Some progress being made...
Our tensiometers were held up in customs. This now should be solved, but they won't arrive until Monday. In the meantime, we have learned that the document we had on tower tensions a) isn't for any of the towers being used here and b) has a specification for the maximum tension for the guy wires, but not the working tension. We will ask if there are other documents and may be able to go back to the engineering firm that prepared this document to determine a working tension. However, we now are in a situation where we do not have a set of specifications to compare any of our measured tensions to. In this case, we do not think that we will (ever) be allowed to climb these towers.
Thus, we have asked INEGI if they can supply climbers for all of the towers, hopefully starting next week. Obviously, we would provide all ground support. We will meet tomorrow to see if we can organize into 3 crews, each with one or two INEGI climbers. A secondary issue is that we would need INEGI climbers for all maintenance visits and tear-down as well.
Now for the good news: DTU has enabled AC power now for 4 of the tall masts. After some work on the network, software updates for the DSMs that we hung in December, and enabling of DTU data, we now have 10 sites reporting. There are two more 60m masts that require minor AC power fixes, but this needs to be done by the electricians.
Other items:
- All towers that have been built are now prepped
- 3 of the NCAR team, Cornell, and 1 of the DTU team have now headed home