Field Notes

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Other sites visited today: Sherman Island | Twitchell Rice | West Pond | DWR Corn
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Mayberry: 2012-10-11 10:00:00 (DOY 285)
Author: Cove Sturtevant
Others: Sara, Laurie, Christina

Summary: Moved portable tower to Location 2. Power is an issue for portable tower, may be fine for this week but certainly not next. Collected data, cleaned water CO2 & DO sensors, took water samples.

Mayberry
2012-10-11

Portable Tower
We arrived at about 10:00 PDT and dropped Sara and Christina off at the permanent tower while Laurie and I moved the portable tower to position 2. Windy and a bit chilly with a few clouds.

The Low Voltage Disconnect was active at the portable tower and a quick check of the USB from the 7550 indicated we lost power between 3-4am (I could be wrong on the exact timing, it was a really quick check but I only noticed maybe 6 or 7 files since midnight). Solar power when we arrived was 0.2 amps. Thankfully, Location 2 afforded us the chance to reorient the truck so that the solar panel faced due south, so I propped it up at the highest angle and by the time we left the solar power was over 3 amps. Perhaps this will be enough to maintain power at this location for the week, but next week power will be a problem at Location 1 since we cannot angle the truck differently.

We collected the data, cleaned the solar panel and the instruments of cobwebs and plant material, aligned the sonic N to true north, and made sure the sonic was level in the new orientation. We could easily connect to the 7700 but for some reason we had a pain of a time connecting to the 7200. After lots of fiddling with the antivirus and rebooting the 7550 box and computer, we were finally able to connect, but I’m not sure any one of those things did it. It seems to me that some 7200/7550 boxes are more fickle than others, but perhaps it’s just the way of chance. Anyways, the numbers:

CH4 = 1.9 ppm
RSSI = 27, bumped to 87 after cleaning.
CO2 = 388 ppm
H2O = 610 mmol m-3
agc = 37.5
7550 box logging

Permanent tower
Sara and Christina collected water samples, pH measurements, and cleaned the muck off of the CO2 and DO sensors in the water. DO measurements all looked good from the tower. We all downloaded the data and camera pics, washed the solar panels, filled the 7700 reservoir, and cleaned the flux instruments.

Current 7500 readings:
CO2 = 375 ppm
H2O = 600 mmol m-3
agc = 43.8

7700 readings:
CH4 = 1.88 ppm
RSSI = 39 (bumped to 65 after cleaning)

MET values looked fine.

1 photos found

MB_FroggyInMBPortableTowerBox.JPG ( 2012-10-11 09:24:27 ) Full size: 1296x968
Frog friend