IMPROVE-II: Logbook Entries

IMPROVE-II: DAILY Messages: 14 Entries..

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Entry Date Title Site Author #Graphics
26 Fri 21-Dec-2001Gen and sensors, last IOP tomorrowIrish BendMike
25 Wed 19-Dec-2001check, and noteIrish BendMike
24 Tue 18-Dec-2001fueled Gen and sensors seem fine. Irish BendMike
21 Sat 15-Dec-2001Profiler not transfering. Filled GenIrish BendMike
20 Thu 13-Dec-2001filled and checkedIrish BendMike
19 Mon 10-Dec-2001Yesterday and TodayIrish BendMike
18 Sat 08-Dec-2001Mouse- Gun shots - datasends - RASSIrish BendMike
14 Fri 07-Dec-2001gen et alIrish BendMike
13 Thu 06-Dec-2001RASSIrish BendLou
12 Tue 04-Dec-2001Important Phone Numbers.Irish BendLou
11 Tue 04-Dec-2001sounding systemIrish BendLou
7 Tue 20-Nov-2001Finished setup and shutdownIrish BendBill
4 Mon 19-Nov-2001ISS2 Setup StatusIrish BendGary
3 Fri 16-Nov-2001ISS3 Setup StatusBlack ButteGary


26: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Fri 21-Dec-2001 23:25:36 GMT, Gen and sensors, last IOP tomorrow
Filled Gen and checked oil. Seems to be leaking some coolant. Out of fuel, had just the perfect amount.	

Walked the sensors and RASS speaks. All seem fine.

Wind profiler shows the winds doing some crazy things and some wild wind shears.

RASS showing some interesting elevated inversions. 

Surface sensors looking good.

Absolutely clear skies today.

25: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Wed 19-Dec-2001 19:05:44 GMT, check, and note
There was a heck of an inversion early this morning. 

Prof looks okay, winds changed from the north at the surface and the RH went way high. Even above 100%!!! Still have a little problem with the really high RH values. All other sensors look good. I wish I was more comfortable with the Net rad output.
24: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Tue 18-Dec-2001 18:21:38 GMT, fueled Gen and sensors seem fine.
Fueled the gen at 9 am today. Also the generator was serviced today.	

Sensors okay and RASS speakers seem to be working. I have to do a site walk around. Doing the walk around every thing looks ok. I added zip ties to the turn buckles for the 10m tower. It was starting to come unscrewed. 

Big boss man came through and said it all looks good. Nice to have his company and he pointed out the gust fronts that are easy to see in the surface wind plots. Very interesting.

Weather now is heavy over cast and no rain. I'm outa here!

21: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Sat 15-Dec-2001 21:29:13 GMT, Profiler not transfering. Filled Gen
For some reason the profiler autorun did not copy the data for the last 2 days. I ran it by pushing the waterfall button and it ran fine. I changed the copy time to 1pm and rebooted the computer. Maybe windows had a glitch. 

Check Rad stand and surface met and both okay, rad stand desicant still okay. RASS speakers all still working. RASS profiles anywhere from 500m to 1km. Seeing some slight inversions.

WP data transfer at 65%. 

Filled generator. 

DATA mail messages indicate the data transfers should be fine. Profiler often seeing up to 5 km+ when fronts pass through and there is what looks to be a dry passage before the front comes through. 

Surface data looks good. Frontal passage from a few days ago had a pressure drop of almost 15mb. 

Heading to Black Butte today. IOP today and probably tomorrow.
20: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Thu 13-Dec-2001 22:52:51 GMT, filled and checked
All sensors look good. 

Generator filled at 2pm

Today is one big rain event. Winds at the surface up to 15m/s so far. Aloft the winds are up to 40 m/s. Trailer is shaking. Pressure started at 1008mb and dropped below 998mb starting this morning. It appears to be turning back up now. Having problems getting the sondes launched in Black Butte. Too much wind.

Wind profiler is at 58% disk full. Should be fine for a while. The Black Butte profiler is at 81% and will need filled soon.
19: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Mon 10-Dec-2001 22:42:24 GMT, Yesterday and Today
Yesterday I check the system and found communications hung. One of the Kermit processes froze and would not release the modem. With Gary's help the system was rebooted and that seems to have fixed the problems. All emails seem to indicate data sends are happening with out a problem.

Today so far no problems. Filled the generator, all data is transfering. 


The night was clear at about 10 pm when I went to bed, but over night it got cloudy and started to rain. The IOP was called off because it was a wimpy front, but there is a chance of another IOP tomorrow. 

