Diary
#34
Two
Trips and Big Success, in Alaska
Part
1
In
July and August our NSF Team - Dave Hughes, Mike Willett, with
Tom Williams added through the rest of the project - made two
trips to central Alaska. As it turned out we thought all that
would get done was completing the wireless connections between
one or two Campbell Data Loggers 16 miles down the Tanana River
from Fairbanks and the University. In fact we got the Poker Flats
and Caribou Peak connections going.
And
resourceful Stephanie Pike and Wendy Davis part of the University
of Alaska LTER staff got links going to some of the Data Loggers
in the Bonanza Creek area, down the river, and wanted to experiment
themselves more in the fall.
This
report covers in text with some graphics, these two projects.
But,
for the first time, to make it even more understandable, we have
added a digital Video set of short (1 - 3 minutes) clips. Anyone
with the ability to view Quicktime, or Real Audio, or later versions
of Microsoft Media Player codecs, can see and hear our progress.
The URL is at the bottom of this and the next Diary report.
PROOF
OF THE WIRELESS PUDDING
Before
going into how it was accomplished, here is a URL which will take
you, here and now directly to a Web server at the University of
Alaska, Fairbanks, which in turn is connected via 38 miles of
Microwave to the Poker Flats Rocket Station, from whence via a
clever IP/Ethernet to Wireless/Serial interface, the signals travel
through a 4 Freewave Radio network to 3 Data Loggers between Poker
Flats Creek and Caribou Peak - another 5 miles into the wilderness.
And you will see the data fetched periodically (it could be continuously)
from all the sensors on all the data loggers.
http://www.uaf.edu/water/projects/cpcrw/metdata/cpcrwmetsitemap.htm
Real
time connection from the ends of the Internet/Browser earth, to
a remote area of mid Alaska.
Bonanza
Creek
There
are two challenges to getting a wireless link between the LTER
computers at the University in Fairbanks and the data loggers
16 miles down the Tanana River:
1)
the use of a reliable radio relay point to link a base radio
at the University and radios at each data logger site downriver,
and in trees.
(2)
a better way to link the radio at the University to a suitable
computer inside the university at LTER offices than their original
plan of hand carrying a laptop to the inside top floor of the
IARC building, plugging it into the serial cable from the radio,
then, manually downloading the wirelessly linked data, and carrying
it back to the office in another building.
Terrain
between UaF and Data Logger Area
Stephanie
and Wendy had erected a waterproof box on the roof of the IARC
Building before we arrived. We wanted the radio as close to the
Yagi antenna as possible, and let the RS232 cable go down into
the floor below.
Stephanie
atop the IARC Building at Base Radio Site
Stephanie and Wendy had erected a nonmetallic pole (FAA desired
this) at the potential relay site 8 miles from the IARC building,
below the crest of the hill on BLM land, where the FAA had one
of its sensitive aircraft guidance radars.
From that site, the women assured us they had site-survey tested
the link back to the IARC building, and then from the Relay point,
down the Tanana River 8 miles to the FP4 Data Logger site across
the river. There are trees in the foreground, but if things went
well, the relay radio would be able to punch through the trees
even if it had only an 8 dB Omni Antenna there, while the end-point
radios used 10 dB Yagis.
The
opening through the trees down the river from the Relay Site
We erected the pole with about 12 feet of LMR400 antenna cable,
and prepared to do the downriver test the second day.
Putting up the Relay Pole with Omni
Antenna and cable
Next
day, Stephanie, Wendy, Mike Willett, and Tom Williams with a graduate
student launched the boat carrying a second, temporary extensible
pole, radio, Yagi antenna, battery and cables and went down the
Tanana River while I drove to the relay site with a relay Freewave
Radio, properly configured, and a portable 12 volt battery.
A
graduate student would also be on the top of the IARC building
with the base radio connected to a laptop with the PCW208 software
running, to see if he could get a 'connect' to a data logger downstream.
The
glacier fed Tanana is wide and has debris
The
downriver team landed the boat, tramped in to the Data Logger
Site, and erected, temporarily, the 18 foot pole with the Yagi
on the top, and applied power to the radio. I connected up and
powered up the radio at the Relay Site, and waited to see if I
would get a green CONNECT light on the radio.
I
had one brief voice cell phone radio conversation with the IARC
site, but his battery expired and we could not communicate or
coordinate when the connect should occur. Someone failed to check
out all the equipment.
The
women at the Data Logger in the rain
This
test was important because we had to see whether the two radios
could reach each other through the trees that would always mask
the data logger sites from the open water and terrain to the relay
point. Finally, both of us saw the green LEDs come on long enough
to tell us we were satisfactorily connected. And the student on
the IARC building said he saw the PCW software connect all the
way to the Data Logger briefly.
The whole test was only marginally satisfactory, what with the
rain, poor voice communications, and our inability because of
that to synchronize our link up efforts. But we did determine
the path was acceptable.
Wendy
and Stephanie, having through 3 of our trips learned a great deal
about what it took to get the radios, then the antennas, and necessary
connectors to work together asked to do their own further development
on this link down the river.
We
agreed and turned them loose. Since they would have to maintain
and further develop the wireless links between the downriver concentration
of Data Loggers and the University, it was as good a time as any,
in the remaining fall weather, to let them try, and turn to us
for advice by email or voice calls.
The
following link will take you to a Web Page with both the Bonanza
video clips and the ones for Caribou Peak/Poker Flats - which
will be described in the next Report. Look at the Bonanza Creek
clips first.
Short
Videos
