Blog

Yesterday had the shift change from set-up to (almost) operations.  Dan, Kurt, Isabel, and Ned are now gone, with Gary leaving tomorrow.  Kate and I now have the comm. 

Winds have been stronger than desired, so no IOPs, which is good since several things are not yet operational. Chief among these is the CTEMP fiber-optic temperature sensor, which has had several issues and at the moment is only half laid out.  There also is an issue with the scanning laser system.  All of these are being resolved.

Thanks to the set-up crew, we have the primary 4 towers and the 6 pressure towers all up and running, though with several things to go:

• P4's network connection drops daily, perhaps caused by dew accumulation on the plants.  We can try adding another Ubiquiti to lconv to service this tower.
• All of the PI sensors are now mounted on the towers. One (lconv.6m) needs to be reoriented and another (uconv.3m) needs to be secured.
• The aux towers are now all up, with DSMs hung on them, but have not been instrumented,  The cabling from them also needs to be dressed.  This is our task for tomorrow
• None of the surface-level radiometers or soil sensors have been installed.  This is another task for as soon as possible.
• ustar is receiving data from all sites through the network, displaying cockpit, and computing statistics that are sent to Boulder.  It is installed in an (unairconditioned) ISS trailer on site, so we are using a second system in the base trailer, just connected to the network through a cell modem.  We haven't yet spent much time with this system.
• After that come some lower priority tasks:
  • Get R webplots running in Boulder.  Due to the network status here, we don't think it will be useful to run a "shadow" set of web plots created on site.
  • Change nidas configuration to put lconv soybean radiometer/soils into .a2
  • Change nidas configuration to grab power monitor values.  Attach USB cables to some power monitors (several are missing them).
    
    

Now that I've left I should probably post what I did the last couple days and what still needs to be done.

Yesterday Kurt and Ned powered up the tall towers and we worked on making sure DSMs are staged approximately where the aux towers will be put up, and that sensor cables are all in the correct ports. The idea was to have everything on, collecting data, and on the network, even if the aux towers aren't up yet. Some other site-specific things I noted while doing this:

Lconv

• Ned decided to switch which aux tower is on which side of the gully from what the diagrams show, so the extra tower can be in soybeans instead of corn.
• lconv2 dsm was not reachable despite being powered on and connected over ethernet to the network. Gary says he replaced a fuse there today, but it looks like it is still not reachable now.

Uconv

• I took the long ethernet cables from the station box to use for lconv, so we will need to bring some from the box of networking spares in the base trailer to finish setting up networking.

Rel

• I had to extend some sensor cables to reach the dsms approximately where the aux towers will be. I didn't have the labeling tape so some of the extended cables aren't labeled, but they are all in the correct ports.
• I mounted the spare nano in place of the nano that had been packed in the station box, since that one didn't have any mounting hardware. It's mounted and plugged in but I didn't note the serial number. I also didn't have any plastic tubing with me so the nano still needs to be connected to the quad port.
• Rel2 was missing one of the screws that holds the metal shelf with the pi mounted on it inside the dsm, I replaced it.

The ubiquiti network is up, with the omnidirectional antenna on the release tower. Out of the sites in the field, only P1 and P4 don't have line of sight to the release tower. The link to p4 works fine when the antenna at p4 is pointed through the trees to where the rel tower is, and I expect this will also be the case at p1. If it isn't, we have spare ubiquitis in the base trailer and could establish a relay on lconv, since I think p1 has line of sight to that at least. The link to the base trailers does not work, I'm assuming because line-of-sight goes directly through a barn. There's a faint possibility that setting up a relay to somewhere else at the homestead site (e.g. the tree between Ken's house and the road) could fix this, but I don't think that would be worth the hassle.

Weather: Scattered cumulus and comfortable temperatures

Tasking for 09/12: 

• Instrumented Initiation Tower
• Powered Initiation Tower
• Powered Release Tower
• Installed P1 save for power

Tomorrow we will continue with the punchlist items on the pressure, 10m & 20m towers.

Weather: Cumulus and comfortable temperatures for the past couple of days. The swale continues to dry out and firm up.

Tasking for 09/10 & 09/11:

• (09/10)- Installed P2, P3 & P4 sites
• (09/10)- Determined location for Aux Towers and solar panels
• (09/10)- Staged power infrastructure at prospective final locations
• (09/11)- Instrumented Release Tower
• (09/11)- Continued to clean out Penske for return on Friday

Tomorrow we plan on instrumenting the Initiation Tower and begin powering the 10m & 20m towers.

Weather: The rest of Gordon passed us early this morning leaving us with some cool and dry conditions. Stratocumulus throughout the day.

Tasking for 09/09:

• Installed P6
• Installed P5

We are now playing a waiting game for the swale to dry out. Hopefully we will be able to drive a vehicle in on Tuesday to resume the outfitting of the 10m & 20m towers. Until then, we will focus on pressure and aux towers.

Weather: Heavy rain throughout the day

Tasking for 09/07:

• Rented storage unit and filling with excess infrastructure and empty instrument cases
• Setup base trailer (leveled, set up porch, terminated power)

With well over an inch of rain already and more on its way, we will not be able to drive into the swale for a couple of days. Tomorrow may be a down day due to weather.

