Slightly cooler today with temperatures in the mid-70s and a good southerly breeze, becoming gusty later in the afternoon.
We completed the ISS teardown, mostly just tidying up. Josh moved the ISS1 trailer closer to the main gate for easy pickup on Monday.
We spent most of the day helping the ISFS crew pack up the trailer tower, the base trailer, and their storage container. They are mostly done with just a bit of tidying up to do tomorrow.
The two storage containers, ISS1, the ISFS base trailer, and the tower trailer will all be picked up on Monday. The telehandler forklift was due to be picked up today, but apparently that has been delayed until Monday as well.
All of the ISS crew will be leaving tomorrow. Josh and Antonio will start driving MISS home, Sam will drive the GSA Pathfinder home, and Clayton, David, and I will be flying back. Ben, Dexter, and Halle left this morning, and Tony and Justin will leave on Monday after the trailers are picked up. Thanks to all for a great campaign.
David coiling cable at the ISFS trailer tower (left), and Antonio and Sam (wearing his new hat) getting a workout carrying batteries (right)
Josh moving the ISS1 trailer (left) and Bill moving the forklift (right).
Another sunny day. The high temperature was around 80 like yesterday, however with almost no wind until a very light midafternoon breeze finally appeared, it felt hotter.
We have almost finished the ISS teardown. Antonio, Josh, Sam, and I worked on the ISS teardown, and David helped out the ISFS crew. We packed the last of the equipment, disconnected power to ISS1 and MISS, pulled and loaded the power cables and stairs, and finished loading the containers. There will be just a little tidying up around the site tomorrow.
This evening we had dinner with Shane at the Mizpah for his last day in Tonopah. Thanks Shane, it's been great working with you on this campaign.
Preparing the ISS1 trailer (left) and packing the storage container (right).
A little warmer today with a high of 80 and less of a breeze, although there was a small dust devil through the site this afternoon. Sam joined the ISS team this morning (and Halle joined the ISFS crew). The 449 MHz Modular Wind profiler was the last ISS instrument still running and we shut it down this morning, and spent most of the day dismantling and packing it. The RF amplifier, antennas, RASS, and clutter fence went into the lidar seatainer, most of the other components will go into the ISS1 container tomorrow. We also did some packing and organizing of other equipment (monitors, network routers, cables etc), prepared the rack in ISS1, and some final data backups. Josh helped out the ISFS crew this afternoon.
Two trucks came today. The first truck this morning picked up the MPDs and the two Halo lidars that we had leased for the campaign, plus our CL61 ceilometer back to Boulder. Later in the day, a second truck took the Helium cylinders back to Airgas in Chico.
Sam and Josh loading the 449 MHz RF high-power amplifier into the seatainer (left). Antonio and David checking an antenna before packing (right).
ISS teardown continued, along with continued sunny weather with temps in the upper 70s and the usual southerly breeze from late morning.
Today we finished packing up the two leased Halo lidars, preparing them for pick-up by a trucker tomorrow morning. We also took down and packed our Windcube lidar, and took down the 10-meter met tower, and continued packing, tidying and backing up data. David also helped out the ISFS crew. We scrolled through some of the night shots from the web camera and saw a few strange lights, Josh thinks they might be clowns...
Alison left this morning and Halle and Sam arrived this evening.
Josh and Antonio lifting the Windcube lidar off its stand (left). Antonio, Josh, and David working on the 10-meter tower (right).
ISS teardown is underway. Antonio and Josh got preparations underway a couple of days ago by tidying up, receiving a telehandler forklift, getting a U-Haul box truck for staging, and sorting boxes etc. Teardown began in earnest yesterday with the MISS trailer, including dismantling the 915 MHz wind profiler clutter screen, cables, and monitors, uncabling the Metek lidar, and starting data backups. Today we used the telehandler to bring down the Metek lidar from the top of MISS and packed it up, teardown the 3-meter tower, packed up the sensors from that tower and the lower part of the 10-meter tower, started taking down the RASS, packing up the ceilometer, and shutting down the UVA lidar. We also helped out the ISFS team with some of their towers.
