CuPIDO: Site 5 Messages, 47 Entries..

TRIME measurements: 14:05
11.0%
11.3%
11.3%


Soil sample: core sample was sealed and brought back to base, no tupperware
 
0-3 cm net wet weight in Al foil tray =              110.3 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =              103.8 g

3-6 cm net wet weight in A2 foil tray =              126.7 g
       net dry weight in A2 foil tray =              118.7 g

6-8 cm net wet weight in A3 foil tray =              82.6 g
       net dry weight in A3 foil tray =              77.8 g

During the site visit to 5 a test of the XBee radios with the new firmware
was conducted. They were on the air for about 30 minutes. A separate data
file was created for the test. There were no missing characters in the
data stream during the test period. We may install the Xbee on Saturday
to do a 24 hour test.

.

A.J.I. and Steve S. arrived ~11:40 and left at 12:30

Activities:
- were limited because of lightning
- Took TRIME measurements and gravimetric samples

A.J.I. and Steve S. at around 13:00, but were unable to do much because of 
lightning.

Actvities:
- Replaced desiccant in the Rnet
- Swapped usb to look for lost data on Ausgust 12th, 2006.

1525 MST, 8/12

Trime: 11.3, 11.3, 11.2

Took soil sample, tub#1 0-3 cm, tub#1 3-6 cm,
and rubbermaid tub labeled "stn1" was used for 6-8cm.


0-3 cm net weight in tupperware = 141.0 g - 46.2 g = 94.8 g <- use to process
       net weight in Al foil tray =                  94.8 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =              91.9 g

3-6 cm net weight in tupperware = 151.3 g - 46.5 g = 104.8 g <-
       net weight in Al foil tray =                  104.8 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =               98.4 g
*** spilled a bit of this sample in the field -- don't use for bulk density ***

6-8 cm net weight in tupperware = 124.1 g - 43.1 g = 81.0 g
       net weight in Al foil tray =                  81.0 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =              75.6 g

TRIME measurements done at 3:20 with following readings:
1st: 11.3%, TDR=53
2nd: 11.3%, TDR=49 (ten minutes later)
3rd: 11.2%, TDR=50
4th: 11.2%, TDR=50

Gravimetric samples taken at 3:25 (Note: 3-6 not good for bulk density)

Cleaned Kh20 at 3:07, voltage went .15 to .23

1 Test tip on rain gauge done at 3:02.

Cleaned radiometers at 2:50.

A.J.I. and Steve O. arrived at 2:50, and left at 3:30

Actvities:
- Cleaned radiometers at 2:50
- 1 test tip of rain gauge at 3:02
- Steve O. on tower from 3:02-3:13
- Cleaned Kh2o at 3:07, voltage went from .15 to .23
- TRIME measurements are as follows taken at 3:20:
1st: 11.3%, TDR=53
2nd: 11.3%, TDR=49 (ten minutes later)
3rd: 11.2%, TDR=50
4th: 11.2%, TDR=50
- Gravimetric samples taken at 3:25 (Note: sample 3-6 not good for bulk density.

I did a solo visit to 5 from about 0840-0940 this morning to fix the TRH.
It ended up being just a blown fuse on /ttyS2, though I found blown fuses also
on (unconnected) /ttyS9 and /ttyS10 (which I was using to test).  I replaced
all 3 of these fuses.  Since the fuse for /ttyS2 is close to the internal
ethernet connector (which is grounded), I had to shut down power while doing
this.

I went ahead and swapped the TRH (704, I think), with the spare (007), since
704 had one outage earlier in the program and may have a bad fan which caused
the fuse to blow in the first place.  We'll check it in the base now that we're
back.

Also, I swapped the 4W solar panel on the rad stand with a 10W, so our logger
power should start getting better.

While at the site 5 from 1005-1043 this morning, I apparently introduced some 
false rain tips while servicing the CR10x power.  These should be removed --
it was nice and sunny (though I recall one cloud) while we were there.

Note that there was water on the fence charger lid, confirming the rain last
night.

