Tech Staff Meeting Notes June 6, 2005

Current Top Priorities are:GPS, Station Maintenance, The Todo List

There are four levels of priority.
PrioritiesWish to try to get these done before the next meeting (yeah right)
Second TierFit this in too if an opportunity arises. May be good to do instead of priorities but check with Mitch. Likely to be a priority in a previous and/or subsequent month
As Time PermitsFit these in when you can but not instead of first or second priorities
OtherStuff we hope to get to and don't want to forget about


Priorities

GPS
Reelfoot. Many of the air cells are dead. Of the ones that are and have been used, they seem to last about 4-5 days. Davis will get with Steiner to come up with a plan to get this on solar. Then we "only" need to go once a month or so to download data. Bob will acquire 4 raydomes to replace damaged ones.
Chris will integrate routine maintenance trip to all GPS sites for visual check, kudzu control, battery check, repaint masts, etc. Also check them out for best way to build/install a cover to help control temperature.
Steele and Charleston are still dialup. What's the best way to get them real-time? Charleston might be line of site to NMAD. At 1sps they generate about 32M/day. Internet at NWCU and RLAP is about to go away. There is a local tower. Need to come up with a communications scheme for these two also. All this could be done keeping in mind Bob's intention to submit a proposal to make the network more dense.
The following stations need to have receivers replaced for RMA repair: HCES, PTGV, MACC, and MLTY. Done.

ANSS. Began swapping all sensors; Filipcic is taking the lead and keeping records. Got another nine and Parker replaced the Charleston ones. Filipcic is keeping track on his access spreadsheet.
Need to get HDAR integrated into aztnworm real-time. Needs upgrade to year3 hardware and need to add telemetry.
East St Louis station is up.
MVKY needs attention. Brewer will order a replacement MSS100.
Made some progress on TRSC. Brewer will get with the IT guy there (John Ryan) to reconfigure the mss100 to conform to there new firewall/network.

Routine Maintenance. Mitch needs to make sure he leaves few weeks this summer to hit all stations. Working on the couple stations that have problems.

CWPT got hit by lightning and damaged the borehole casing. Need to drill a new hole and reinstall. Can't get access with the giddings while crops are in so this will need to wait several months.

RSCM was destroyed by vandals. This is the third time. It is a quiet and optimally located within the network. Need to replace and/or move if a suitable alternative can be found within a few kilometers.

Buddy has a person coming in the week of June 20. They need to do some work with the Giddings in southern Illinois probably for about a week. He'll need some training and we need someone to go with him.


Second Tier Priorities

I-40 Bridge. There are several problems remaining. Mysterious glitches, 3 dead sensors, problem with borehole sensor at W28. Brewer made much additional progress on the digital side of things though there is still work to do. Not yet declared operational.

GA Tech guys will be here week of June 19. Bollwerk is coordinating.

BB network upgrade. Steiner will check with Qualtron.

FDL. Bodin came back from Austin with a ton of stuff to do. We'll start keeping fdl notes in a separate fdl section.

CVTN and ASAR optical isolation. Need to upgrade to year 3 hardware. Hardware ready. Filipcic needs to install.

Steiner McGoldrick are going to ET to help John and to recon proposed STAR improvements on June 13.

Update from Parker
The mttn storage shed is moved and the athens storage shed is repaired. ASTN and RBNC are repaired. The landowner for PLVA had changed, we are O.K. for the time being, but if they start building houses up there, we may be in trouble. Permissions for BHT, Maryville, and LRVA (Lonesome Ridge VA on Powell Mtn.) are in the pipes. Permission to use the forest service tower at CCRT should be coming any day. VHTN is permissioned and installation is planned for July.

Hester acquired some funds to install an ANSS strongmo station at NHIN. Mitch got a pledge from NEIC for a CMG5. Reckon we gotta figure out how to do it now.

McGoldrick will pick up the camera for Star Mountain from Betty while he's there. Then we can mock it up here and figure out exactly how we're going to install it.


As Time Permits

Battery charging station. Need a hood and eyewash.

Pressure wash and paint MKTA equipment hut.


Other

Greg provided a todo list that is integrated into this list but for reference, the original is here.

MPHB. Withers needs to determine current orientation so we can pull it and orient correctly. Helicorders look strange. Need to verify the data.

Timing. Steiner has an easy way to generate a datastream that goes high when lock is lost. Need a mask to decide what streams to use. Need mechanism to produce alarms. BB stations more difficult. How do we automate the status stream or even get it back to Memphis for logging? (Save it to file with Scream?). Note, new version of firmware sends status to both flash and stream. Hence, information will be in gcf2ew logs, but how do we monitor that? Maybe not a huge deal with broadbands since both Bollwerk and Brewer regularly monitor. Would still be good to have a record though.

North Carolina station refurbish. Keep node at LRNC. Modify to be the same as a New Madrid node and minimize internet bandwidth required.

VBMS. New vault will be used. Working on modified budget.

GAI. BB-13 from Gainesville is running in the vault along with three other sensors. Withers submitted analysis report (sensor is fine) to Benz et al. Ray Russo is out of town for a month. Will just let it run and then send the bb-13 back to him when he returns. Have a bunch of continuous data from the four sensors in dat4/mseed.

Langston student projects

Both of these are more or less complete from our perspective and they have been handed off to the respective students.

McNamara PDF. Filipcic acquired the software and is installing. Brewer will help him.


Greg presented the idea of removing the shaping filter on some of the ISIS stations. This would increase the high frequency response and possibly lower the detection threshold of the network. I'm not so sure I'm a fan of this. Yes, it would be good to remove it on all stations but not unless we're pulling them all for some other reason. I'd really rather not have a few stations different from the rest.