tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75404614128520040532023-11-16T11:12:25.741-05:00PVGF1 Port Everglades ICON/CREWS/FACE stationThis Study in the Port Everglades Shipping Channel in Florida is a collaboration between several partners, to investigate the potential pollutant loading characteristics of the Port Everglades Inlet into the Southeast Florida coastal ocean, including an ecologically and economically important section of the Florida Reef Tract.
Additional information about the FACE Port Everglades Study can be found here:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/themes/CoastalRegional/projects/FACE/PtEverg.htmDr. James C. Hendeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09781192265417891159noreply@blogger.comBlogger26125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-29110012846501812362015-04-23T17:21:00.002-04:002015-04-23T17:21:40.135-04:00port everglades site visit[Summary: the Port Everglades CREWS station is back online and its feeds have been reenabled. As of this writing I expect the problem has been resolved, at the cost of no data being captured between 200 UTC April 20 2015 and 1900 UTC April 23 2015. A more detailed narrative of the problem and fix follows.] <br />
<br />
This morning I met Jack Stamates and Natchanon Amornthammarong (Mana) at Port Everglades for a coordinated visit to the Naval base that hosts our Port Everglades station. They wanted to scout out possible sites for deploying Mana's ammonia sensor, and since Jack was already coordinating with the Navy for permission to access the site, I decided to tag along to work on the CREWS station.<br />
<br />
The reason I wanted to visit was this (described <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2015/04/port-ev-logger-problems.html">here</a>): at 200 UTC on April 20, 2015, the PVGF1 station had stopped producing data. The station's cellular connection was working fine and it was still possible to connect to the datalogger directly. The problem appeared to be with the datalogger's clock: over multiple connections and attempts to reset the clock, it would spontaneously revert to garbage timestamps, once in 1930 and one in 2066. The logger's measurement operations appeared to be working normally but when it tried to write those measurements in its data tables it seems those invalid dates caused errors and no data could be saved.<br />
<br />
On Tuesday I tried resetting the clock to the correct UTC time, but it either reverted to garbage timestamps immediately or within 24 hours. I tried uploading variations on the logger program, theorizing that perhaps there was a problem with the memory module or memory card, but they did not help. Rather than continue remote troubleshooting I decided to swap out the datalogger in person, figuring that this would be a brute-force solution. I also disabled feeds of data from this station in case those 1930/2066 timestamps somehow got reported.<br />
<br />
Since I'd be visiting the site in person, I decided to replace the GOES transmitter and WXT (the 'weather transmitter' by Vaisala) while I was there.<br />
<br />
This site uses one of our ancient SAT-HDR-GOES transmitters, although with a direct cellular modem connection available we do not depend on GOES for data transmission. Still, it's nice to have redundant streams of data from the same site and the GOES transmitter at PVGF1 hasn't worked properly for at least five months. I wasn't sure if any of our remaining SAT-HDR-GOES transmitters still worked but I chose the most likely candidate for swapping, figuring at worst we'd still have only the cellular data feed, which is extremely reliable.<br />
<br />
The WXTs at our regular ocean-based sites are swapped out annually and often they fail, at least the acoustic wind sensors do, before their year is out. I think that's mostly because of the very large boobies that perch on our ocean-based stations, most particularly the one at La Parguera, PR. But the last WXT at Port Everglades was deployed for almost 2.5 years with no apparent data degradation. Its successor WXT has only been deployed for 13 months, but since we'd be on-site and it was nominally past our usual yearlong deployment time I decided to swap the WXT as well, as a low-priority task if everything else went well.<br />
<br />
And everything did go well. Despite a little bit of rain in the area I was able to swap the logger, transmitter and WXT. Jack and Mana stuck around until I was done and kindly spotted me on the ladder when I swapped the WXT. I connected to the logger by laptop before leaving to make sure all of the sensors were connected properly, and everything seemed okay, including the logger clock.<br />
<br />
While I was connected on-site I had my first real hint of what may have caused the problem. In looking over the variables in logger memory I was reminded that the GOES-transmitting stations actually reset their logger clocks using GPS-sourced time, once per day, as a way to avoid clock drift. So for the first time it occurred to me that the problem might not be a logger clock failure, but rather a mangled GPS time from the transmitter. Still, I was replacing both logger and transmitter so it didn't seem important which one had caused this problem.<br />
<br />
I packed everything up and, after stopping briefly at home to check whether the cellular modem was still connecting (it was), returned to the lab. Once here I connected to the station again and was surprised and a little dismayed to find that the new logger's clock was now set to a date in 1930. So clearly this wasn't a simple case of equipment failure as I'd assumed.<br />
<br />
What I think now is there might be some kind of date-overflow in the SAT-HDR-GOES transmitter's internal date representation, that might potentially be affected both of our transmitters (and maybe all of them). The SAT-HDR-GOES has long since fallen out of support, and actually so has its replacement transmitter, the TX312. We used this transmitter model at Port Everglades originally as a cost-saving measure (rather than pay for new transmitters). It's possible that this transmitter model, which was never expected to still be operational in 2015, has lost the ability to report GPS timestamps accurately. I theorize that resetting the logger clock with all zeroes led to the dates in 1930, and perhaps setting the clock with all-fill times could produce the dates in 2066 that I saw.<br />
<br />
The situation now is that I've disabled the clock-reset code in the datalogger program, and instead I've manually set the time at this station based on our loggernet server time. I have reenabled the feeds to NDBC, our CHAMP database, the CHAMP Portal, and the G2 Ecoforecasting system. We'll be monitoring this station's performance extra-closely in the coming days but (1) the problem seems to have been fixed and (2) as a bonus we have deployed a fresh WXT that need not be swapped again for at least another year.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
(signed)<br />
Mike Jankulak<br />
<br />
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-34907913698485824762015-04-21T10:45:00.000-04:002015-04-23T16:22:58.258-04:00port ev logger problems[This is the text of an email that I wrote Tuesday morning, April 21, 2015. This blog post will be backdated to the date and time of that email.]<br />
<br />
As it happens I received notice from NDBC this morning that they have not received any new Port Everglades data from us in over 24 hours, and there are backlogs of cronjob errors and a download alert in my mailbox today as well.<br /><br />As near as I can tell, it looks like a problem with the datalogger's internal clock. I am seeing timestamps in the year 2066 and a few times when I've connected the internal clock has been reset to 1930. I have reset the logger clock a few times to the correct time (UTC). The first few times it got corrupted again almost right away. At present it has held on to the correct time for about ten minutes but I don't trust it.<br /><br />[These bad timestamps are causing the logger to skip its datatables. Essentially I think its measurement actions are working just fine but it balks when asked to record those measurements with out-of-bounds timestamps.]<br /><br />Anyhow I have disabled all of our PVGF1 feeds for the present. In the short term it may be possible to reenable them by day's end if the clock seems to be holding steady. In the long term we will probably want to replace that logger.<br /><br />I know Jack and Mana might be visiting that site soon so depending on their timing I might suggest that I tag along, if that's alright with everyone.<br />
<br />
(signed)<br />
