Virginia
Coastal Reserve LTER - Preliminary Meetings
Oyster,
Virginia, is on the eastern shore, north of Chesapeake Bay. To
the east, over a few miles of sea and sandbar, is a range of islands,
including Hog Island and Cobb Island. A few more islands north
you'll find Chincoteague Island, the home of very famous multicolored
ponies.
The
VCR LTER (Virginia Coastal Reserve/Long-term Ecological Research
site) is currently headquartered in a rented farmhouse in Oyster.
The Nature Conservancy owns the farmhouse, as well as Hog Island.
A grant from the Anheuser-Busch corporation is funding an eventual
relocation of their facility, which must be borne in mind as we
plan this project. PI's for the LTER are Dr. John Porter and Dr.
Bruce Hayden, both based in Charlottesville at the University
of Virginia.
Hog
Island and LTER Area
My
first visit to Oyster, VA was on September 4, 2001, to meet with
Randy Carlson, Project Site Manager, for a tour and a discussion
of the current data gathering situation, as well as plans/dreams
for future use of wireless technologies. Also present were Phil
Smith, Marine Scientist; and Jason Restien, the site's newest
employee.
I
was given a tour of Hog Island, concentrating on its south end
at Broadwater Tower.
Broadwater Tower, dwarfing the island's
skyline
Interestingly,
most or all of Hog Island is reachable by digital cell phone.
This may provide some alternative networking opportunities as
the project proceeds.
One "obvious" job would be to convert the current Meteorological
stations ("Met stations") to a wireless format, reducing the need
to visit the islands just to upload weather data -- a half- or
all-day affair. The met data is generally used on a historical
basis, though, and so there are questions as to how valuable that
upgrade would be at the VCR/LTER.
A
task they would like to achieve wirelessly is live monitoring
of tidal data. In addition to its scientific value, live tidal
data would help the efficient use of boats on the islands. Due
to shallow waters between the mainland and the islands, tides
have a huge effect on navigation, often requiring an additional
worker to remain in the boat at all times lest that boat become
stuck. Live access to tidal information would thus provide an
early warning system for boat people. So, the use of wireless
data here is in some ways more a support tool than an example
of actual "scientific data."
A Tidal/Meteorological Data station on
the Mainland
Another
wireless task that was brainstormed at the meeting was the use
of a web cam (live camera over the Internet). And how about an
802.11 cloud for the island and surrounding waters for use with
laptops? If this is possible, then scientists could get live weather
radar while on the island (or on a boat), again enabling them
to time their travel.
To
summarize, the staff members of the VCR/LTER have indicated that
their goal is no less than an Internet cloud on Hog Island, preferably
with sufficient bandwidth to facilitate live video.
Second Meeting
On
Monday, October 8, I met in with the PI's (Doctors Porter and
Hayden) at UVA in Charlottesville, VA. They also expressed a desire
for high bandwidth Internet at the VCR LTER. Their Big Push was
for video.
One scenario they presented: Upon finding a bird's nest on Hog
Island, a researcher might set up a "webcam on a stick." Think
in terms of camera plus radio plus power on a tomato stake. The
researcher plants the camera there. Goes away. Are we there to
watch cute little baby birds hatch? Not necessarily. Instead,
the object is to observe when raccoons come to rob the nest. If
there is a human there, the 'coons will stay away, so human presence
would skew the data. Predation studies are darned difficult to
do with people nearby, despite the way it looks on The Learning
Channel. The ability to set up an unattended live camera (preferably
anywhere/anytime on the island) would advance the way science
is done at the VCR/LTER.
Another
thing they want to do with video is extend their current collegiate
distance education efforts. John Porter has taught students simultaneously
in Virginia and Europe; some units of the course involve(d) work
done at the VCR/LTER, and could be taught more effectively in
the future if there were live data and live video available from
Oyster.
Challenges
The
first challenge is that of distance. It is some 15 miles from
the lab in Oyster to Broadwater Tower, and another 10 miles from
there to the Machipongo station. Standard, off-the-shelf wireless
Internet equipment is designed to have an operating range measured
in feet, not miles. Thus, even if we can get Internet to the ends
of the island, there is no guarantee that the scientists will
be able to use it with standard gear.
The
second challenge is bandwidth. Data loggers typically only need
a few bytes per second (over time) to do their jobs. Still photographs
have orders of magnitude more data, and moving pictures yet another
tenfold or greater increase. It will be interesting to see how
fast we need to move the data, versus how fast we can move
it, over these distances.
On
our next few adventures in Oyster we will test a variety of radios'
ability to reach Broadwater Tower.
Special
Assistant
NSF
Wireless Field Tests
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