Low clouds in the morning, gradually clearing as the day went on but remained hazy. Some snow possible tonight and tomorrow.

Heard from Sebastian that the PIs are taking a down day tomorrow, no project meeting. Liz and I plan to take a semi-down day as well. Looks like there probably won't be an IOP before Sunday (don't quote me on that). Sebastian said he had taken down all the thermocouples he could reach (his rake, plus the 1m and 2m ones) at both supersites, but didn't mention anything about wanting us to take down the others.

In the morning Liz and I visited a bunch of satellite sites so she will know how to get to them:

  • SH: measured HRXL height
  • MW: got boom angle, measured HRXL height, said hi to the horses
  • UP: measured HRXL height, checked on status of power drop. Nothing has happened since our last visit.
  • PC: measured HRXL height
  • MH: measured HRXL height, got sonic serial numbers + sonic height

Went to DCS to do a soil sample in the late afternoon while the soil was warmest (ha). The good news: got the sample, which completes round 1 of soil samples. The bad news: got the rod + weight part of the soil corer stuck in the handle:

I had left the rod + weight on while using the sledge on it because I hadn't wanted to bang up the top of the pipe too much, but apparently this was worse. I think either the rod is slightly bent or the top of the pipe got beaten out of shape enough that the rod no longer comes out. Liz and I might spend more time trying to get it unstuck tomorrow.

Also while at DCS I got some boom angles, site photos, and the HRXL height.

Nothing else new to report data-wise. Netcdfs stopped generating on barolo and Steve fixed by restarting dsm_server, and MW and and UP went off the net but came back up on their own. Nidas didn't start at MW after reboot until I logged in and started it manually, see jira: https://jira.ucar.edu/browse/ISFS-533. HRXLs at SP, CC, and DCS were offline at some point. I just rebooted these dsms and they're now back (for the next however long), so they can measure the potential snowfall tonight.


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5 Comments

  1. Steve Oncley

    Easy on the sledge, Liz!

    I'm sure you've thought of tapping another rod up from the bottom to knock out the striker – we have some long punches in I believe the top drawer of the lower section of our tool chest in the base.

    Beside the drill press, there is the green "lunchbox" with the second soil kit.  Hopefully, it has the other corer in it (which actually is designed to be hit with a sledge).

  2. Elizabeth Bernhardt

    That was Isabel! I was busy dealing with bad radio sondes. We did try punching it back out through the other end and was not successful, but used a screwdriver so I was a little more careful. Using actual punches might work better!

  3. Isabel Suhr AUTHOR

    Yes, sledge mistakes are all mine.

    Liz + I got the rod + weight successfully unstuck from the handle with the punches, thanks Steve. The rod now won't fit back into the hole in the handle, which I think is because the top of the handle got pounded flat and the hole got smaller, not that there's something wrong with the rod. It seems like it would be pretty easy to either widen the hole again or unscrew the top part from the 4-way connector and replace it:

    I started trying to widen the hole with one of the punches, but didn't want to get the punch stuck so didn't really make any progress. We have the other soil corer here, so should I bring parts of this one back to Boulder with me?

  4. Steve Oncley

    Sounds like the problem is just the 1/2"NPT pipe 4-way cross piece.  (Sorry, just reread your comment that it is a part above that.).  We may have a spare in the cal lab.  I'll check next time I'm there – I can stop in tomorrow (Sat).  If you do bring something back, just grab the 4-way cross with the top piece, or just the top piece itself if you can remove it.  No need to carry extra weight.

    If you want to try enlarging the hole, there is a tool like this in the base. It used to be in the upper right drawer of the tool chest, but I may have moved it to the middle drawer below the drill press.  You could also try drilling it out using the drill press itself – we have a decent range of drill bits.

  5. Isabel Suhr AUTHOR

    Thanks Steve! Got the hole enlarged enough that it works again!