Mike JankulakMike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-44891253739577057412014-09-26T13:34:00.003-04:002014-09-26T13:34:50.188-04:00station online and fully operational<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHpN5clATFuTJ4D3LUbxEWLI8BYUm45C8E1Fo-ZxmiRU0zuBL0uO6g-hQLooxW1A-aaiUzK8g_h-5On1Vo1-ypQ79WQXeaZ6Ko5NNVyIaF5UgEXf99LNakj4422gD0w3s19Tm1u5i2aY/s1600/DSCN3990.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFHpN5clATFuTJ4D3LUbxEWLI8BYUm45C8E1Fo-ZxmiRU0zuBL0uO6g-hQLooxW1A-aaiUzK8g_h-5On1Vo1-ypQ79WQXeaZ6Ko5NNVyIaF5UgEXf99LNakj4422gD0w3s19Tm1u5i2aY/s1600/DSCN3990.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The PVGF1 station as seen in 2009.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is meant to serve as a status report for the Port Everglades CREWS station. It was installed on <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-station-installed-crewsface-hybrid.html">March 19th, 2009</a> as a collaborative effort between the <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/themes/CoastalRegional/projects/FACE/faceweb.htm">Florida Area Coastal Environment (FACE)</a> program and the Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) technology developed by the <a href="http://www.coral.noaa.gov/">Coral Health and Monitoring Program (CHAMP)</a>. Both programs operate out of NOAA's <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/">Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML)</a>.<br />
<br />
The station ran for two and half years before its ADCP (Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler) stopped communicating. This led to the removal of the station's underwater instruments (the ADCP, and a CT) on <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2011/10/face-portion-of-project-concludes.html">October 20th, 2011</a> and to the effective end of FACE's role in the project. After this, the station continued to lead a second life as a meteorological-only, CREWS-only station, now connected by a cellular modem which gives us on-demand access to its detailed data reserves. For example, the analog air temperature and pressure sensors are sampled every five seconds and each of those 5-second readings are stored separately in memory and downloaded to CHAMP servers every five minutes. It is also possible to access and update the station's programming at any time via the cellular modem.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile the station's SAT-HDR-GOES transmitter appears to be failing. This satellite transmitter was the station's original means of communications when first deployed in 2009. Its reliability was decidedly uneven until October of 2011, when two things happened: one, we swapped one transmitter for another of the same model, and two, we deployed the cellular modem. These two means of communications continued to operate fully redundantly until August of 2014, when there started to be a large number of transmission problems on the satellite side. However, these problems amounted to little more than an intellectual curiosity since the cellular modem continues to supply all of our connectivity needs and then some. The satellite transmitter, which is essentially obsolete in this configuration, continues to experience problems as of this writing and at some point our processing will be updated to simply ignore it.<br />
<br />
The station is now five and a half years old and continues to provide significant meteorological data as well as act as an important test site for CHAMP cellular communications. Its underwater experiments could be easily resumed at any time if the need/interest arises.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-71449804129262995822014-03-10T17:00:00.000-04:002014-09-26T13:12:58.238-04:00WXT swapout, recovery of batteriesOn 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.<br />
<br />
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.<br />
<br />
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.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-72746151458102035032011-10-20T15:00:00.000-04:002014-09-26T13:00:07.818-04:00FACE portion of project concludes, station goes live with new met package and cellular modemThings got rolling on the plans to remove this station's ADCP and CT with a meeting on the morning of September 21st, 2011. Jack wrote this summary of what was decided:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As the ADCP cable and the CT cable are married together with tape and bio-fouled together underwater it makes it unlikely that they can be separated underwater.<br /><br />
What we plan to do is remove these cables but leave in place a "traveler" (a pulling line) so that, at a later date, we can install a new cable through the existing cable path. Then, a CT or any other instruments can be deployed in the inlet.<br /><br />The meteorological senors will remain in place ( perhaps be swapped out with fresh ones) and continue to transmit data.<br /><br />We hope to do these operations on Oct 19th.</blockquote>
As the operations date approached, however, the weather turned bad and the boat operations could not safely take place on the appointed date. The operation was therefore divided into two parts, a land-based component (which was moved from the 19th to the 20th) and a sea-based component that could be delayed until the following week. Jack summarized the change in plans on October 17th, 2011:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The weather precludes boat ops this week.<br /><br />The shore team will try and go out on Thursday if the weather is better and cut the cable in two parts, the land side and the wet side. We will recover the land side and sink the end of the wet side with a weight.</blockquote>
Shore-based operations did indeed go as planned on October 20th, 2011. Later that afternoon I sent out the following report by email:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Just back at my desk now, and the quick report is that everything went well this morning at the port.<br /><br />The GOES transmissions have resumed, this time on a 300-baud channel since the 100-baud channels are going away next spring.<br /><br />We have also deployed the Raven AT&T cellular modem. So now we have full access to that datalogger, we can download data (not just the hourly stuff that comes by GOES, but 6-minute, 1-minute and 30-second averages too), we can upload/download new logger programming, and we can connect to the station from the lab and watch the 5-second data updates flash past in real time.<br /><br />We swapped out the "weather transmitter" or WXT, the Vaisala device that measures winds, temperatures, pressures and precipitation. The old one was still producing (what appeared to be) reliable data but we normally deploy those puppies for 1 year and that one has lasted 2.5 years.<br /><br />I also added a standalone air temperature sensor so (along with the barometric pressure sensor) we now have redundant measurements of air temperatures and pressures from multiple instruments.<br /><br />The underwater instruments are now disconnected from both power and communications, so there will no longer be any salinities or sea temperatures reported from this station (at least not until we decide to deploy something new here!).<br /><br />I will be patching up our feeds to NDBC and G2, and parsing out the data from the card that I collected this morning. That will hopefully be online for everyone by tomorrow afternoon.</blockquote>
With this operation, the Port Everglades station effectively ceases to be a FACE/CREWS hybrid since all of the FACE elements have now been removed. Jack has handed over to me the "key" that is used to open the datalogger box on base. All underwater instruments are disconnected, although as noted we have taken steps to make it easy to redeploy them, should there ever be interest in doing so.<br />
<br />
Also worthy of note is that this station now becomes only the second CREWS station (after <a href="http://llbp7-log.blogspot.com/">Saipan</a>) to make use of a cellular modem. The station continues to transmit by satellite on its new 300-baud platform, via a swapped-out transmitter that was recently recovered from another "hybrid" station at Molasses Reef. The change in transmitters appears to have fixed the frequent problems that have required Jack to push the transmitter's failsafe-reset button during many of his data-download visits. However, the presence/lack of transmitter problems is rendered effectively moot by our constant and super-reliable cellular connection to the station, and there is no longer any reason to manually recover the datalogger memory cards on a regular basis.<br />
<br />
