Tech Staff Meeting Notes September 12, 2005

Current Top Priorities are:Station Maintenance, Broadband Upgrade, I40 Bridge

There are four levels of priority.

Priorities Wish to try to get these done (or make progress on) before the next meeting (yeah right)

Second Tier Fit 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 Permits Fit these in when you can but not instead of first or second priorities

Other Stuff we hope to get to and don't want to forget about

Priorities

BB network upgrade.
Greg says there's no viable workaround for the Qualtron radios. We'll start with the freewave stations and go from there. Need to do collect a month of data for each dm24 and look at the pdf.

GPS
Reelfoot. Now on solar. Have permission to run a trench with AC power (and data?). Could do this with or without building remod.
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. Much of the routine work done; still need to paint masts. Davis came up with a good, cost-effective cooling solution.
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. Dialup stations need new modems.
James and Chris found 3 possible sites in middle TN. James is working on a proposal to the school board for the permission. Smalley will decide how and where to proceed.
All the receivers need to be put on a rotation for RMA replacement. Four are at the factory now (this note is from August, not sure how many are at the factory).

ANSS.
Sensor swapping continues; Filipcic is taking the lead and keeping records.
CVTN and ASAR optical isolation. Need to upgrade to year 3 hardware. Hardware ready. Filipcic needs to install.
gcf2ew mysteriously loses connection and enters a race condition. A kill and restart and it works fine. Have no clue why this is happening. Temporarily installed a script to monitor for this and kill racing modules.

Routine Maintenance. Mitch needs to make sure he leaves enough 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.

GMG cavity filter works well but we're still losing alot of signal. Need to move antenna and transmitter to the tower on top of the mountain. Greg has some ideas (audio optical isolation of all things) for lightning protection.

I-40 Bridge.
Wrapping up of loose ends and replacing bad sensors, disks, etc will begin this week in conjunction with some TDOT lane closures. This will likely take a couple days and a time here and there over the next several weeks.

Star Mountain camera installation is scheduled for the week of October 3.

Second Tier Priorities

FDL. Bodin came back from Austin with a ton of stuff to do. We'll start keeping fdl notes in a separate fdl section. Mitch distributed a list of systems developed by Paul along with names of people who will fill in the inventory of each system.

As Time Permits

Other

NHIN.
Waiting on grant addendum at CUSEC and can then order DSL with CUSEC as the billing address.

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. Discussed some other possibilities for this. Mitch does not want a second node.

VBMS. Everything is in order and ready to go. Installation will be this fall depending on schedule of contractor. Greg may visit during installation if schedule permits.

Langston student projects continue. Not clear how to calibrate the infrasound. Maybe Hank Bass at Oxford can provide guidance.

Priorities	Wish to try to get these done (or make progress on) before the next meeting (yeah right)
Second Tier	Fit 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 Permits	Fit these in when you can but not instead of first or second priorities
Other	Stuff we hope to get to and don't want to forget about