(Message inbox:130) Return-Path: mpc@nbp.polar.org Return-Path: Received: from nbpmail.asa.org by icess.ucsb.edu (8.8.4/SMI-8.7-Icess) id PAA19905; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 15:45:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: from MPC_Office.nbp.asa.org (nbp75.nbp.asa.org [199.184.189.75]) by nbp.polar.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id TAA00780; Tue, 22 Jun 1999 19:46:49 GMT Message-Id: <199906221946.TAA00780@nbp.polar.org> X-Sender: mpc@nbp.polar.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0.1 Date: Tue, 22 Jun 1999 19:46:48 -1000 To: mo-weekly@asa.org From: mpc Subject: NBP weekly report, 15-22 June 1999 Cc: cunninch@palmer.usap.nsf.gov, charleen@icess.ucsb.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" General: This week marked the beginning of science aboard the NBP during the LTER ice cruise. On the 15th we located a protected cove in the Gerlache Strait for the scuba divers to perform their checkout dives. Various delays prevented divers from actually entering the water, but we ironed out the general procedures for doing so. We also performed a test cast of the CTD on this day. On the 16th the NBP hove to near Palmer Station to allow the divers to complete their check-out dives. We also exchanged some materials and supplies with the Station; many thanks to all who assisted with this operation. Just prior to our leaving the harbor, we picked up a spare transmissometer from the LMG, which was returning from a fishing trip. The following day we made an attempt to service the inoperable Hugo Island AWS, but the landing party was foiled by icy conditions on shore and swell from the wrong direction. Afterward, we began steaming south along the xxx.100 line of the LTER grid toward the ice, which we finally reached on the 18th. On 20 June we reached our furthest south point and established what was intended to be a multi-day camp. However, on the solstice the ice began to break up due to a swell from the northeast which was surprisingly large given our distance from the ice edge. After dive operations from the zodiac and other limited science, we turned back north to deploy the third of our ARGOS buoys and to establish another multi-day camp near the -100.100 LTER station. Marine Science Technician (Marc Pomeroy) This was a busy week for the MST. A stop at Palmer Station gave an opportunity to pick up many small items that had been overlooked. A list of items taken was sent to Palmer Station so that all items can be returned before the start of the summer season. Radioisotope users on board were given a radiation orientation and their radioisotopes were released to them. An amended Radioisotope Usage Authorization form for BO-016-O was received and posted in the NBP Radvan. Instrument issues: The Liquid Scintillation counter in the NBP rad van experienced problems communicating to the floppy drive and a temporary fix will work until proper replacement parts can be delivered to the ship. The Zeiss Axioscope microscope was set up in the helo hangar workshop fitted with a camera system. A Gast vacuum pump was overhauled by the MST. Serious internal corrosion from salt water was noted. This pump is now in working order. The Nanopure water system in the hydrolab had the wires of the conductivity cell had come loose. The wires were re-secured and the system is working well. The pre-treatment resin beds, fiber and carbon filters were also replaced on this water system. One bench-top vibraplane table was repaired by replacing the seals in a leaky foot. The MST also replaced three TV/VCR units in cabins with faulty or missing units. This gave the ET a little more time for other more important projects. The MST also started collecting hazardous waste. As CTD operations commenced, the MST assisted in several CTD casts. Electronics Technician (Chris Weddle) Dive Compressor: Wired up for 208VAC. Tested briefly for LQ. MOCNESS: Connected GPS feed from AshTech. Corrected RS232 connection to deck box. Installed Pascal compiler for cal factor entry. Entered cal coefficients and recompiled program. Battery charger found broken. Repaired fractured output jacks and proceeded to charge all batteries. Edited source code for cal factors and recompiled program. Hooked up and tested. No Go. Found dead 20VDC to 12VDC card in Underwater unit. Built another with a LM7812 (no spare card). Still No Go. Mocness Software: Corrected error in source code where a "0" preceeding the exponents in the calibration coefficients of SBE Temp and Cond sensors caused calculated data to overrun the screen area set aside for it. Corrected an error where the warning message