IOP setup continued. Cold with rain and gusty winds this morning, gradually clearing.
Continued set up of sounding site. Attempted to connect power to our allocated circuit breaker with a pig-tail hard wired in, however even with a UPS and power conditioner the voltage on this circuit was unstable. When we even just powered up a computer monitor, the monitor would buzz and keep resetting. Switched to an alternate outlet circuit and the power was more stable, however we can't close the power cabinet with a power cord to this circuit. Unplugged and will inspect wiring with Ed Creegan tomorrow. We also began setup of the pam tripod that will be used for the sonde reception antenna, and tested other components of the system.
Tidying up at NCAS profiler site. Did some training on how to maintain the profiler with Emily. She rearranged power and added a UPS to the trailer computer - power seems to be stable for now, although some problems are expected as it gets warmer and ACs start up. Emily is returning to the UK tomorrow - many thanks to her and Geraint for bringing the profiler to Perdigao.
IOP phase setup continued. Scattered showers in the morning, cloudy most of the day.
Completed construction of the clutter fence for the NCAS profiler at the operations center. The fence is large structure about 8m long by 3.5m high and is composed of 6 A-frames made of 8x8cm timber with 2x5cm rails to which rabbit mesh is attached. Emily reports that it is very effective and the profiler is now getting reliable from about 150m up to the 2-3 km range. Many thanks to Kurt, Steve and Brigitte for helping with the construction.
Sounding site: sounding rack, computer and other components set up inside the van, however power is not yet hooked up and outside components not started yet.
Perdigao all hands meeting held at the operations center during the afternoon.
Continued IOP phase setup for the ISS at Perdigao. A busy couple of days.
Power: There have been a number of power issues around the whole valley as all the instruments from the many groups have been installed. This has affected all four ISS sites. At the west profiler site, DLR are installing a microwave radiometer and we are installing an AC which is expected to push the limits of the current circuit there. At the sodar site, power has been off in the early morning for the past three nights in a row (typically around 4am - 7am, +/- a few hours) - it may be radiometer heaters starting up to dry off morning dew. At the NCAS profiler at the operations center, we have only one reliable circuit which has been tripping the circuit breaker in the trailer and the operations center itself is short of power. At the sounding site, there are 4 lidars instead of the expected 2 drawing more power there than expected. On Thursday morning a meeting on power was held with INEGI and extra breakers are being installed but it'll take a few days. Friday morning an extra breaker was installed at the sounding site for us, and an extra phase line will be installed at the west profiler site on Tuesday.
Sounding site: Unfortunately the office trailer for this site this is delayed until Tuesday. In the meantime we hunted around for a van, and eventually rented one at Avis and have positioned that at the site. We plan to begin installation of the sounding equipment Saturday. A sounding operator schedule is being worked on, thanks to Alison for creating the spreadsheet.
NCAS profiler: There have been AC problems leading to overheating of the equipment enclosure and it was discovered that the two ACs had lost most of their coolant. Fortunately INEGI was able to find a local AC company who were able to repair the specialist AC units on the system Friday. Thanks very much to Geraint who left Friday afternoon, Emily continues until Monday. A clutter fence is being constructed - many thanks to Kurt, Steve Semmer and Brigitte for working on this.
The setup for the IOP phase continued. The NCAS folks spent most of the day testing and diagnosing the profiler with the assistance of the manufacturer (Degreane in France) via phone. All electronics signals up until the final transmitter amplifier seemed to be fine, but the amp wasn't transmitting. There is also some problem with an air conditioner on the profiler. Finally this evening the profiler started working again, although since the evening was cool, it is not yet clear if there's a temperature control problem.
Helium was delivered to the sounding site this afternoon. There was a long delay due to lengthy discussions with the driver about whether his oversized truck could get to the site and other access and logistical matters. In spite of Air Liquide assurances, the Helium fittings are not compatible with our fittings however IPMA has offered to lend us their regulators on Friday. Unfortunately the office trailer for the sounding site did not arrive and is now rescheduled for next Tuesday. We have arranged for a rental van to use as a sounding base in the meantime and we should be able to pick that up on Friday. There is also uncertainty about power at the site, since 4 lidars (NCAR water vapor DIAL, two Cornell wind lidars and a U. Notre Dame lidar) have been placed at the site (instead of the the two expected) so the power draw is close to the limits of the switch board there.
Setup for the IOP phase continues. Today Emily and Geraint got the NCAS profiler working around midday - however after about an hour operation a fault developed which is being diagnosed with the assistance of the manufacturer. It may be a temperature related issue since there may be a problem with AC on the system. The hour of measurements did reveal significant ground clutter, despite being surrounded by an embankment on two sides (east and north) and the Operations Centre building to the west. The south side is open to hills 1 - 2 km away and we appear to be getting significant clutter from those. We plan to build a clutter fence on this side over the weekend.
Tomorrow an office trailer is due to arrive at the sounding site, along with Helium.
The setup of the IOP Phase of the field campaign is underway with the arrival of Lou and Bill. Two additional sites will be setup, the NCAS Wind Profiler site and the sounding site.
NCAS 1290 Wind Profiler setup:
The NCAS wind profiler will be set up at the Operations Center in Alvaiade. The preferred sites to the northeast near the villages of Tojeirinha and Rodeios didn't work out for a variety of reasons related to availability, access and power. Emily Norton and Geraint Vaughan from NCAS arrived and after surveying alternatives with their help it was determined that the Operations Center was the only viable site available. We maneuvered the trailer into position and Emily and Geraint have begun to prepare the system. Power will be drawn from the Operations Center, although care will need to be taken not to overload circuits. A network cable will also be run to the system with computers being setup in an office trailer in the parking lot.
Sounding Site setup:
The office trailer for the sounding site is delayed and is expected to arrive Wednesday.
José Carlos told me yesterday morning that there would be a power outage at the profiler site to prepare for the arrival of the other instruments. He said it would happen Monday and take several minutes at the most. However, at the moment the profiler site gateway is not pinging, so maybe it's happening this morning, or maybe this is a different problem.
He has also heard from the caretakers of the cell tower that they have shut power down before, before realizing that they were cutting off all of our power too. However, since the site seemed to recover from that outage (I don't even know when it happened), I wasn't planning on any special preparation for this planned outage.
I visited the ISS site yesterday and today to work on the ubiquiti link. The inside of the shed was very warm, the fan on the data manager sounded like it was working hard, but everything was working.
Jose Carlos told me earlier yesterday, before my first visit, that he had stopped by the site in the morning to check on it, and when he noticed that the radar wasn't running he started it up with the POP desktop icon. So some time before that it stopped, but I don't think it could have been very long since I had not seen any alerts about it.
Internet access from the site now uses the ubiquiti network, the cellular wifi has been turned off. Details in this issue: https://jira.eol.ucar.edu/browse/ISS-559.
I don't any issues with anything else. Shed looks good, RASS still loud, shed fan is working, exterior cables look undisturbed. Guy lines, rass surrounds, rass speaker covers secure.
We just have one profiler PC with a tendency to restart itself.