In-person visits to this station are expected to take place far less frequently from now on, and without any FACE involvement.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-59536776170275396312011-08-10T15:37:00.000-04:002014-09-26T12:34:10.070-04:00station goes offline, and is revived (redux)On July 21st, 2011, we stopped by the station by boat on our way to visiting some other FACE ADCP sites, and Jack jumped in to have a closer look at the ADCP and CT. Partly he wanted to see if there were any obvious explanations for the ADCP's loss of communications, and partly he wanted some context for drawing up a plan to remove both sensors later on. Once we returned to the lab, I noticed that the station's transmitter had failed again only the afternoon before. I sent out this update:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Weird timing on this one -- I didn't realize while you were examining the Port Everglades CT and ADCP this morning that the station had stopped transmitting yesterday afternoon. I guess there wasn't anything we could have done about it today anyhow even if we'd known, not without clearance from the Navy to approach the box on land.<br /><br />The station's last transmission was at 1800 hours UTC yesterday, or 2pm local time.<br /><br />From the diagnostics it looks to me like another transmitter failure. Doing the failsafe reset might bring it back online. Another option is to try swapping it with the SAT-HDR-GOES transmitter I recently recovered from Molasses Reef, which was still functional at the time of its recovery.</blockquote>
Jack returned (by land) to Port Everglades on August 8th, 2011 and his transmitter reset brought the station back online as I reported by email:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jack made it out to Port Everglades this morning and punched the reset button on the transmitter. In response the station has made one transmission so far (that's all it's had time for) so I am cautiously optimistic that we are live again, at least for the time being.</blockquote>
I later followed up with on August 10th, 2011, with more details about the diagnostics reported by the transmitter while offline:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've already mentioned this to Jack, but in case anyone else is interested in the Port Everglades data, it's all been extracted and that missing month of data has been patched. Files and spreadsheets are available in the usual places, feel free to ask if you want a pointer to anything specific.<br /><br />And yes, the data show that the transmitter really was in failsafe mode. This was possibly caused by an excess of GPS-acquisition-related errors in the time leading up to the failure. As of this writing the station has been transmitting okay for just over two days in the time since Jack's visit.</blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-52702110794842879162011-08-08T23:59:00.000-04:002014-09-25T14:49:21.649-04:00data downloads, 2011Between an on-site intervention <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2011/01/station-back-online.html">to bring the satellite transmitter back online on January 13th, 2011</a> and this station's significant swapout/reinvention on October 20, 2011, FACE continued their routine of (roughly) monthly visits for downloading the ADCP's data reserves and swapping datalogger memory cards. These visits gave us semi-regular access to ADCP data, which weren't included in the station's near-real time transmissions, allowed us to "patch" holes in our archives where occasional transmissions had been dropped, and gave us access to the more time-granular (5-second, 30-second, 1-minute, 6-minute) stored data that weren't included in the hourly transmission.<br /><br />Between January 13th and October 20th, 2011, these data-download visits took place on:<br />
<ul>
<li>February 2nd, 2011</li>
<li>March 4th, 2011</li>
<li>May 17th, 2011</li>
<li>June 30th, 2011</li>
<li>August 8th, 2011</li>
</ul>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-65258324027948266312011-07-18T15:20:00.000-04:002014-09-26T12:21:25.335-04:00CT reliability questioned, but a swapout is canceled when the ADCP failsOn May 18th, 2011, Jack Stamates (FACE project) circulated the following update, including some early concerns about a possible failure of the station's CT:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I went to the Port yesterday. I did the transmitter reset about 17:30 UT. I swapped out the card and it is pinned to your door.<br />
<br />
Tomorrow (5/19) the Hildebrand will try and make a salinity measurement in the vicinity of the instrument to see if the sal sensor is going bad.<br />
<br />
I hate to say it but my gut feeling is that the sensor is failing. It has been too elevated for too long now. But I will remain hopeful that I am wrong.</blockquote>
I replied on May 20th, 2011 with some context about the CT's deployment duration:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I hope the CT is still okay but it's not too surprising if it's fallen out of calibration, normally we aim to swap out CTs and CTDs once a year and this one is overdue by that standard (deployed April 15th, 2010).</blockquote>
In part because of my input about a CT's usual one-year deployment lifetime, and in part because of Jack's lingering concerns about the reliability of the CT, plans were made to do another CT swap at the station, targeted for July. This would again require powering down the station completely so that the CT could safely be unplugged and swapped underwater. I meant to take this opportunity to update the station programming with some code developed for the other CREWS stations. As I explained in email on June 23rd, 2011:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've volunteered to be onsite at Port Everglades for this CT swap. The reason is that I'd very much like to update the PVGF1 logger program to add in the CF Memory diagnostics that I recently released to the CREWS station in St. Croix (and now also at Molasses Reef). Basically this would give me peace of mind regarding the station's local memory logging, instead of the minor anxiety I get whenever Jack brings me one of the memory cards to download (and I'm unsure until I plug it in whether I'll find that it's logged any data correctly). We've never yet had a problem at Port Everglades but we have twice had failures at other CREWS stations and I'd prefer to be able to monitor the local memory collection remotely (which is what this programming update will allow me to do).</blockquote>
These plans were shelved, however, when we lost contact with the ADCP at Port Everglades. Since the CT data were collected specifically to support the analysis of the ADCP data, our focus now changed from a CT swap to a complete removal of the underwater instruments at this site. As Jack mentioned in email on July 5th, 2011:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The ADCP in the Port Everglades channel is, as far as I know, not going to be serviceable. This means we will NOT be swapping the CT sensor out.<br />
<br />
On 7/21 I hope to change out the Broward FACE ADCP. (The ADCP that is off shore near Hillsborough.)<br />
<br />
The only thing I am thinking about doing in the Port Everglades channel is jumping in to have a quick look to see if there is anything obvious and to get an idea about what to expect when we do do the system removal.</blockquote>
On July 18th, 2011 it occurred to me that we were still feeding salinity data to NDBC, and I asked Jack by email whether the data were unreliable enough that we should stop doing this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I checked our NDBC feed, and we are sending them Port Everglades data from the CT. We send water temperature, salinity and depth. The depth is hardcoded to 1.65m, my code comments say this figure was one that you provided.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, do you think we should stop sending them any data from the CT? Or should we hold back the Salinity data but continue to send them water temperature?</blockquote>
Jack replied that same day that the CT salinity data were indeed unreliable and should no longer be trusted:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I just plotted the last data you sent me.<br />
<br />
During the times when the CT Sal has discontinuities, the CT temperature tracks the ADCP temp closely so it think temperature it is OK but the Sal is definitely "out to lunch."<br />
<br />