for no GPS string would cause the display to scroll upward and mix data fields. Discovered we were working with 3 different versions of the source code and am now using the most complete version in terms of data storage and Lat/Long processing. The source code has been renamed "AQBESS1.PAS", "AQBESS2.PAS" and "AQBESS3.PAS". The AQBESS3.PAS is the most complete version. Mocness Hardware: Examined cable from Deck Unit to Sea Termination again and compared to internal wiring of Underwater Unit to assure correct connection. The tip of the Sea Cable termination connects to the modem circuitry of the Underwater Unit's CPU card while the ring furthest from the end of the Sea Cable Termination connects to the Underwater Unit's common ground point. Thus, the center of the coax at the Deck Unit must connect to the metal ring at the tip of the Sea Cable termination while the coax shield must connect to the remaining metal ring. Replaced the Underwater Unit's CPU card and that finally established communication with the Deck Unit. What Works Now: With Temp and Cond sensors in a fresh ice water bath correct Temp readings were obtained. Cond/Salinity looked very off though this was corrected by flushing the Cond cell with surface seawater. Turning the Flow Sensor yeilds a response and the Motor turns on command. The Net Response switch appears to be working as well. Final Problem We Know Of: The AshTech GPS outputs a 4th decimal place digit of accuracy and appends a time string as well. The MOCNESS application does not recognize these additional digits and so rejects the string. Occassionally it does seem to take some data and calculates an erroneous distance value which runs numbers across the screen. Bill "Wingnut" Weber on the LMG is hacking the source code to correct this. With that done the thing can be used. YES! Port Rad Van: Repair electrical failure in chiller unit. Rebuild crushed AC input point. ASHTECH: POS. Reboots and re-setups and constantly losing satellite fix. POS. Port A output was OFF and the Baud Rate was incorrect. Entered correct values. Simrad: Operating again after being off during Drake Passage. NERA: Unable to get a satellite connection. Tracked it to loss of NMEA input. AshTech again! CTD: (Worked w/ Dave Menzies on this one) Big Troubles on first test cast. ERROR LED on CTD DECK BOX tracked down to the Deck Cable not being connected at the Baltic Room Winch. Found it cut and on the floor under the Junction Box for the Winch. Wired it up and tested out to end of Sea Cable. MTs pull tested the mechanical termination. SEASAVE reported a hard drive error every time we tried to acquire data. Found 1.4MB of lost clusters using SCANDISK. Repaired HDD but SEASAVE still not working. Reinstalled SEASAVE V4.234. Then found the 12KHz Pinger was not being received by the Raytheon Sonar. Tracked it to the 12KHz Transducer Cable being unplugged and laying beneath a monitor in the rack. Test Cast was back up to the surface and only a few pings were heard on the speaker as it came out of the water. NOTE ON THE PINGER: The pinger is read off the EPC Starboard Plotter. There is apx a 1 minute delay from printing to seeing the trace appear around the roller. This caused suffiecient concern that the scientists decided to rely primarily on the Bottom Contact Switch. Biospherical QSL-101, SN 1416: Intermittent operation reported by scientist. Tracked to a loose 3.3Mohm 1% resistor that was not soldered in place. The circuit card inside the wand has 2 test posts. A precision resistor with leads sharpened to points was pressed into the openings of the posts. The tight fit of the Wand I.D. kept the resistor from falling out completely but it wobbled about quite a lot. ISLA VICTOR HUGO AWS SYSTEM: Needs 12VDC battery for test. Locate a 7AH Gell Cell and started it charging. Battery proved deffective. Dave Menzies had a power supply. Tested system on Helo Deck and transmitted data to satellite. Assembled tools and equipment. Loaded Zodiac. Circled island several times but could not find a safe landing due to sea state. Returned to ship. Info Systems (Kathleen Gavahan and Tobias Schunck) Week ending: June 20, 1999 Julian Days: 165 171 Status: underway, second week of LTER cruise INMARSAT: HSD Total Connect Time: 33.51 minutes Total Data Throughput: 24266 packets (12424192 bytes) Reception Breakdown: 16282 packets (8336384 bytes) in 22.98 minutes. representing 67.10 percent of total throughput. Transmission Breakdown: 7984 packets (4087808 bytes) in 10.53 minutes. representing 32.90 percent of total throughput. Voice Time: 86 Minutes (Marine and Vessel IS) Fax Time: 2 Minutes Activities: Fixed web problem on PCs