On March 10th, 2014, Mikes Shoemaker and Jankulak met up at the Port Everglades CREWS station. Our goal was to swap out the Vaisala "weather transmitter," or WXT, which is an instrument that reports air temperatures, pressures, winds, gusts, relative humidity and precipitation. This sensor was deployed on October 20th, 2011, about two and a half years previously. Although it showed no signs of data degradation, we still thought it should be replaced since our practice in the considerably harsher marine environments of other CREWS stations is to swap out the WXTs after only one year of deployment.
Mike Shoemaker also wanted to take the opportunity to recover some of the batteries and chargers that had been installed in 2009 during this stations initial deployment. There were originally four batteries and four chargers installed; one battery/charger provided a reliable power feed to the datalogger and met package and continuity of power even on those occasions when the external FL&L power supply went out. The other three batteries were connected serially to deliver the higher voltages required by the ADCP. With the removal of the ADCP in October of 2011 and no plans at present to redeploy it, Mike S. judged that three of the station's four batteries/chargers could potentially be reused elsewhere.
We spend the morning at the station, removed three batteries and chargers, replaced the WXT, and rearranged the equipment that remained. All systems were confirmed to be operational before leaving.