I think we should stop sending the salinity. At some point in the near future I will need to remove the ADCP but not this month. </blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-19056434428584278312011-04-27T09:32:00.000-04:002014-09-26T09:29:09.696-04:00salinity blipsOn March 24th, 2011, while updating my data spreadsheets, I noticed that there had been a large jump in salinity on March 15th, which I called to Jack's attention in an email as follows:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I was updating my spreadsheets again today and I noticed that the Port Everglades station's salinity numbers had a bounce on March 15th (see attached graph showing data from January 1st through today), and I thought you might be interested.<br />
<br />
There doesn't seem to be any associated rain event (and anyway I imagine that would cause a drop, not a rise) so my guess is someone was cleaning the CT? Or maybe something else was going on.</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlk3Kbm2ZwIpT0rRp384bSV2-z351O_4QZ2Xw3hO-UtQ_dG7341L5eXkDBvk8TFJ8T7nsvyfg-VXUrAcEeuQqS_22yX95mZ_tTfxVPuF2OBGc_y71n3xNrdxtQQw3C6IQRjDgOXu_GHU/s1600/pvgf1-sal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYlk3Kbm2ZwIpT0rRp384bSV2-z351O_4QZ2Xw3hO-UtQ_dG7341L5eXkDBvk8TFJ8T7nsvyfg-VXUrAcEeuQqS_22yX95mZ_tTfxVPuF2OBGc_y71n3xNrdxtQQw3C6IQRjDgOXu_GHU/s1600/pvgf1-sal.jpg" height="124" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The x-axis is the day of the year, showing data from the beginning of 2011. The y-axis is salinity measured in PSU.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Then on April 11th, 2011, I was again reviewing the station's recent data and commented on both the transmitter diagnostics and a second salinity "blip":<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I'm updating my data spreadsheets this morning and I happened to notice that the transmitter diagnostics from Port Everglades are showing signs of trouble with GPS acquisitions again. I'd like to suggest that you perform the transmitter's "failsafe reset" procedure again the next time you visit to see if that helps. There does not appear to be any impact on transmitter performance at this point but I'd like to see if the reset will clear up the GPS problems before they start affecting transmissions.<br /><br />Also, in addition to the salinity "blip" that I told you about from March 15th, there seems to have been another blip yesterday, April 10th. Just fyi.</blockquote>
Jack replied on April 27th, 2011, with an information that about a probably connection between these "blips" and cleaning visits from the divers:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I got info back from the divers. They cleaned the instrument on 3/16 (possibly 3/18, they were not positive) and on 4/21. </blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-59577614849797786802011-01-13T14:33:00.000-05:002014-09-26T10:48:15.695-04:00station back online[<i>The following is a slightly edited version of an email I sent to Jim Hendee (CHAMP principal investigator) on January 13th, 2011. It summarizes the results of a visit by Jack Stamates (FACE project) and myself to the station that morning, where our intention was to investigate <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2011/01/transmitter-failure.html">what might have caused the station to stop transmitting on December 29th, 2010</a>.</i>]<br />
<br />
On January 13th, 2011, I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jack and I visited the station this morning. The entire base (?) lost power for a week over new year's, Dec 27th to Jan 3rd. [This was apparently due to a disastrous FP&L screwup. Jack knows/understands more of the details of this.]<br />
<br />
The station batteries performed beautifully and everything continued to operate normally (ADCP, CT, logger, WXT) except the sat transmitter. So we lost no data whatsoever. Jack was thrilled with this test of the station's operation during an extended power loss. Great design!<br />
<br />
The one weak point continues to be the ancient satellite transmitter. At the battery levels recorded by the logger, even the transmitter should have continued to operate normally. But something about those slightly-lower voltage levels, or possibly there were repeated voltage drops or spikes, something spooked the transmitter. It was NOT in failsafe mode (I could see that when I connected directly to the transmitter) but it had stopped communicating with the logger, so it had no data to transmit. Pushing the failsafe-reset button seems to have brought it back to life. Remember, this is one of those old SAT-HDR-GOES transmitters, the last one (of five original) that still works at all.<br />
<br />
Mike J+</blockquote>
Note that while Jack and I were visiting, we again downloaded all available ADCP data and swapped datalogger memory cards, an operation that normally occurs about once a month.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-81411308332863033672011-01-05T11:01:00.000-05:002014-09-26T09:39:46.193-04:00transmitter failure[<i>The following post is a copy of an email message I wrote to Jack Stamates on January 5th, 2011. Transmissions from the Port Everglades station had stopped on December 29th, 2010, and we were planning to visit the site to see what may have gone wrong.</i>]<br />
<br />
On January 5th, 2011, I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've updated all of my spreadsheets and data files with the most recently retrieved data card, from November 9th. I've also had a closer look at the data from immediately before the station stopped transmitting, and there's a suggestion that something weird started happening a few days before.<br />
<br />
The first hint of trouble was a skipped transmission on Monday, December 27th at 1pm local time. When transmissions resumed in the next hour, the voltage diagnostics looked different than before. The logger reports min, max and average voltage numbers -- normally the min numbers hang around 12.8V, the average at 13V, and the max around 13.8V.<br />
<br />
Beginning Monday afternoon, the max and average value both dropped to about 12.8V and the min fell below 12.5V. Things went on like that for about two days until transmissions ceased on Wednesday night (Dec 29th) at about 8pm local.<br />
<br />
So this probably isn't the same transmitter-failure problem we've seen in the past. The sure sign of that problem is that the GPS acquisition times go through the roof in the times leading up to the failure, and there was no sign of that in this case.<br />
<br />
It would seem the station has a power issue of some kind. This could mean that something weird is going on with the external power source; or the datalogger might be suffering some kind of power problem internally; or something connected to the logger might have short-circuited. [In the past, we've seen something similar when an underwater instrument has a bulkhead failure and floods, shorting power to ground and draining the power supply of all the other instruments.] There is no sign of trouble with the CT numbers that I can see in those past few days, or the meteorological instruments.<br />
<br />
So anyhow, I'd suggest you prepare yourself for a wider range of problems when you go. If you want me to meet you there, let me know, it's usually no trouble since I live so close. Also, there's no guarantee that this is a transmitter-only problem, so you may find that the logger hasn't been storing the CT data to its memory card in the last week.<br />
<br />
I've formatted your spare memory card so you can swap them out during your next visit. I'll bring in by your office today.<br />
<br />
Mike J+</blockquote>
<br />Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-33463169882260734692010-11-09T11:59:00.000-05:002014-09-25T14:42:14.534-04:00data downloads, 2010Between the station's equipment/programming update on April 16th, 2010 and its next on-site intervention on January 13th, 2011, FACE continued their routine of (roughly) monthly visits for downloading the ADCP's data reserves and swapping datalogger memory cards. These visits gave us semi-regular access to ADCP data, which weren't included in the station's near-real time transmissions, allowed us to "patch" holes in our archives where occasional transmissions had been dropped, and gave us access to the more time-granular (5-second, 30-second, 1-minute, 6-minute) stored data that weren't included in the hourly transmission.<br />
<br />
Between April 16th, 2010 and January 13th, 2011, these data-download visits took place on:<br />
<ul>
<li>May 19th, 2010</li>
<li>June 24th, 2010</li>
<li>August 6th, 2010</li>
<li>September 10th, 2010</li>
<li>November 9th, 2010</li>
</ul>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-79497810024437292282010-09-10T16:10:00.000-04:002014-09-26T09:11:51.794-04:00station goes offline, and is revived (yet again)On August 16th, 2010, Jim Hendee (CHAMP principal investigator) asked about our automated status reports, that were showing an absence of data from Port Everglades. I first replied briefly:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Port Everglades transmissions went offline on August 4th and have not resumed. Probably a transmitter/GPS problem, but I'm working with the data downloads now and I'll send an update if/when I learn more. </blockquote>