Just visited site 5 from 10:08-10:43 to diagnose rad stand power.
Found that this is using a small solar panel on the rad stand, but didn't
have the spare with us, so left it unchanged.  (Should swap panels on next
visit.)

We HAD just purchased a new sealed battery (at the local BatteriesPlus).  Since
it was charged, the voltage went up significantly (old ~11.3, new ~12.8V).
It also seems to be being charged.  Thus we made no other changes.

Our fallback option was to cable this stand with copper, since we now have
spare data cables (that probably would reach) and the change would only
require flipping one switch in the logger box.

We'll keep an eye on this.

P.S. while there, also labeled the Pocketec drive so it will work automagically
with Gordon's code to download.

~0905 - 1 real tip dumping old water when Gordon opened gauge
0911 - 5 test rain gauge tips.

krypton kleaned by Gordon climbing at 09:21.  Voltage 0.07 -> 0.12 V.

rads cleaned ~09:21 today.  all okay.

Visit to 5, ~08:50-09:40 MST, 4 Aug.

Purpose: [first visit in a while, due to road closure] to download data

Actions:
- exchanged pocketec drives with spare I brought from Boulder
- upgrade software
- test rain gauge
- check electric fence (okay)
- clean radiometers
- klean krypton [0.7 -> 1.2V]
- soil samples
- take photos

Notes:
- box 6
- GOES 120

09:30 MST, 8/4

Trime:
moisure  17.6  18.4  17.7
TDR      36    38    35

Took soil sample, tub#1 0-3 cm, tub#1 3-6 cm,
and rubbermaid tub labeled "stn2" was used for 6-8cm.
[NOTE CHANGE FROM PREVIOUS -- the corer doesn't sample to 9cm 
-- just 8cm]

Steve got 2 red ant bites :(

0-3 cm net weight in tupperware = 157.0 g - 46.4 g = 110.6 g
       net weight in Al foil tray =                  110.6 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =               97.0 g

3-6 cm net weight in tupperware = 173.5 g - 46.7 g = 126.8 g
       net weight in Al foil tray =                  126.8 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =              113.4 g

6-8 cm net weight in tupperware = 135.9 g - 43.2 g = 92.7 g
       net weight in Al foil tray =                  92.8 g
       net dry weight in Al foil tray =              84.2 g

The Sheriff's department was practicing helicopter rescue operations within
a few hundred feet of station 5 from ~9:30 - 11:30 am this morning.

Returned to station 5 this morning to remove the Pocketec from its case for
better cooling.

gordon replaced the 4 GB USB memory stick at station 4 with the 60 Gb Pocketec
hard disk to increase the service interval at this station.

Station 5 – soil sampling 

Soil samples were taken between 1215-1235

TRIME: Mean value 9.3% with 0.2% variation among two readings of two samples.

Gravitmetric samples (uniform soil with few small rocks – required sledge 
but was otherwise well sampled due to the previous day’s rain).

 This sample sat overnight (condensation of soil moisture into the container is a considerable factor) and was discarded on 21 July.

Station 5 – Krypton cleaned

The krypton hygrometer was cleaned at 1245 with little change noted in the response.

Station 5 – Radiation sensors cleaned

The 4-component and net radiation sensors were cleaned between 1210-1215 using 
distilled water and kim wipes. Some dirt had splattered up and accumulated 
at the apex of the domes during the previous day’s rains.

----

Station 5 – Station web plots down

Station 5 was visited and it was found that the GOES system had become 
non-functional. It had gone down during the previous day’s monsoon storms 
and not been able to re-synch with the data system, which had continued running
(no notable data losses were found). Water was noted in the bottom of the GOES 
container (cooler). The system was restarted successfully with a reboot.

~1200 the data drive was also exchanged station 5. Next exchange prior to 
July 30. 

