Staff: Chris, Rick. Chenning on site most of the day.
The morning was cloudy and it had rained slight just before arriving on site.
Chris and Rick on the morning sounding. Air was so still the balloon rose nearly vertically for quite some time.
Right away noticed cryptic warning on ISS1 Nagios that suggested data was not being received in a timely manner from the south camera. Went out to visually inspect – nothing obvious. Discovered later that this warning appears throughout the day. However, the camera is clearly updating properly. WIll need to talk with Gary about the nature of these warnings.
Nearly complete cloud cover until noon, then partly cloudy with a wind of 6-8 m/s from the Northwest.
Random checks on the 449 power supply: low 2.87A high 3.00A (spikes to 4.9x when RASS is operational)
Afternoon sounding: Chenning and Rick. With the wind, the balloon took off like a shot, but oddly took a good 5mins+ to traverse just a kilometer down range 
Staff: Chris, Rick; Chenning on site most of the day
10:00PDT sounding: here's Chris demonstrating old-school launch technique
Chris and Chenning took me out for my first visit to the array. Chris walked through what the various equipment was, the various things that may arise, what to do about them etc.
Inspected all plots, did a physical walk-by of the equipment, everything looks good.
Re-familiarize myself with Nagios reporting. Noticed a "critical" report on ISS1 that the "USB Backup" task had been failing. Contacted Gary for pointers on how to troubleshoot that (Chris says Gary may already be aware of and working on it).
11:45PDT: 449 2.9A
915 2.45A
15:00PDT sounding: Rick utilizes old-school launch technique; definitely more rewarding.
19:00PDT-ish: the array at sunset
Staff:
Josh, Chris, Rick
Another sunny day at the site with light to moderate winds from the south.
I finished showing Rick and Chris what to look for on the ISS side. Rick is doing a great job with the soundings and Chris is helping out a lot with everything.
I will be flying out of Vegas tomorrow. See you in a few weeks Tonopah!
Current readings for the radars:
- 449 current - 2.97 A
- 915 current - 2.44 A
Staff:
Josh, Chris, Rick
Another sunny day with light winds. A few clouds in the afternoon.
Rick got to the site around 1. Chris and I went over how to do a sounding with Rick. I will show him everything else that needs to be done for ISS tomorrow.
Current readings were done at noon for the radars:
- 449 current - 2.98 A
- 915 current - 2.45 A
Staff:
Josh, Chris
The weather was again, sunny with light winds. Gave Chris a refresher course on launching balloons. Soundings went well. The instruments are giving good data on this sunny day.
The optics were cleaned on the radiometer, UVA lidar, and METEK lidar.
Radar current outputs were taken at 12:00:
- 449 current - 2.84 A
- 915 current - 2.44 A
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
The weather is back to being sunny with light winds. The lizards are happy and so are the spiders. The site is looking good and the data even better. The sondes are migrating in a more easterly direction today.
Current output for the radars was taken at 2:30:
- 449 current - 2.92 A
- 915 current - 2.43 A
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
It rained a little bit last night. Just enough to make the ground look wet. Data looking good from the instruments. Soundings are going smooth.
The current for the radars was taken at 1:00 pm:
- 449 current - 2.98 A
- 915 current - 2.45 A
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
Another very windy day with mostly cloudy skies. Balloon launches are still going good. The balloons have all been migrating north for the winter with the strong southerly winds.
Data looks good and instruments are hanging on during these windy times.
The current readings were taken at 11:00 AM:
- 449 current - 2.93 A
- 915 current - 2.45 A
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
A change has occurred in the weather as a low pressure system moves in to California bringing very windy conditions and monsoonal moisture to Tonopah. A short rain storm moved through last night. Strong sustained winds with up to 45 mph gusts were recorded on site. Everything on site seems to be holding on tight and giving good data.
Soundings were a little more difficult to do but with the inflation shelter and using the shipping container as a wind barrier, the sondes have been flying high in the sky. The morning sounding traveled more then 100 km away!
Current measurements for the radars was taken at 12:00 pm:
- 449 current - 2.97 A
- 915 current - 2.47 A
To keep things up to date...
After initially removing PurpleAir-198e (labeled as #3) from the ISFS array because it isn't connecting to wifi, found that it connected ok to a spare dsm's wifi at base. So, back out to the array on the 30th to try to swap it back in (if both PurpleAirs can work with wifi, then better to have PurpleAir #3 set up, since PurpleAir-57ba (#2) doesn't have a working SD card slot). Ultimately unsuccessful, PurpleAir #3 having same problems as before with connecting to t44 dsm wifi. At the end of troubleshooting on 8/30, PurpleAir #2 still deployed at ISFS array. More details in this jira issue: https://jira.ucar.edu/browse/ISS-809
Noticed today that the new array PurpleAir hasn't been updating since around 8pm on the 30th (so, a few hours after we were at the array trying to swap the other one back in). Logging in that one is behaving in the same way as #3 which we removed from the array, namely: on, has a dns address, pingable, but no outgoing tcp packets showing up and browsing to its web interface from the dsm wifi doesn't work. Did some troubleshooting from the trailer and then out at the array, but long story short it seems to be having the same problem as PurpleAir #3 (more on jira: https://jira.ucar.edu/browse/ISS-810). If neither of the two can currently connect to dsm wifi at the array, we figured at least we could swap back to #3, which has a working SD card slot. So, current state is nothing showing up on the PurpleAir map, but we're hopefully recording data locally (though likely with the same bad timestamps problem as before).
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
Weather is still doing it's thing. No clouds and light winds. Balloon launches are going well after changing the regulator from one system to the other.
During the daily inspection of the ISS towers, I noticed some of the holes on the DSM's were open on the bottom. When opening the boxes I noticed spiders had moved in and were making nests and spinning webs everywhere. I taped the holes so no more spiders can get in. There are also a lot of mice out here but I didn't see any trace of them.
I also found the plastic ring that goes on the camera on the 10m tower on the ground. The ring had cracked and fallen off. I taped it back together and put the ring back on the camera.
Currents for the 449 and 915 radars. Taken around 12:00 pm:
- 449 current - 2.96 A
- 915 current - 2.45 A
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
No big changes in the weather. Clear skies and calm winds.
The currents for the radar's was taken around 1:00 pm.
- 449 current - 2.92 A
- 915 current - 2.47 A
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
Weather is clear and warm. Instruments are running smooth.
Staff:
Josh, Isabel
Another clear warm day. No interesting weather occurred.
The lenses on the radiometer, METEK lidar, and UVA lidar were cleaned.
The current for both radars was checked around 11:00 AM:
- 449 current - 2.96 A
- 915 current - 2.45 A
Did a sounding this evening for Matt Hayman, who wants some nighttime data for intercomparison with the MPDs. Launched at about 9:40, easy conditions (calm, still warm, bright almost-full moon). Boy are there a lot of mice scurrying around outside here at night.
