Field Notes

<--2021-06-22 11:45:00 | 2021-07-06 15:10:00-->
Other sites visited today: Vaira | Tonzi

Bouldin Corn: 2021-06-24 08:50:00 (DOY 175)
Author: Joe Verfaillie
Others:

Summary: Swapped, calibrated 7700 - show issues, visited Staten rice site, checked pi-cam clocks - okay, improved wash box power connector.

Bouldin Corn
2021-06-24

I arrived at about 8:50. It was cool, clear and sunny with a gusty wind from the west. The corn is head high (1.7m). Daphne was here a couple of days ago. Iâ€™m here to get the 7700 to swap with Nick and Sabina on Staten Island. The 7700 we gave them turns out to be UC property and this one is DWR property.

Before I removed 7700 sn TG1-0224 I downloaded its config file.
It read: 1.91ppm CH4, 34.5RSSI â€“ 75.2 after cleaning.
After removing the 7700 I cleaned it up and put it in its case to take to Staten.

I also checked the pi-cam clocks â€“ both the system time and the hwclock times were good on both pis.

I checked on the power connector on the wash box that Daphne mentioned was loose. I checked that the connections looked good, added some electrical tape to make the shroud fit better and put it back together.

I left for Staten at 9:22. The site on Staten is literally just across the river from the BC site but it takes nearly 40 minutes to get there by car. They are measuring rice on the southwestern corner of Staten. Apparently they ran power about 700m from a pump station to the site trenching across fields, roads and ditches. They are using buck and boost transformer and running at 480VAC I think. I spent about 40 minutes helping Nick swap 7700s and to make sure his system was running again.

I returned to BC at about 11:30 with 7700 sn TG1-0357. I cleaned up the 7700 â€“ it had some yellow residue staining it, maybe something that was sprayed on one of their fields. I uploaded the config file that I downloaded from the previous one and it updated all the heater and wash settings but they didnâ€™t seem to apply. I did it again and touched each setting then it seemed to save the settings. This 7700 had last been calibrated by Nick and Sabina January 20th so I calibrated it. It was a little windy so I powered it up in its box on the road. This way I didnâ€™t have to remove the gas tanks from my car either. The calibration was pretty good considering I donâ€™t have notes on the last one.

When I put the 7700 on the tower I noticed that its serial number seemed to have been changed by loading the previous config file. This was good because the 7550 automatically connected to it without prompting but maybe not the best idea. In the 7550 I disconnected the 7700, edited the config file to change the serial number and loaded it again, then connected the 7700 (with the correct serial number) in the 7550 software. I restarted the 7550, checked the files on the USB and all seemed well but the whole process still feels a little sketchy to me. Iâ€™ll check with Licor.

I left at about 12:30 PDT

1 photos found

20210624BC_7700Calibration.jpg ( 2021-06-24 11:44:22 ) Full size: 1920x1440
Calibrating 7700 off the tower, less wind donâ€™t have to unload tanks.