and Macs. Two of the PCs didn't have DNS setup and couldn't see www.nbp.polar.org. The www button on Server Assistant doesn't work. Added Netscape to the launcher bar to facilitate grantee use of the web site. Installed Seasoft on the computer lab PCs. (This is allowed under the Seasoft license.) Verify backups on discovery and challenger and perform manual user backup. Do manual backups when the cron job indicates that it fails. Rename and move petercog.pl to rvdas/src/utilities/CalcWaypt.pl. Move waypoint.txt to /public/waypoint.txt. This allows grantees to enter their waypoints. Check user mail problem with SMTP entry in profile of mail.nbp.polar.org. Ongoing. MacBill had problems seeing the network. After much pain and agony, ended up rebuilding bill starting from the Mac booter disk. He is back and functioning. Chooser now works so I guess it was worth it. Read a CD for grantee. It was written on Mac, but couldn't be read anywhere here except on of the O2s. Helped grantee figure out how to download their data onto floppies for the scintillation counter (?). While doing daily processing, noticed that the PARs values were 0. Sent Mr. T up the mast several times to try to debug the problem. :-) Produce cruise track Assisted ET with troubleshooting the PAR sensor. System Folder on Hobbs repaired with Norton. Bad sectors & pointers on HD. Troubleshot CTD not getting lat / long. Setup broadcast channel A to include GLL. Seemed to do the trick. Assisted MTs with back deck and ice ops. Finished Hospital PC project Completed Dave Leger’s software request Ice Images, printed, distributed and saved. Updated McMurdo, ANT-NZ Address list. McMurdo list did not process correctly; had to convert it by hand. Assisted grantee with a DB III + project. Assisted ET with MocNess project. Brought Ashtrash back to life. It now has a huge fan keeping it cool. Has been working for 72 hours now. Lets see how long it lives now Spoke to Dave Karl regarding e-mail attachments. Troubleshot faulty disc drive on a radiomter in the rad van trying to get a drive to work. Burned out adapter was to blame. Believe it or not, an instrument purchased in 98 only reads 720 Kb discs. Luckily we had a stack of old software on low density discs. Installed HD on grantee’s NT computer. Routine Tasks Completed: Ran vessel e-mail Processed ice and weather images Monitored server usage Assisted grantees with data collection and processing Assisted grantees, ECO and ASA personnel with IS related issues Monitored and backed up data collection systems. Data Collection: Data collection and processing has been completed for all days covered by this report. Backups: Normal backups have been made of the shipboard data collection systems on all days covered by this report. Image Support: Ice images have been processed and distributed for all days covered by this report. Satellite images received for all days covered by this report News: News feed received and distributed for all days covered by this report A big thank you to John Booth for his excellent image support. Marine Technicians (Mike Lewis and Christian McDonald) Assited with scuba diving operations Completed various cleaning and equipment maintenance projects Assisted grantees with on-the-spot requests Assisted with CTD deployments and recoveries Assisted with fishing net deployment and recovery Trouble-shooting on 45-hp outbard engines Technical Writer (Susan Allspaw) Continued progress has been made on the MST manual. The technical writer worked with the CT on board the LMG to obtain the computer directory structure for MST documents to append to the manual. A comprehensive draft has been handed over to the MST for final revision/modification. The technical writer also began to document CTD procedure, including software directions, safety protocols, and data processing. She assisted in CTD casts, both running software and launching the CTD package. Met with Doug Martinson to streamline the document and create practical guidelines and checklists in addition to a comprehensive manual. Utilized images of both process work (in the Baltic Room) and screen images to illustrate software directions. The manual has been through three drafts, and has two more sections to be written before the final revision process. The MOCNESS project is still underway. We encountered numerous problems with the software package, so the actual writing of the manual has been postponed. The technical writer assisted with troubleshooting in the software as well as with the sensors installed on the unit. Continued research on the dive procedures project is being made. EMT (Mike Lewis) No injuries or illnesses to report.