Total sample weight in tupperware container:

Total			Container	Net weight

0-3 cm	177.9 gm	46.1 gm		131.8 gm	
3-6 cm	154.9 gm	46.0 gm		108.9 gm
6-9 cm	117.9 gm	44.3 gm		 73.6 gm

Total sample weight in foil tray

0-3 cm	139.7 gm	8.0 gm		131.7 gm
3-6 cm	117.1 gm	8.0 gm		109.1 gm
6-9 cm	 81.7 gm	8.0 gm		 73.7 gm

Total dry sample weight in foil tray

0-3 cm	134.0 gm	8.0 gm		126.0 gm
3-6 cm	110.2 gm	8.0 gm		102.2 gm
6-9 cm	 77.4 gm	8.0 gm		 69.4 gm

John, Greg, and I visited station 5 yesterday, July 20, around noon.
John restarted station to revive GOES transmission.
John (or Greg) swapped USB drives
John cleaned KH2O windows
Greg made Trime measurements, took soil samples, and cleaned radiometers.

Note that Greg promised to send a more detailed description of this station 
visit.

Gordon and I noted this morning, July 21, that the TRH was pegged full scale
for both temperature and humidity.  We visited station, arriving around
12:15 local time.  Recycled power on the TRH, which commenced to output
acceptable data. [This serial number is 704, which was one of the 3 that
had the same problem in TREX.]

After visiting station 5 yesterday, we went to station 4 and spent considerable time repairing cow vandalism of the site.  As a consequence, the soil samples
from station 5 aged an unacceptable time, so Gordon and I redid the soil
moisture measurements today.

At 13:00 local time, the Trime measured 8.9% soil moisture (TDR 46.0,
Probe P3, number 1)
Took soil samples at 13:10 local time.

16Jul06 9:05-9:40 
PVC elbows for cable feedthroughs were installed to help vent heat from
the GOES cooler.  Box was raised a bit off the ground

16Jul06 9:05-9:40

A tub of soil from station 5 was gathered. It was placed (along with the other tubs) under the counter against the wall in the back room of the trailer - the wall bordering the front room).

13Jul06 15:15-17:30

DAQ was running upon arrival.   A couple days ago it's plots were intermittent.

Decided to reinstall new software (uncertain which version it had)

NOTE: during this process got a MEMORY ERROR during install....!
"Eep Block 0x002a0000 taken from Free_List Bad Free_Size of 0x00000064!!"

NOTE: data stick was 91% full in 10days.

Stn 5 soil samples were taken at 1730 13 July (grav) and 1630 (TRIME). The 
soil is very hard and requires leaving the cap loose because a hammer or small
sledge is required to insert the soil tool. A sealable plastic bag was used 
to hold the soil samples.

TRIME results (John):
9.4% Volume  TDR level 51.0
Note I did have to hammer in the fake-rods prior to inserting the actual
probes.  This left me a bit concerned about how well they were coupled to
the ground.  This ground is very hard and somewhat brittle.   I tried to
'pack' the stuff a little bit before taking the readings all of which 
produced the same reading above

Gravimetric results (g):
Layer    Sample   Weight
         Bag wt   in bag
0-3cm    4.0      130.3
3-6cm    5.1      122.1
6-8cm    4.4       77.7

To the oven
All tin weights were 1.5g and are included in the weights
0-3cm by tin (D1-D3)

   Before  After
   Cookng  Cooking  Difference
D1  33.9    33.5      -.4
D2  36.7    36.2      -.5
D3  36.0    35.6      -.4

3-6cm by tin (E1-E3)
E1  36.9    35.4      -1.5
E2  33.6    32.1      -1.5
E3  36.7    35.2      -1.5

6-8cm by tin (B1 and B2)
B1  38.9    36.9      -2.
B2  35.6    33.8      -1.8

13Jul06 15:15-17:30


The sonic anemometer electronics box was moved from resting on top of the
cross-arm and mounted on a face plate positioned under the krypton electronics
box.   This will allow the crossarm to be raised as it was designed, however
i did clean the krypton using the wand instead of raising it (a shorter
 person won't be able to 'wand-it' very easily though)

13Jul06 15:15-17:30

~17:00 The krypton hygrometer was cleaned.
	Voltage rose by 150mV which is about the same as it had deteriorated
	since the last cleaning cycle on the 2nd.

