Field Notes

<--2010-05-11 13:00:00 | 2010-05-28 08:00:00-->
Other sites visited today: Twitchell Rice
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Sherman Island: 2010-05-20 11:00:00 (DOY 140)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others:

Sherman
5/20/2010

Arrived about 11am at the Levee site. Clear, warm, light wind from WNW.

Our solar panels were still there and everything seemed to be still running.

I put the for deep cycle car batteries from Twitchell in a blue plastic case with the existing battery at the site. There is a break in the data while I connected the charge controller to the full set of batteries and made a 12VDC bus to add the LI7700.

The blue box with batteries is under the solar panels. The panels are bolted to the tower at a low angle that should catch more summer sun and may not be visible from the river.

I mounted the LI7550 interface unit and LI7700 washer box at about 3m on the tower. The washer water was still almost full.

I did not have the allen wrench I needed for the LI7700 mount, so I went to the cow pasture site to get one and service that site.

The computer at the cow pasture was locked up again, data is safe on data loggers, but missing web cam images. I will need to swap out that computer next time.

The pepper weed is in bloom inside the cow fence and to the south. There are areas that are not blooming yet. Cows were in the east part of the field.

LGR initial readings:
13:36, 26.70C, 137.43Torr, 17.294usec, 10Hz, 1.860+-0.002ppm

I checked the calibration with 1.976ppm tank at 700psi.
14:42, 156.35Torr, 1.974+-0.002ppm

I did not calibrate, LGR readings when I left:
13:45, 26.81C, 136.62Torr, 17.147usec, 10Hz, 1.858ppm

Serial line for soil CO2 still not working, it doesn’t work with my laptop, and serial port does work with other data loggers, so must be something wrong with cable. I’ll build and test one in the lab for next time. Length = 10 paces plus ends inside boxes.

I copied data and swapped the card. Downloaded data from the soil co2 23x by laptop.

I also drilled and tapped holes for the LI7700 mount when we move it here next.

Back at the Levee site I installed the LI7700 on the top of the tower. I swapped the card on the CR1000. The battery on my laptop was dying and I was just able to check to see that the LI7700 was working and upload the program I used at Twitchell to the CR1000 and see that it was working. The LI7700 was reporting a RSSI (signal strength) of 38%, so I cleaned both the top and bottom mirrors with kim wipes wet with DI water and then dried with kim wipes.

I removed the plant cam with intention of installing it at Twitchell.

3 photos found

20100520SI_PepperWeedFlowers.jpg ( 2010-05-20 13:53:24 ) Full size: 2048x1536
Tall flowering pepper weed at Sherman site