Spent time this morning helping out the UW student Stan Rose and Lee, the navel observer with their GPS sonde launching. They were not getting any ground stations. It seems like their cable has a little problem. THe light on the MWG card inside the rack only flashed red. Some jiggling and the light seemed to turn green too. Ned says the number of green flashes between single red flashes indicates how my sats are tracked on the ground. Everything seemed to work fine afterwards.
18: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Sat 08-Dec-2001 17:57:07 GMT, Mouse- Gun shots - datasends - RASS
Yes, many things happening today. OPS

Weather is not raining, but increasing cloud cover. There are operations happening and soundings at the BB site. Larry is doing the early soundings and Matt is taking over for the later soundings. 

I adjusted the clutter removal, see radar entry. Operator error with RASS too.

Checked the radiation stand and sensors seem to be fine. Opened the desicant section of net rad and found it grey and needing changing. Probably the same for total and if there is some I will change it. If it wasn't changed at setup it should be changed. Need to make a note to Lou. All 3 sensors have it changed today here.

While checking out the radiation stand I noticed a mouse with it's skin and front legs chewed off. Only the head left and the lower half with skin/fur on it. A bloody mess, interesting.

Also while standing at the stand I heard a flurry of gun shots in the distance at the farm house or in the woods next to it. Something got shot a bunch of times, but I hope it isn't a problem and I'm glad they missed me!!! Maybe just warning shots for us gobment people. 

Weather is getting more increasingly cloudy. System must be moving into place. Still possible to see the sun far to the south.

14: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Fri 07-Dec-2001 01:27:50 GMT, gen et al
Filled the generator 12-6-01 @ 5pm

Checked the aspirator

radiation sensors

wp data reporting, but the NIMA computer was hung in screen
saver mode. Cycled the power. Lou says the NIMA stuff automatically
runs when the computer is booted. 

all 4 rass speakers working, surface station running.


13: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Thu 06-Dec-2001 23:57:13 GMT, RASS
Rass was off from 11:30am til 4pm because of generator servicing.Everything else seems ok.
12: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Tue 04-Dec-2001 19:52:54 GMT, Important Phone Numbers.
Land owner: Leland Kropf
            541-995-9216 or 541-409-0480

Our phone is in red barn on Steve Zehr's property to the north of the site.
             Steve Zehr
             27027 Irish Bend Loop
             541-369-3529 or 541-369-2603
  our number is 541-369-2983

Phone Company : Roome Telecommunications
                541-369-2211

Generator: United Rentals
           Robert Daiker  541-451-1713

     Service Manager   Scott:  541-465-1235
  N.B.Mike has to call and give them his phone number
      They are supposed to call 24 hr in advance of serviceing. So far they call      ed same morning.
      Generator needs to be serviced every 240 hrs.You can attemp to can around       that time and arrange to have someone come out when you can be at system.

Oil Company : Townsend Oil
               Jan Townsend 541-258-6747
              If you call for more fuel make sure you tell them it is for the 
               Halsey site and keep track of how much is delivered so PO can 
              be amended.
 
11: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Tue 04-Dec-2001 17:19:50 GMT, sounding system
Irish Bend site does not have a sounding system. Everything appears to be working fine today. I managed to break tklog and rebooted the system at approx 19:20z
Generator was filled today.

7: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Tue 20-Nov-2001 18:40:54 GMT, Finished setup and shutdown
Setup done.

PROFILER:
Not getting great RASS coverage so turned up volume slightly (~17UT)
output at amp now about 15.8VAC, slight improvement 
(now range increased about 100m to 600m).
Copied data to maprlab, then deleted on profiler pc.
TXI current   RASS 890, Winds high mode 1653, low mode off scale.
Shutdown profiler about 18:40 UT, rest of system soon after.

SURFACE:
Okay, except funnel on rain guage blew off last night, fixed.


4: DAILY, Site Irish Bend, Mon 19-Nov-2001 02:43:56 GMT, ISS2 Setup Status
ISS 2 setup at Irish Bend has been completed, for the most part.  Lou
and I head back to iss3 tomorrow to address comms problem.  Bill
remains behind to finish tuning the profiler.

Setup got started Saturday morning with a bang.  We saw the truck
drive right past us on its way to the wrong meeting place.  As we
arrived at the site, the oil delivery was waiting for us and the
generator arrived before the truck had backed the trailer in.  The
field is in good shape, not too soft.  Weather has been fine.  A
little cold, very foggy mornings, but only light precipitation.  This
afternoon was actually sunny and quite pleasant.

Profiler and RASS
-----------------

See Bill's log entry.

Surface
----------------

No problems with surface setup.  Everything appears to be operating
and ingesting correctly.  See Bill's log entry.

GLASS
----------------

No GLASS for this site.

Internet Access
----------------

The phone company (RTI) had our service scheduled for Monday, but we
agreed to pay the double time and have the line installed on Saturday.
Steve Zehr is the owner of the residence on which the phone line is
installed.  Both he and KT from the phone company have been very
cooperative.  The line was installed by Saturday afternoon.  There was
a convenient pipe along the side of the barn on which to mount the
freewave antenna, and an unused part of a wood shop in which we placed
our modems (inside a plastic tub).