And then I followed up with a more detailed report:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've poked into the data a bit more, so here's a fuller picture of what's going on with the Port Everglades station.<br />
<br />
First of all, it's offline. Its last transmission was at (local) noon on Wednesday, August 4th. We know it's a transmitter-only problem because Jack (by chance) visited the station on Friday, August 6th and collected the latest memory card, so we can look at two more days' worth of data since the failure.<br />
<br />
And it's worth saying that, as far as I know, FACE doesn't need satellite transmissions for its work. I believe Jack uses the 6-minute granular CT data that I extract from the memory cards, not the near-real time transmissions. Of course it's good to have the near-real time stuff so we know immediately if the equipment fails, but it's not (as far as I know) a must-have for FACE.<br />
<br />
On the ICON side, we prefer to have the satellite transmissions working, because that's kinda what we do. We track our uptime statistics and we feed our numbers to NDBC, so we're generally happier if the transmitter is working.<br />
<br />
Anyhow, PVGF1 uses one of our old SAT-HDR-GOES transmitters, and it's been in steady decline since the end of April. It seems like it's a problem with the GPS subsystem. The old SAT-HDR-GOES can't transmit unless it gets a GPS fix before every transmission (by contrast the new TX312 will continue to transmit for one month even if all of the GPS satellites were to simultaneously fall into the ocean). In April we started seeing GPS timeouts when it reached started to go 5 minutes without a fix (normally it takes less than a minute).<br />
<br />
By the end of May, these timeouts were happening regularly, about once a day. The odd thing is that a regular pattern developed where transmissions would fail for three or four hours every day beginning at about 1 PM local. If I had to guess, I might say that the problem is exacerbated by higher temperatures in the box?<br />
<br />
On August 4th the error codes switched from a GPS error to a failsafe error. This means that the transmitter has probably kicked into failsafe mode again. I think Jack knows how to reset the failsafe on the transmitter, and he should try doing this the next time he visits.<br />
<br />
But the big picture is that the transmitter itself is probably failing. One of the old SAT-HDR-GOES that we had at Molasses Reef failed in much the same way. We have four of these guys in all -- one running at Molasses, one failing at Port Everglades, and the other two in my office but I haven't been able to make either of them work, I think they are both dead.<br />
<br />
So our options are:<br />
<ul>
<li>reset the failsafe on the transmitter and hope it works a while longer</li>
<li>allow the transmitter to fail and just get data by memory card</li>
<li>replace the transmitter with a TX312</li>
<li>something more exotic, maybe use the cellular modem once it's freed up</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
Jack visited the station on September 10th, 2010, and then reported:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I did the transmitter reset today 9/10/10 at about 13:00 EDT. Hope it works.</blockquote>
And indeed Jack's action was successful, as I confirmed by email later that same day:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It's transmitting, at least for now. It's got two full transmissions so far. I'll cross my fingers and hope it lasts a while!</blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-72367442050300838072010-05-27T17:02:00.000-04:002014-09-25T16:59:13.071-04:00some transmission problemsIn an email written May 27th, 2010, I wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I've been updating my data spreadsheets and I noticed that the Port Everglades station has been dropping more satellite transmissions lately. The problem is intermittent and from the diagnostics it is related to GPS acquisition timeouts. So either the GPS subsystem is failing in the old SAT-HDR-GOES (bad) or there's a problem with the GPS antenna itself (not as bad).<br /><br />The problem seems to have begun at the end of April (on April 27th, more or less). This doesn't coincide with any of Jack's visits and it doesn't follow very closely on the April 16th work, so it doesn't seem like it's a result of moving things around in the box.<br /><br />We dropped 6 records in March (which is normal), 11 records in April, and 23 records so far in May. So the problem might be getting worse but it's still not serious. And you could argue that the near-real-time transmissions are of secondary importance for this site since Jack (I think) depends more heavily on the 6-minute datasets that we retrieve from the memory cards.<br /><br />Anyhow, something to keep an eye on. Keep in mind that we don't have any more working SAT-HDR-GOES units. We do have some GPS antennae but I can't be sure if they're functional without a SAT-HDR-GOES to test on.</blockquote>
<br />Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-63730258363374027412010-04-16T23:59:00.000-04:002014-09-25T13:59:44.510-04:00CT failure and swap, programming correctionA newly-calibrated CT was deployed on March 22, 2010, and within four days it had failed. It was later discovered to have flooded and was discarded as irreparable. It is not certain why it failed.<br />
<br />
In any case, plans were quickly made to repeat the events of March 22nd, when the entire system was powered down so that the CTs could safely be swapped underwater. This was scheduled for April 16th, 2010. At the same time, a new program was updated to fix a configuration issue with the transmitter (it had been reporting on the wrong PID, a data-processing inconvenience) and add some more granularly reporting data tables (5-second and 30-second averages, maxima and minima).<br />
<br />
This time the new CT worked fine, and the programming/transmission changes had their intended effect.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-18555703806782879482010-03-22T23:59:00.000-04:002014-09-25T16:52:56.500-04:00CT swapped, barometer added, programming updated<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqHwHHLmOE3zYYocZIeCoBZUnEwUlcMb9ianmyO6LyzycZDjakrVldeYVEbuFWTeRMGcWx7IAYSOslLk7-8ZzY7g2vh3AcTDxFYKcodBjiqDCP6X44593DNV10b-E-2w9uFZoSb_d3F4/s1600/DSC00426.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqHwHHLmOE3zYYocZIeCoBZUnEwUlcMb9ianmyO6LyzycZDjakrVldeYVEbuFWTeRMGcWx7IAYSOslLk7-8ZzY7g2vh3AcTDxFYKcodBjiqDCP6X44593DNV10b-E-2w9uFZoSb_d3F4/s1600/DSC00426.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A view of the PVGF1 CT, sticking up at center with cable emerging from </i>below.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Given that this station's first CT had been deployed on March 19th, 2009, plans were made to swap it out in March of 2010. The CT's cable was arranged in a buried conduit running from the station's electronics box to the water's edge and then along the channel's bottom to the base of the channel marker it was mounted on. The cable was arranged in such a way that there was not sufficient slack to bring it to the surface, dry it off, and switch sensors without powering the entire system down. Therefore we coordinated schedules to make sure we had who we needed on site to safely power down the station and verify that it had started correctly afterwards.<br />
<br />
We also took this opportunity to add an analog barometer to the system, t<a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2009/08/regarding-accuracy-of-stations-barometer.html">o settle any questions about the reliability of the barometric pressure reports</a> from the Vaisala WXT ("weather transmitter"). And the programming was enhanced to begin storing 1-minute averages, minima and maxima as well as adding more parameters to the 6-minute data table.<br />
<br />
