by the site and see Ken and crew harvesting the corn!  We scrambled to disconnect the release tower mote (will stay DC for IOP, and until corn is harvested).  Ken said they plan to harvest all fields to the north of the gulley today (10/11), and will harvest the south side tomorrow.  So for this night's IOP, the south still has corn.  
• Dan got a ride with Ken in the harvester, which actually an opportunity to talk to Ken on how he could get access to the south side without driving over the power cables to the SODAR, and Sodar trailer.  We dug a small trench that the cables would lie in.  Ken tested our cable trench by driving the harvester, and trucks over it.  Power stayed on for the Sodar and trailer.
• The lack of corn made the ATV more visible from the road, so Dan parked it at a less visible location near the release tower.

Weather: Low stratus early followed by nimbostratus & scattered cumulonimbus through the afternoon. Rain was heavy at times.

Tasking:

• Checked data streams at SODAR trailer. Raw data at Lower Convergence appeared to have a short gap last night though battery voltage was nominal. 6m EC150 at that site was giving erroneous readings upon first check but seemed to self correct
• Started deep clean of Base Trailer, still a long way to go
• Picked up three more Deka DOMINATOR deep cycle batteries for station power from Shaff Implement Co in Urbana. If more are needed they can be ordered through them and picked up within a couple of days

The rain seems to have passed, tomorrow we will inspect the swale for standing and evidence of running water. It sounds like there will be multiple IOPs this weekend due to visiting students, regardless of conditions.