After some initial problems with freewave interference from the
profiler, I finally found the 911-919 avoid hop table and set both
modems to use it.  We first tried positioning the antenna several
places, but that never seemed to make much difference.  So right now
the antenna is on its own short tower, pointing away from the
profiler, but the hop table seems to have made the most difference.
The connection seems very stable, and two data transfers so far have
succeeded.  Data transfers have been set to happen every hour.

Spiders
----------------

The grass field contains a huge population of very active, small
spiders.  Within 30 minutes of setting up equipment they had spun webs
across it.  Looking across the grass in the direction of the sun
revealed a fine floating surface of webs delicately laced across the
tips of the grass.  The webs shimmer and flow like soothing water
waves from a gentle breeze.

Visits
----------------

We've had a few visits over the weekend, including Roger, one of the
renters on the Zehr's property, the landowner Leland Kropf, and the
neighbor at the corner of Irish Bend, Jeff Kropf.


3: DAILY, Site Black Butte, Fri 16-Nov-2001 17:30:39 GMT, ISS3 Setup Status
It's raining.  Port-a-potty delivery received yesterday, will be
serviced no more frequently than weekly.  Helium received today.
Expecting radio modems from fedex today.

Site map and photographs completed by Lou and Bill.

================
Phone and internet access:

Land-line Qwest service:

Greg from Qwest visited yesterday, looked for phone drops nearby and thought
closest to be several tenths of a mile away, so he referred our service request
to an engineer.  The engineer called back yesterday and spoke with Lou.
Engineer's estimate was that project would require trenching and burying a
phone line across National Forest land costing several thousand dollars, not
to mention the project wouldn't finish before the project had ended.  It
rained yesterday too.

Satellite internet access:

Yesterday I called Paratech in Bend OR about satellite internet
access, asking for estimates on both a lease and permanent purchase of
equipment and service.  We are waiting to hear back from Nancy
(541-389-1514).  They resell Starband (www.starband.com).  A quick
check of their web site indicates about $400 for equipment, $200
installation, and $80 a month for service, but a one year contract is
required.  That is still within the $1500 communications budget for
this site, and it would give us high-speed, continuous internet
access, about 256k.  One possible hitch is that Starband explicitly
says it will not work with Linux, Unix, and Mac, only Windows.  There
is software (WinProxy) available for purchase to let a Windows host
act as a router/gateway for small home networks.  The ideal drop-in
replacement, though, would be something we could just attach to the
trailer network.

Another satellite service provider is DirecWay (formerly DirectPC I
think) from Hughes.  I have a request for information in to them but
do not know anythin else nor if they have any local distributors.

Freewave radio modems:

This morning I talked to the local ranger station (Sisters Ranger
District, 541-549-7700) about possible communication sites.  Five Mile
Butte is within a few miles of the site, in line of sight, and has
electrical power and three existing facilities.  I spoke with Tucker
Williamson, Resident Forester with Willamette Industries, the
landowner, and we have his permission to set something up with one of
the operators of the three facilities.  He only asks that we keep him
informed of what we do: 503-829-7550.

One of the facilities is owned by Black Butte Ranch, so
we're waiting for a call back from Dale Larson (541-595-1287) to find
out if they have phone access up there.  If that is not an option,
then maybe there is a site on Black Butte Ranch at which they could
give us power and a phone hookup and access for an outside antenna.

The other two facilities are owned by cellular phone companies, so
they could be possibilities but would be harder to work with.

Cell-phone modem:

Gordon has generously taken the lead on this so far.  He's talked with
Mary, and Mary is getting details from Verizon for us.  We'd need
another cell phone to dedicate to this site, a data kit for that
phone, and activation for the data service.  We expect we'll need to
scale back the amount of data to in light of the 9600 baud rate.


Profiler Processing
===================

I installed Cory's latest NIMA CD, Research Version 2.2.  We've run it
successfully on both the 3-beam and 5-beam modes Bill has been
experimenting with.  NIMA does not handle mode changes, so we had to learn
to use the -start option to skip past the initial fluctuations in modes
when Bill first started setting up POP.

The serial moments from POP and being ingested on the Sun and SOAP is
generating plots successfully.  The ingestor (popserial) has been
upgraded at this site; this version keeps track of the maximum number
of heights seen and fills a single file with space for maximum heights
rather than writing a new file for every height change.  This
drastically cuts down the load on zebra and SOAP caused by accessing
lots of small files containing only a few moments profiles each.


Soundings
=========

Lou is working on a sounding test flight.

A link to the raw class file directory (/data_source/class) has been
added to the data transfer "staging" directory (/data_source/send) so
that D* GLASS files will be included in the data transfer back to ATD,
if we ever get internet access.  SPOL wants the D files for input into
the particle type program.

Surface
=======

Surface sensors have all been setup and everything appears to be
operating, ingesting, and displaying correctly.