In an oversight, the program was deployed with a satellite transmission platform id (PID) which has been used to test the program at AOML before deployment. This proved to be a minor inconvenience for data processing and was corrected at the next programming update a month later.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-72038031427529651582010-03-11T23:58:00.000-05:002014-09-25T14:42:29.510-04:00data downloads, 2009-2010This station was installed on <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-station-installed-crewsface-hybrid.html">March 19th, 2009</a> and its programming was updated on <a href="http://pvgf1-log.blogspot.com/2009/05/programming-update-station-photos.html">May 21st, 2009</a>. After this update, FACE adopted a routine of visits on roughly a monthly basis for accessing the ADCP and downloading its data via the cables that run into the main datalogger box. During each visit, the datalogger's CF Memory card would be removed and replaced with another, blank card. The old card's data would then be used to "patch" any holes in the station's satellite transmissions, and certain more granularly-timed data (10-minute averages and maxima/minina through May 21st, and 6-minute data thereafter) would become available for CHAMP/FACE analysis.<br />
<br />
The next significant station equipment/programming update would take place on March 22nd, 2010. ADCP and memory-card downloads in the period between May 2009 and March 2010 occurred as follows:<br />
<ul>
<li>June 5th, 2009</li>
<li>July 7th, 2009</li>
<li>July 31st, 2009</li>
<li>August 28th, 2009</li>
<li>September 24th, 2009</li>
<li>October 13th, 2009</li>
<li>November 16th, 2009</li>
<li>January 15th, 2010</li>
<li>March 11th, 2010</li>
</ul>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-77455528232772988042009-11-19T13:05:00.000-05:002014-09-25T16:49:08.027-04:00station goes offline, and is revived (again)On November 3rd, 2009 I sent out an email reporting that the station had stopped transmitting again:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The PVGF1 Port Everglades station stopped transmitting this past weekend. Its last transmission was sent at approximately 6:24pm local time on Saturday, October 31st.<br /><br />I know you [Jack Stamates] were planning to visit the station after the cruise is over. You might want to involve myself or Mike Shoemaker in the trip, or possibly, one of us Mikes might want to visit the station earlier than that, if we have the ability to open the box and permission to visit the Naval Base.<br /><br />I'll look to see if there are any suspicious signs in the final transmissions but it looks like it's a clean break (i.e., no gradual power loss, no partial transmissions). This may be a repeat of what happened last July. Shoe fixed things that time, I think he may have just opened up the box and power-cycled the system.</blockquote>
Jack responded on November 5th, 2009 with the following update:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I pulled the power plug on the Campbell and the Sat transmiter, left the power off for a 30 sec then re inserted the plug... Apparently this did not fix the problem.</blockquote>
Jack was able to visit the station again on November 16th, and on November 17th, 2009 I sent out the following update:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jack visited the Port Everglades station again yesterday, and power-cycled the logger and transmitter. He also swapped out the memory cards and brought me the retrieved card. This didn't have any effect on transmissions (i.e., we are still offline, and have been since October 31st). But I now have a memory card to answer some questions about the equipment.<br /><br />First off, the datalogger seems to be perfectly ok. It has been logging data nonstop since October 31st, right up until the card's retrieval yesterday.<br /><br />Secondly, the transmitter is on, it is communicating with the logger, and it is continuing to acquire GPS fixes normally. However, the error codes indicate that its failsafe mode has been tripped. Basically it must have sensed conditions (voltage spike? temperature extreme?) that could have led to permanent damage, and it shut down its transmission systems. Power-cycling will NOT reset the failsafe. Instead, the "reset" button must be held down for at least 4 seconds, which will trigger a 60-second reset procedure. It is entirely possible that this is all that is needed to get the station transmitting again.<br /><br />Other considerations: I currently have one other SAT-HDR-GOES transmitter, which I am testing on the roof. It is not yet working. I am also testing an updated pvgf1 logger program on the roof (among other things, this would add one of our old GE/Druck barometers, so I could sanity-check the air pressures returned by the WXT). The new logger program (unlike the spare transmitter) IS working.<br /><br />The bottom line is that our next logical step should probably be to do the transmitter-reset procedure on Jack's next visit. I'd also like to visit the station to upgrade the programming and equipment, but I'm not ready yet.</blockquote>
Jack returned to Port Everglades and this time did a failsafe-reset on the satellite transmitter, which restarted the satellite transmissions. I sent out the following update on November 19th, 2009:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Jack did a reset of the sat-hdr-goes transmitter at Port Everglades (pvgf1), and that seems to have done the trick. We've received our first transmission from that station, with hopefully many more to come. Good work, Jack!</blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-33081244219697308622009-09-14T12:36:00.000-04:002014-09-26T10:49:11.388-04:00low salinity readings, reliability of CT cleaningsOn September 14th, 2009, Jack Stamates (FACE project) sent out an update about the Port Everglades CT. He had noticed that the salinity readings had been unreasonably low, and in response he had contacted the dive company he was paying to do monthly instrument cleanings.<br />
<br />
This resulted in an immediately resolution of the problem, and the CT salinity readings were once again reasonable. It appears as though the contracted divers had not been adhering to the monthly CT cleaning schedule they'd agreed to. Jack raised to issue to the awareness of the AOML dive collective and resolved to monitor the situation more closely from here on out.Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-27339008423630246102009-08-12T13:29:00.000-04:002014-09-25T16:08:34.228-04:00regarding the accuracy of the station's barometer[The following are excerpts of an email conversation between myself and Rex Hervey of NDBC. When CHAMP first started feeding data from this station to NDBC, some questions were raised about the accuracy of its barometric pressure readings. It so happened we had some similar questions about the WXT barometric pressures at <a href="http://lcci1-log.blogspot.com/">LCIY2</a> at the same time. In due course of time we determined that the pressure readings were all correct within instrument tolerances, and later (March 2010) we would add a redundant analog barometer to PVGF1 just to be sure. Still, the model analyses shared by Rex are interesting enough to include on this blog.]<br />
<br />
On June 25th, 2009, Rex wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We are releasing the data from Port Everglades with the exception of pressure. It looks like it is about one mb low. We will continue to watch it. If you can apply an offset, I can give you one after we have more time to look at it. Picture is not up yet, but here is the web page: <a href="http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=PVGF1">http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=PVGF1</a></blockquote>
My reply on July 5th, 2009 was:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Can you tell me more about how you know the station's air pressure is off? I assume you're comparing it with reports from surrounding stations but I'd like to know which ones. The WXT520 weather transmitter is newly-calibrated and I'm not aware that we've had any problems with them in the past.<br />
<br />
I could also put a standalone barometer out there for comparison purposes, although that will have to wait until we can coordinate another visit.</blockquote>
Rex followed up on July 6th, 2009 with:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It is compared to surrounding stations and numerical model analyses. Now that we have had a week or so to look at it, the bias is only about .3 to .4 mb low compared to model analyses. That is within limits, so we will release it.</blockquote>
On August 12th I asked for another look at the situation, and Rex replied the same day with the following text and images:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I sent some plots comparing the baro reading with the NWS numerical model analyses. Green Xs are from the model. One is over the last 2 months; the other is over the last month. It appears as though it may be drifting closer to the model results over time. Overall it is -.26 mb off, and more recently only -.15 mb off. My initial evaluation after start up was only over a few observations. I clearly should have given it more time.