The Modular Profiler is still operating as we're running some tests. Yesterday we operated the profiler in RIM mode and today we switched to an oversampling mode. It seemed to work well in these new modes, although I'll have to take a closer look at the data when we get back to Boulder.
Antonio, David, Josh, and I are on the ISS teardown crew, working alongside Tony, Clayton, and Justin on the ISFS side, and we'll be joined by Halle and Sam on Wednesday.
We've had special guests the last couple of days. Terry Hock (ISF manager) visited yesterday and this morning, and Alison McComiskey (the new EOL Director) visited today. Both got tours of all facilities, including the last sounding of the campaign this morning. Both also pitched in with the teardown. It was great to have them visit and help out with the teardown.
Terry and Alison getting a tour of the balloon enclosure from Josh (left), and Alison launching the final sounding (right).
Tony, Clayton, and Alison dismantling an ISFS tower (left). Antonio, David, and Josh offloading the Metek lidar from MISS (right).
Josh coming today. Happy Happy XD
Morning sounding gave problem. Sounding computer was periodically losing connection to the sounding sub system preventing us from initiating a sounding. So we restarted the system and that seemed to work. We confirmed that the sounding computer was receiving the data form the ground check. But we are hoping that we don't need to perform any further configuration to make sure that the data is coming in. We did the launch and well ask josh about the sub system configuration when he arrives.
Then the halo lidar computers restarted. We got them back up and put the lidar remote sessions back online. We think that all that is set up properly now.
We started spraying the ISS field site with aromatics to drive black widows away. As an added bonus, the aromatics give the field site a fresh scent. The wind ahs shifted today, driving the aromas of the Tonopah sewage treatment plant towards the site.
Another quiet day in paradise. The spirit of Lindsey Buckingham echoes the site as the RASS sings his paltry tune.
449 HPA current: 2.81 A
with RASS: 4.77 A
915 HPA current: 2.44 A
Morning Launch went great. Bruce helped. Then we moved all his things inside the west container to await pickup next week.
very quiet day. Nothing Broken. nothing to fix. The Halo Lidar monitor freezes form time to time, tricking us into thinking that were missing screen captures, but the screen captures continue to take, even if the monitor freezes.
Afternoon launch was the highlight of the day for ISS (ISFS was eventful) because we tapped another helium canister part way through the balloon. The regulator says that we reached 22 L of helium, the balloon looked a little small. But we trusted the regulator and launched as normal. HOW EXCITING!!!
Rick holds down the fort in the morning -- Antonio, Chenning, and Jielun make science outreach presentations to three classrooms at the Tonopah middle school.
Rick and Bruce (lastname?) handle the morning sounding:
ISS 1&2 plots updating. ISS 1&2 Nagios looks good, with exception of the backup task that has been flagging for a number of days now. The new disk Gary sent out had been attached several days ago and a manual backup successfully performed. I need to talk with Gary more about how to clear this alert. Walked the ISS line outside and visually inspected everything – nothing out of the ordinary.
Antonio, Chenning, Jielun arrive at the site around noon. By all accounts, their presentations were well received and successful.
A Nagios alert on ISS1 appears later in the afternoon: Rick was poking around the data looking for the soundings datasets, and must have provoked the alert on an old SWEX file in /data/iss/m2hats...../soudings/rawdata/.../messages. Not sure what the alert is about. Will monitor to see whether it clears.
Antonio and Rick on the afternoon sounding. Antonio squashes viscous rumors that were spread at dinner last night about a shortage of balloons, by identifying several boxes of balloons in the container.
Overall, pretty quiet day in paradise.
Another day in paradise. Calm and clear, not a cloud in sight. All the flies in the trailer died.
449 HPA Current: No RASS 2.91 A
449 HPA Current: With RASS 4.97 A
915 HPA Current: 2.45 A
Plots all seem to be updating properly. Nothing interesting going on today. went to town for lunch. Chester Chicken: mediocre.