13Jul06 15:15-17:30

15:27	Cleaned Radiometers.  All appeared good prior to cleaning.

During a brief set of data analysis we noted the existance of Nans in the LiCor raw data at regular intervals. This will be investigated further soon.

4Jul06 10:00

Installed new code per my edit of Gordon's edit.  He crafted edit to improve situation when a 'slow' sensor's late message causes no goes output.  I changed the size limit on the data message to allow up to a full message (ie from st5 including licor) to get sent without dropping the packet.

At Site 5 the solar panels are in shade in the morning (~730am - 10 am) in their west-of-tower location. This appears to be responsible for the steadily lowering battery voltage with time (in addition to operating the LiCor there). This is particularly difficult because in the afternoon solar radiation is often obscured by monsoon rain and cloud. We will move the system to the northeast of the tower tomorrow or the following day.

3Jul06 14:50 - 15:50

Purpose: station was 'down'

Put a new TP01 connector in the logger: should be working now.

3Jul06 14:50 - 15:50

Purpose: station was 'down'

In reality the station was still recording data but the goes transmitter was note getting data from the Viper.
The problem was the new xml file.   It had '244' characters to be sent and the viper code disallowed it via an exception condition:
"statsproc: SampleOutputBase: /dev/ttyS3 IOExeception /dev/ttyS3: send message too long 244 bytes"

Replaced the cupido.xml with the old version that doesn't send the Licor data and everything is working.

The LiCor at Station 5 was found to be offline when the system was restarted during the 3 July station visit. data_stats showed no ttyS7, rserial confirmed no ooutput.

With that a power cycle was initiated to no avail.

Voltage at one end of the port 7 fuse was found to be near nil (blown fuse) and the LiCor began recording when a 3A new fuse was installed that was large enough to handle the startup current.

We believe that no CO2 data has been collected until this visit ~ 11am 3 July.

New GOES software was installed using the 'install' script. This installation failed to bring up the GOES transmission (data was being collected however, see next entry regarding LiCor). We will try again this afternoon because the USB software stick used in the failed attempt had some bad memory and needs to be reformatted.

Weep holes were drilled (two corners in bottom plate) in the electronics box as part of that ongoing effort.

Using Datascope, compass and GPS the orientation of the wind sensors was:
Sonic: 181 degrees
RM Young: 183 degrees (this value was entered into the calibration at 1045am) 2 July.

During a site visit on July 1 a helicopter landed adjacent to Site 5. It turns out that unbeknownst to us or the folks leasing the site or our landlords Site 5 is also regularly used for helicopter training by the local Dept of Safety and also Search and Rescue. They have spread the word amongst their teams that we are there and will endeavor to avoid landing within 100 yards of the site. The frequency of these helicopter landings seems to be 1-2 times per week (summer is their training period). 

Thus we should watch for unusual turbulence events (can they be distinguished from virga/microburst activity and other intermittent turbulence?) and also the potential for accumulation on the optical sensors from rotor downwash driven dust.

2Jul06, 9:30-10:30 MST

TP01 glitch problem appears to be a broken ground pin between the 10v regulator and the amp connecotr.

THIS IS EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM AS WHAT CAUSED SO MUCH GRIEF AT 'WEST' IN TREX....IMPROVE/FIX ALL OF THEM FOR NEXT TIME!

2Jul06, 9:30-10:30 MST

Distilled water used to clean krypton.
Opened csat elec box to check voltages: .08 before, .25 after (but may have still been wet).

Note: decided against pivoting the xarm up because of 2 things: electronics box is mounted on top of the xarm right next to the tower and the cables to the rmy, irt are too tight.

Used 'stick-with-wick' method on the rohn tower.

2Jul06, 9:30-10:30 MST

Swapped and uploaded data:
out Cruzer 4g-4, in MiniCruzer

New Software installed per edit / build this morning after talking with Gordon.
This attempt was to overcome possible goes/station lock by late statistics processing.

Oops!  This install was later determined to be the wrong code which caused the station to go down....remains to be seen if data loss....