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SflYkylaLkDWqVdjRa4-5JoqOAbFdGRwuDN-QDXDXsNjHzorbzPouz8T614PXwxRMd0jiacx19fmEqchA-F__Uat4OeP_0ONaxD6f59jnv5bK0OfTAtyxvlzz-q76m6idU0uKsjEvOQ/s1600/one+month.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7SflYkylaLkDWqVdjRa4-5JoqOAbFdGRwuDN-QDXDXsNjHzorbzPouz8T614PXwxRMd0jiacx19fmEqchA-F__Uat4OeP_0ONaxD6f59jnv5bK0OfTAtyxvlzz-q76m6idU0uKsjEvOQ/s1600/one+month.gif" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>One month.</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitK5tWbY1w0NGuYw3R4kvxx8XOwAfRQ1x4VKvrBAIEFLdFWrRkXf2IE67tbVwCsIeKyAIrCpH-BM0sUX5H3MWJ5y9RZyCDe9U6A9vvnNx-pKOsoURufECrBTT1f4w2JXc-xD-heTfmhyphenhyphen0/s1600/two+months.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitK5tWbY1w0NGuYw3R4kvxx8XOwAfRQ1x4VKvrBAIEFLdFWrRkXf2IE67tbVwCsIeKyAIrCpH-BM0sUX5H3MWJ5y9RZyCDe9U6A9vvnNx-pKOsoURufECrBTT1f4w2JXc-xD-heTfmhyphenhyphen0/s1600/two+months.gif" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Two months.</i></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-64513542561641142432009-08-03T15:34:00.000-04:002014-09-25T16:22:24.733-04:00station goes offline, and is revivedOn July 20th, 2009, I received an email from Rex Hervey (NDBC) about issues relating to data feeds (current and planned) from our <a href="http://srvi2-log.blogspot.com/">St. Croix</a> and <a href="http://lcci1-log.blogspot.com/">Little Cayman</a> CREWS stations. As an afterthought Rex said: "Also, we haven't received data from the Port Everglades station for a while now."<br />
<br />
He wasn't the only one who'd noticed. Tom Carsey on July 21st, 2009, sent his own trouble report: "Evidently the Pt. Everglades site has not transmitted since July 12."<br />
<br />
Following up on Rex's report (I was in Little Cayman helping install the new CREWS station at the time, and hadn't see Tom's message yet), I commented in email:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Rex at NDBC mentioned that our Port Everglades data feed went offline. Checking the archives, it seems like it's been offline for about nine days. It's difficult for me to investigate further from the field, but I thought I'd mention in case others wanted to look into it further.<br />
<br />
The last transmission (that I see) was at 13:42 UTC on day 193 (Sunday morning, the 12th??).</blockquote>
Lew Gramer, who was the acting CHAMP sysadmin in my absence, followed up on July 21st, 2009:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Yes, the last transmission from the Port Everglades station that I see in the archives on our server is still the one on Sunday 12 July at 13:24 GMT. I checked the "usual" diagnostic data from the last day's transmissions (station and datalogger voltages, transmitter forward vs. reflected power, data and error counts, etc.), all seemed normal. Jack is out of town all week as well, but Shoe located that key and will travel to check the site out tomorrow... </blockquote>
As Lew indicated, Mike Shoemaker (a/k/a "Shoe") traveled up to the Port Everglades site on the morning of July 22nd and was able to bring the station back online. Lew sent out the following report about Mike's intervention later that afternoon:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mike Shoemaker visited the Port Everglades monitoring station this morning, reset everything, opened the station door for a while and let it air out / cool off. The station has begun transmitting again: the 14:24 and 15:24 UT transmissions have been received, and were both well-formated. (Shoe, the last hourly transmission has reasonable looking salinity and sea temperature also.)<br />
<br />
Shoe believes part of the reason for the sudden failure in early July may be that the enclosure holds too much heat. We checked, and the hourly mean "panel temperature" climbed above 36oC (97oF) or 50 of the hours when we got regular transmissions in late June and early July. Max PTemp was 38.8oC. (Shoe, went down from 32.7 last hour to 31.9 just now, so at least isn't getting worse.) Jack and Mike J., when you both get back, Shoe has ideas for how to fix this.</blockquote>
Following Jack's next data-recovery visit on July 31st, I reviewed the patched data archives and was able to produce the following email summary of the incident on August 3rd, 2009:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
There was NO interruption in datalogger activity in this period. As far as I can tell from a brief look at the logger/transmitter diagnostics, the problem was specific to the transmitter. Either the transmitter stopped working, or it merely stopped communicating with the datalogger. Either way, Shoe's power-reset appears to have fixed the problem, although there's no guarantee that it won't happen again.</blockquote>
<br />Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-74783111176753520542009-06-11T17:04:00.000-04:002014-09-26T10:49:31.919-04:00depths of the underwater instruments [<i>The following is an excerpt from an email by Jack Stamates (FACE project) relating to the positions of the underwater sensors at this site.</i>]<br />
<br />
On June 11th, 2009, Jack wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The average depth of the ADCP is 1.9m and the CT sensor is 20-30cm higher in the water column than that. So, lets say 1.65m.<br />
<br />
The depth of the deep CT will depend on the topography where we put the mount but it will be about 12m-13m.<br />
<br />
Since the rains have started there is definitely more flow out then before.</blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-4298667178119610632009-05-22T16:11:00.000-04:002014-09-26T09:42:04.092-04:00ADCP firmware, mounting stabilized, CT cleaning schedule[<i>The following is an excerpt from an email from Jack Stamates (FACE project) that touches on some topics concerned this station's ADCP, its underwater mounting, and plans for regular cleanings of the CT.</i>]<br />
<br />
On May 22nd, 2009, Jack writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To fill in some details, RD has offered us a firmware Beta version but I am reluctant to deploy it because, if it hangs the instrument up, I am in deep trouble. (I would need to recover the instrument and open the case.) Once the Firmware is declared operational (which should be soon) I will give it a try. Today, the divers stabilized the mounting which was drifting a bit. They also cleaned the CT sensor. This will now be done monthly. The divers reported that there was a fair amount of fouling.</blockquote>
Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-13644058722706778832009-05-21T23:59:00.000-04:002014-09-25T13:13:35.294-04:00programming update, station photos<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlizRDO_C8q9q4Afr_QwY7A-t8gNnBDzGoeUfR07_ZDXhVTSHp9F2LWqGlMyq5pMqK9ND1H8UkfYS0-jDM0gq0AwJXx7UgQR369Hh8B3YEMwKSDvymsPX10I-h0i17tW-hUfZxJ81siRw/s1600/DSCN3989.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlizRDO_C8q9q4Afr_QwY7A-t8gNnBDzGoeUfR07_ZDXhVTSHp9F2LWqGlMyq5pMqK9ND1H8UkfYS0-jDM0gq0AwJXx7UgQR369Hh8B3YEMwKSDvymsPX10I-h0i17tW-hUfZxJ81siRw/s1600/DSCN3989.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A view of the completed PVGF1 station, showing the meterological sensors (foreground) and the USCG channel marker where the oceanographic sensors are mounted (background). The station electronics are wholly contained within the box to the left.</i></td></tr>
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<br />
The CREWS/FACE station at Port Everglades today had its datalogger programming updated, and at the same time its locally-stored data were collected from memory. These data downloads will be used to "patch" the archives where any of the hourly satellite transmissions failed to get through, and they also include data from the ADCP which does not report its data to the datalogger for near-real time dissemination.<br />
<br />
New programming updates will now make it possible for us to feed this station's data to the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), whence they will be included in the WMO's Global Telecommunications System (GTS), making them available for use by national weather services all over the world. Look for the station's NDBC reports at: <a href="http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=PVGF1">http://www.ndbc.noaa.gov/station_page.php?station=PVGF1</a><br />
<br />Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7540461412852004053.post-74801188664206731702009-03-19T23:59:00.000-04:002014-09-25T12:26:26.839-04:00new station installed, a CREWS/FACE hybridA new monitoring station has been installed in the shipping channel leading to Port Everglades. It is a collaboration between the <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/themes/CoastalRegional/projects/FACE/faceweb.htm">Florida Area Coastal Environment (FACE)</a> program and the Coral Reef Early Warning System (CREWS) technology developed by the <a href="http://www.coral.noaa.gov/">Coral Health and Monitoring Program (CHAMP)</a>. Both programs operate out of NOAA's <a href="http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/">Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory (AOML)</a>.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLo889N-tN1T11-aIHPR6bPMuYLhP5HKO9d_sPTK7M1FG5VBGPhBhRQcmCTA2Ok9iUZxWJLd6t0A3UD6SYDrmruSQ6wUIi25FznoMfWIocLAs-_tFOyta9fKKm4MpU3HNlx_QjO8g0BvM/s1600/DSCN3972.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLo889N-tN1T11-aIHPR6bPMuYLhP5HKO9d_sPTK7M1FG5VBGPhBhRQcmCTA2Ok9iUZxWJLd6t0A3UD6SYDrmruSQ6wUIi25FznoMfWIocLAs-_tFOyta9fKKm4MpU3HNlx_QjO8g0BvM/s1600/DSCN3972.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Showing an overview of all operations: the dive boat, the channel marker, the running of cables, the trench that was dug, the hard plastic tube that would be buried in the trench, and the sandbags that would be used to weight down the cables at the channel's bottom.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNad6mbOdPFnHQDtotcMAipfOK_TAWZhLE639O8yTcYjba1rPdblMmUZwvQ4CsXUgIMAklXX_zBi5H1kCbyNDVCH89hfZpoKWCg_-XdVDZOW0hpAFiPZGwHODXAWT6d3BXyI7LG7Wxrs/s1600/DSCN3976.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnNad6mbOdPFnHQDtotcMAipfOK_TAWZhLE639O8yTcYjba1rPdblMmUZwvQ4CsXUgIMAklXX_zBi5H1kCbyNDVCH89hfZpoKWCg_-XdVDZOW0hpAFiPZGwHODXAWT6d3BXyI7LG7Wxrs/s1600/DSCN3976.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The electronics technicians at work.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAuJ25IJECtguqIfIXvMdRJptvAb6iMzCDj0a7kSvnZwfrUmXOhmDmIBodqMPUwwqQS4ZrUKitdyiutv1O24I7e4480OOHazMb_OOhmj08arDuXvd4XXKg1PPVYfWdvd_T61lBuS4oHkc/s1600/DSCN3978.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAuJ25IJECtguqIfIXvMdRJptvAb6iMzCDj0a7kSvnZwfrUmXOhmDmIBodqMPUwwqQS4ZrUKitdyiutv1O24I7e4480OOHazMb_OOhmj08arDuXvd4XXKg1PPVYfWdvd_T61lBuS4oHkc/s1600/DSCN3978.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The weatherproof box with the station's datalogger, satellite transmitter, and extensive battery backups.</i></td></tr>
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The station includes meteorological sensors (wind, air pressure, air temperature, relative humidity, precipitation) and controlling electronics in a package installed on land, on property controlled by the US Navy. These electronics are powered by a land-based power feed (essentially everything is just plugged into an electrical outlet) but incorporate a series of four rechargeable batteries capable of running the systems for more than a week even in the absence of the external power feed. The land-based portion of the station is connected by cabling to two underwater instruments installed directly on the nearby USCG channel marker #7, an Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) and a Conductivity/Temperature sensor (CT). Salinity measurements are calculated from the conductivities and temperatures reported by the CT.<br />
<br />
All instruments save the ADCP will report in near-real time. The ADCP will log its measurements internally and its data will be downloaded manually on a roughly monthly basis.<br />
<br />
Current data are available online (<a href="http://www.coral.noaa.gov/static/data_pvgf1_Web_12.html">http://www.coral.noaa.gov/static/data_pvgf1_Web_12.html</a>) and will soon be fed automatically to NOAA's National Data Buoy Center (NDBC).Mike Jankulakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06427605123226879180noreply@blogger.com