Nothing broken to fix.
Afternoon launch went smoothly.
Chris gone 
Rick introduced to Jim Croce... perhaps his new favorite musician?
Morning balloon launch. No problems.
Rick's back-up of ISS1 data is taking forever. The drive disconnected itself overnight. Rick started the process via remote access from his mac. In his won words: "that was a mistake..." Left mac to finish the process overnight but we think it disconnected due to inactivity. Restarting process on locally on ISS1.
449 HPA Current - No RASS : 2.85A
449 HPA Current - With RASS: 4.77A
MISS HPA Current: 2.45A
All ISS plots look good. Updating and seem to make sense. This morning Stephan said he wasn't able to make backups off his HALO LIDAR. Rick and I found that the USB cable had come unplugged. Plugging it back in solved the problem and we were able to mount the hard drive.
The flies are multiplying... an infestation. We must conquer them... become lords... of the flies...
Afternoon launch went smoothly.
Retrieved hard drive from the LIDAR on top of MISS and mounted it to Stephan's LIDAR. Trying to copy data, not going well. We think its working now.
Staff: Rick, Chris, Antonio
Antonio arrived yesterday afternoon. Successfully drank beer with Chris, Rick, and Chenning. Discussed MO and MMO.
Morning sounding: Opened new box of sondes. Antonio learned launch procedures with Chris and Rick. Students launched balloon by hand.
449 HPA Current: No-RASS: 2.87A,
449 HPA Current: With RASS: 4.80A
MISS HPA Current: 2.44A
Plots look good. All things updating properly. Antonio and Rick did a walk-about around the site. Cleaned optics on Stephan's Halo Lidar. All things look in order. We saw a particularly spunky horny toad lizard but failed to get a photo.
Antonio toured the ISFS tower array with Rick and Chris and understands his duties and the consequences of failure.
Troubleshooted 2m hotfilm on ISFS t0. Initially, the hotfilm measured 7 V. Measuring the resistance of the hotfilm shows 6 ohms. Switching the bridge shows no change in behavior. Measuring the resistance on the bridge end of the BNC showed 0.6 ohms: Short somewhere. Found that reseating the BNC-(small-coax) adapter solved the problem. Maybe some rain water got into the connection and caused a short. Hotfilm is behaving properly now.
There appears to a bat using the east facing DSM on the ISFS t0. We discovered a large amount of guano in the box as well as the remains of devoured insects. Be aware when opening DSMs.
Brushed off solar panels.
Manually started backup of ISS1 DM. Drive wouldn't auto-mount, so Rick manually mounted it to /media. Difficult.
Can anyone identify these animal prints?
Antonio takes in the sights and aromas of Tonopah by the reflection pool
Staff: Chris. Rick took the day off. Chenning, Stephan and Purdue students on site.
Stephan De Wekker noticed that there had been no hourly wind profiles on the Lidar 
since the 5th; he restarted that process.
Purdue students conduct the 15:00PDT sounding:
FYI: The site is effectively 10 miles door-door from the hotel. The site is set back almost 2 miles from the highway. There's a 200m difference in elevation.
Staff: Chris and Rick. Chenning on site all day. Stephan, Nathan and Purdue students on site much of the day.
Morning was sunny and very calm. Partly cloudy and increased South wind by the afternoon.
The Purdue students were on hand for the morning sounding. We passed around a sonde for them to check out. Got two students to perform the actual launch (one held/released the balloon, the other held the sonde):
Made sure ISS1 and ISS2 plots were operational. Checked Nagios reports. Bill had me restart the remote desktop session to the Metek Lidar (the screen captures had stopped updating). Visually inspected the equipment outside.
Chris and I had a discussion with Chenning about the potential effects of the Purdue activities on the measurements of winds at the array. He was particularly interested in seeing 5min average plots of the W-component of the winds. Chris pointed him to how that can be done with NCharts. Chenning showed a different plot schema that he thought might be more useful. It was a relatively quiet day, so I spent some idle time trying to create similar plots using NCL; I have some plots to share with him in the morning.
Chris and Rick sat in on Allison's all hands meeting.
Involved the students again in the afternoon sounding:
Spot checks on the 449 power supply: low 2.85A high 2.94A
Staff: Chris and Rick. Chenning on site all day. Stephan de Wekker arrives with 14 others from Purdue to conduct drone operations.
ISS trailer A/C seems to be stable now. Trailer was 71F on arrival this morning and remained that way all day. The "check filter" alert is still on, however.
Chris and Rick on the 10:00PDT sounding. Calm and sunny:
After the sounding, Chris and I headed out to the trailer tower to check on the 28m TRH sensor. Ultimately we decided to drop the tower. Chris provided me a good refresher on how to safely lower a tower. He also showed me how to replace the sensor in the TRH, and discussed failure modes of the sensor and how to troubleshoot them. With the 28m TRH back online, we raised the tower and called it success.
On the way back, we stopped to talk with the drone crew. In this photo, they are hovering drones just behind and between the eastern-most towers, and at the same height as the sensors, measuring wind speeds. It was a somewhat odd sight (and sound!).
I used the opportunity to clean several of the solar panels (they have a dust coating from yesterday's light rain). Chris (and likely Rick) plan to go out tomorrow and clean the rest. I had helped Chenning clean panels at his site yesterday. Under cloudy conditions, he measured before and after, and determined that it makes about a 10% difference in output.
Chris and I then tended to the task of rebooting the ISS1 data manager. The UI was extremely sluggish, and it took nearly 1/2 hour to wrestle control back from it in order to power down. We disconnected the problematic USB drive. On reboot, all seems fine.
Chris and Rick on the 15:00PDT sounding. Breezy south wind and clear overhead.
Random checks on 449 power supply: low 2.86A high 2.92. Spot check mid-day on the 915: 2.44A.
Staff: Rick; Chris has the day off. Chenning on site all day. Busy day.
Chris noticed yesterday evening that the trailer tower batteries were low and asked that they be changed.
Morning was overcast and cool, virtually no wind (again). After Chenning and Rick did the morning sounding, they headed out to the array to tend to Chenning's equipment (DTS?) and to swap out batteries at tt.
10:30-12:00PDT: cloudy and light rain.
Noticed that T, RH, Rfan variables were not reporting on 28m.t0. Consulted with both Gary and Chris about how to troubleshoot. Ultimately, late in the day (16:30PDT), ended up power cycling the ttt dsm. As far as I can tell this evening, it did not help.
Also looks like ISS1 plots stopped around 3:00PDT. Trying to troubleshoot that. Again, phone call with Gary (it's Sunday!) - It may be related to the USB drive on ISS1 that has been hanging things up for the past several days – Gary has been battling with it. Wanted to reboot, but not sure how to get the profiler codes back up and running. Consensus – wait until Monday morning until more troubleshooting resources available.
Chenning and Rick on the 15:00PDT sounding. Winds from the south, diffuse sun.
ISS1 trailer A/C is acting up: trailer temperature had climbed to 80F, but A/C not coming on. I fiddled with it quite a bit – it would come on for short periods but not cool to target temp. The display showed "check filter". Phone call with Josh (it's Sunday!) and he thought perhaps this newer type A/C might be sensitive to the state of the filter. Attempted to clean it, but the A/C still seems flaky. At Josh's suggestion, left the trailer with the window open and a fan pointed at the rack – the desert night should cool things down significantly.
Stephan de Wekker and a student arrived around 17:00PDT. I helped them retrieve a portable solar generator they had sent to the site. He will converge on the site the next 5 days with 14 students, conducting drone flights at the towers. We discussed access to the facilities (noontime lunches and battery recharges at the trailers), tours, soundings, etc. I guided them out to the array, where they surveyed safety considerations and made deployment plans.
Random checks on 449 power supply: low 2.85A, high 2.99A