Weather: Low stratus early, transitioning to altostratus, nimbostratus and cumulus throughout the afternoon

Tasking for 09/06:

• Re-tensioned and plumbed both 20m towers
• Outfitted Lower Convergence Tower with all ISFS sensors 5m and above
• Removed all vehicles from swale (save for the ATV)

Tomorrow's forecast calls for thunderstorms and more than an inch of rain as the remnants of Gordon move through the area. We plan to avoid driving through the swale to minimize damage to the inevitable soft ground.

Weather: Hot and humid, scattered cumulus and cumulonimbus throughout both days

Issues:

• Began final plumbing of Lower Convergence Tower yesterday. Discovered slight rocking in concrete blocks upon full tension which made it impossible to properly plumb tower.

Tasking for 09/04 & 09/05:

• (09/04)- Blocks were not fully buried when rocking issue was discovered. Reduced tension on all guy wires for 20m towers to allow blocks to resettle
• (09/04)- Buried blocks with packed dirt
• (09/05)- Added a screw anchor and ratchet strap to the back side of the block to act as a safety if tamped dirt is insufficient
• (09/05)- Instrumented Upper Convergence Tower
  
  

Weather: Hot and humid, scattered cumulus and cirrus throughout the day

Tasking:

• Built 10m Initiation Tower
• Sourced missing hardware for outfitting towers

Issues:

• Concerns about people driving under guy wires and accidentally clipping one. Current solution is flagging and using vehicles to block route but more permanent solution may be necessary

Weather: Last two days have been hot and humid with stratocirrus early followed by scattered cumulus midday through the evening.

Over the past couple of days:

• Built the 20m Lower Convergence Tower. Preliminary plumb and tensions complete but will be repeated in the near future due to tower settling
• Built the 20m Release Tower. Preliminary plumb and tensions complete but will be repeated in the near future due to tower settling

Issues: There is no apparent line of sight to the base trailer or Scattered Acres. We may need to rework method of communication with ISP if Ubiquiti link is not viable.

Lucas left this morning, big thanks to his help and insight!

Weather: Overcast morning with scattered cumulonimbus throughout the afternoon. No precipitation today but plenty of sunshine.

Over the past couple of days:

• Built 10m Upper Convergence Tower utilizing double screw anchors at each guy point
• Acquired remaining three 1 ton concrete blocks to use as guy anchor points(bringing the total to 6)
• Dug recessions at final positions to reduce cross section of blocks visible to instrumentation
• Rigged blocks with wire rope eye & eye slings to use as rated mount point for 20m tower guy wires
• Installed first section of both 20m towers and the six rigged blocks in their final positions

The anchor issue is now resolved, tomorrow we will resume building Lower Convergence Tower.

Originally posted by Dan, reposted as a blog.

Weather: Rain in the morning followed by a mostly cloudy afternoon. The cold front moving through has been a fantastic reprieve from the heat.

On Tuesday we installed and performed a pull test on the standard and auger screw anchors in various configurations. All failed the 20 meter tower test by pulling out of the soil under the required force threshold specified by the manufacturer. We are unable to drive the anchors deeper due to drainage tiles throughout both the fields and swale.

We settled on sourcing one ton 2'x2'x3' concrete blocks to use as anchor points for the guy wires of the 20 meter towers. Ken(the landowner) has been extremely accommodation, letting us use both his trailer and backhoe to move them. Tomorrow we plan on installing blocks at the anchor locations for both 20m towers. After this, install will proceed as planned.

Weather: Rain in the morning followed by a mostly cloudy afternoon. The cold front moving through has been a fantastic reprieve from the heat.

On Tuesday we installed and performed a pull test on the standard and auger screw anchors in various configurations. All failed the 20 meter tower test by pulling out of the soil under the required force threshold specified by the manufacturer. We are unable to drive the anchors deeper due to drainage tiles throughout both the fields and swale.

We settled on sourcing one ton 2'x2'x3' concrete blocks to use as anchor points for the guy wires of the 20 meter towers. Ken(the landowner) has been extremely accommodation, letting us use both his trailer and backhoe to move them. Tomorrow we plan on installing blocks at the anchor locations for both 20m towers. After this, install will proceed as planned.

Arrived in Champaign yesterday evening after an uneventful drive.

Weather: Hot & Humid...and HOT. Clear morning with scattered cumulus in the afternoon.

Met with the landowner to discuss power and trailer placement. ISFS Base arrived mid-morning and is parked in the north driveway. We are going to hold off on fully deploying it until its location for Ops is finalized, hopefully in the next week.Truck driver had trouble navigating to Scattered Acres Farm(landowner's home and equipment storage, as well as ISFS and ISS trailer locations). If anyone else has this problem with the given address use these coordinates:

Scattered Acres Farm: 40.226278, -88.461237

Spent the remainder of the day staging infrastructure at respective sites.

Just set the motes:

id=1 (soils+nr01); id=2 (nr01)

gpsOFF (since some had been turned on during GRAINEX)

fsOFF (since some had been turned on during GRAINEX)

sp=12 (GRAINEX had power reporting every 25s, which seems excessive – this produces every 60s)

pp=0 (had to hit the white switch twice to talk to the mote at all, but this should set this forever)

eeupdate (to save all of these settings)

I used mode IDs: