Monday
17 November 1997 - AASTO completely stuffed
From
John Storey
Greetings
from the Pole! It's not good news, I'm afraid. Mcba - could
you please ensure that this message gets to Jack - I'm not
sure of his address.
There
is *no* freon in the sight tube. The freon pressure guage
reads zero. There is massive corrosion of the area around
the exhaust stack (inside the AASTO). I don't know what corodes
stainless-steel braided hose, but this stuff has had a real
good go. Remember the aluminium can the Brownell valve came
in? Coroded right through. A lot of stuff is completely ok.
However, it seems that anything that was *cold* has condensed
out something extraordinarilly viscious onto it, which has
then proceeded to chomp it to death. The top of the TEG unit
is coroded, and covered in white powder and yellow stuff.
The aluminium tape on Ethan's experiment near the port hole
is coroded. (Did I mention that Ethan's experiment is fully
installed, complete with computer, electronics, blackbody
source and scanning head?).
Also
badly hit are the tools, screws etc that were on the bunk
near the window that Paul had propped open. Some of the tools
are beyond recovery. The perspex cover at the base of the
nism has been removed, and the inside of the nism support
box, bull gear etc are covered in white corosion which is
*gooey* - ie I can scrape it off with a screwdriver and frighten
Ant with it.
There
are white crystals of something in little pools on the bunk.
Parts of the rack are coroded, but mostly the electronics
looks ok. Only the things that were exposed to cold seem to
have been attacked.
Another
thing - all the paper in the AASTO is totally brittle - just
like the Dead Sea scrolls. If you pick up a sheet of A4 paper
(a circuit diagram, for example), it just breaks in half.
This
seems to fit a theory of the freon leaking into the burner,
being catalytically converted into HCl and HF, then when Paul
opened the place up and let some things get cold these acids
condensed onto them and chewed them out. If this theory is
correct, Ant and I would *urgently* like answers to the following:
1)
Is this stuff dangerous? (ie - aluminium fluoride, copper
fluoride (yes, the black body heatsink copped it), iron fluoride,
stainless steel fluoride, paper fluoride, etc.)
2)
How do we clean up the mess in a safe way?
3)
Are there other dangers we should know about?
Once
we're sure, we should inform Paul.
I'll
send this message in two parts. Ev Paschal is in for a bit
of a shock when he arrives! Things may actually not be too
bad once we clean the mess up, but we won't know till we have.
Cheers,
john
Part
2......
Well
guys, I thought that was enough bad news for one message,
so here's the rest. The whole program at Pole is about 2~3
weeks behind schedule now. Fred Mrozek arrived on the same
flight we did. None of the stuff we shipped has arrived. It
would be nice to think it was going to arrive real soon now
(along with Ev Paschal - we could reaaly use that guy right
now). However, as I type there are two Hercs parked outside
the dome with all 8 engines *off*.
The
Hercs flew in at mid-afternoon (we were on one), and they
set off full of hope and end-of-season winteroverers, but
then the weather at McMurdo closed in so they returned to
Pole. They sat for about 4 hours with the engines running,
then decided it was silly and turned them off. Rumour has
it they will try to restart them tomorrow, then fly out with
no passengers. I've also heard (from Pernic) that they've
just stuffed a C141 at McMurdo when the doors of the front
landing gear got ripped of in the snow and damaged the airframe.
The C141 is on its way back to the States. (Actually I always
thought those doors were in a silly place...)
Hey,
it's not all bad, there's good news too:
The
AASTO is in great shape (externally). There's a huge snow
drift behind it and a bow wave in front of it, but it's still
clear. There's almost no snow *on* it, or the nism, mism,
or Ethan's thing. (Actually, there's a nice snow drift behind
each of the instruments, but not troubling them. There's snow
packed around the freon heat exchanger. There's *no* ice on
any of the windows (nism/mism). The G-tower is free of snow,
as is the AFOS. Ant climbed the tower and said there's a few
individual particles on the AFOS window. The supervisor computer
is up and running.
The
L-shaped box is alive and well and sitting in the AASTO (Only
mcba knows what this means - I haven't been game to open it).
The only other bit of damage is that one side of the fibreglass
nism box has separated from the foam and peeled off - very
wierd.
Mcba
- I've asked for an IP number etc for the Mac, but knowing
how slow they can be here (and there are already 175 people
here, plus two Herc crews), I plan to use the one we used
for Andre's PC last year. Can you tell me the secret numbers
for gateway, domain, blood group, nationality etc.?
At
least two of the Sonnenscheins have split cases, but no electrolyte
appears to have leaked out - or maybe that's what's eaten
all the other stuff in the AASTO? Hmmm. Interesting theory.
If it leaked on the carpet and then Paul put the heater on
the carpet... I'll check that out tommorrow. All of the DCU
batteries are ok, imcluding the spares. Looks like Jack's
Powersonics cope with the cold better than our German batteries.
Reading
this again I see that it was supposed to contain mostly good
news. Well we're not in McMurdo anymore, the food's great,
Ethan left a Mac 5300 in the AASTO, we finally got a change
of clothes after 4 days in ChCh with our checked bags firmly
crated for the C141, the first Herc we tried to fly to Mactown
in actually *discovered* that there was a gaping hole in one
fuel tank before we ran out of fuel, we didn't catch fire
when we landed again at ChCh (much to the disgust of the 4
fire engines), New Zealand's crops should recover in a year
or two from the 20,000 gallons of JP8 we sprayed over them,
there's a great bunch of videos to watch while we wait for
our stuff to come (including a beaut one called "Head
Cleaning Tape")...
Cheers,
John
Part
3.....
Well,
things went a bit slowly today. Mainly we ran around getting
IP numbers, trying to find out why the phone doesn't work,
who stole our Aussie flag, wondering whether we really *did*
take the Phillips cro back to UNSW (can't find a trace of
it here, and it's supposed to be *dual* trace), and trying
to tink of excuses for not cleaning out the AASTO.
Eventually
we ran out of excuses, raided the Janitor store, and towed
a bunch of cleaning things across on a sled. We also borrowed
the R2D2 vacuum cleaner from MAPO and have started the ugly
task.
Meanwhile
we borrowed a 1500W thermostatted heater, so life is about
to get easier.
I
can talk to the Supervisor computer with the keyboard, but
can't get it to do anything interesting because I've forgotten
what to say to it. When I type "test" it admits
to having 14 Dallases a-dangling, but only condescends to
tell me the temperature of two.
I
can't telnet to the Supervisor from pharlap.
There
is now only one Herc parked forlornly on the forecourt. The
other left this afternoon after they spent four hours getting
it started. The process involved four Herman Nelsons, which
were used to heat the donks and the APU. Apparently once one
engine is running, they can circulate oil from it to the other
3 and warm them up too. I'm not sure if it arrived at McMurdo;
if the weather was bad it was going to divert to Siple Dome.
Actually,
we *did* find a clue to the Phillips cro disappearance - a
broken knob on the carpet. It seems there was a violent struggle,
probably injuries sustained by both parties, but so far no
further trace...
The
386 computer and monitor both have brown goo running out of
them. We put them in plastic garbage bags and sledded them
across to MAPO.
Ant
went off joyfully to talk to Cargo but came back a bit depressed.
Either it was the ugly-looking blokes masquerading as cargoids,
or the fact that the only boxes of our stuff that have arrived
are the ones we don't need yet.
My
driving lesson in the Sprite went a bit flat when the instructor
couldn't get it started. We'll try again tomorrow. The vans
and shuttles aren't running yet. So, with one Sprite un-startable
and the other one missing its key, we ended with no option
but to lug a sled across from the MAPO building. When we got
there we knew exactly how Scott felt - there was a bloody
Sprite sitting there with its engine idling!
Wind
is forecast to drop tomorrow. Does anyone remeber where they
put the G-tower crane at the end of last season? If not, we're
happy to hurl the T-mount off the top, but would prefer to
handle the AFOS more gently.
Andre's
Lindblad is still sitting happily near the G-tower, with very
little snow around it. No doubt it's cheerfully receiving
signals from the LEOs, bouncing them off the end of its transmission
line, and sending them back again.
Ant
reckons we need a whiteboard in the AASTO. Good idea, Ant.
Andre...?
Ok,
back to the cleaning. The spray-on clean everything detergent
(unsuitable for food preparation surfaces) should have thawed
out by now.
Cheers,
John
Part
4......
Thanks
Andre and Mcba for your emails. We're making progress, as
will be seen in a moment.
Today
began with the stranded Herc still sitting outside the dome.
Apparently they got it started, but had the usual problem
of the oil seals on the propellor pitch unit leaking, so they
turned if off again. They'd better move it soon or the local
yobbos will strip it. Already the radio aerial has been bent
and someone has souvenired the hubcaps...
As
I type a second Herc has arrived to rescue it. They've unloaded
a dirty great generator, plus a bunch of Herman Nelson heaters.
There's now a Herman Nelson hooked up to each propellor hub
with a big tube. They're keeping the engines running on the
second Herc; a clear sign of learning behaviour.
We've
located the box with the G-mount crane, and unpacked the box
of useless odd and ends.
Today
we finished cleaning. We soaked all the tools, then scrubbed
them with scouring pads, dried them and put light oil on them.
We now have a usable set of tools, although some look like
they've been salvaged from a marine wreck. I don't know what
it was that attacked all the steel work in the AASTO, but
we've taked some samples which I want to get back to UNSW
to be analysed. Then we should patent it.
We
also cleaned up the electronics rack, which has brown goo
on it that eats through your skin if you touch it. A bit more
vacuuming, and now the AASTO is like a civilised place again.
We got a 1500W thermostatted heater in, and after a bit of
experimenting and a lot of arguing found that if the knob
is vertical the temperature of the AASTO oscillates stably
between 16 and 21C.
We
now have accounts on both pharlap and magnolia. Please send
email here, as we're not necessarily up when the satellites
are.
Something
very bad has happened on the nism power supply board. It seems
to involve the over-voltage protected, short-circuit proof,
over-temperature protected, guaranteed indestructable Siemens
highside switch setting fire to itself. It's also had a go
at the cicuit board and a few other things around it.
This
next bit is mainly interesting to Michael Ashley: namely a
potted history of attempts to talk to the supervisor computer
follows. First we tried a ctrl-alt-s in order to check the
disk drive settings. No response. Then I remember that only
some keyboards can do that (sort of like how only some people
can smell garlic). I therefore swapped it for the one in the
L-shaped box. That didn't work at all. This suggested two
possibilities: 1. someone sent down a dead keyboard as a kind
of pratical joke, or 2. I hadn't plugged it in properly.
It
turned out to be the latter (as a result of trying not to
get eaten by the brown goo). Once that was fixed I checked
the settings: all were ok: Type 48, 1572, 16, none, 1572,
63, 773. Whatever I do, I get: "Fixed Disk Controller
Error".
So
I gave up on the hard disk.
Turning
to the floppy, the one in the slot is AASTO disk backup 2,
RS 10/1/97, which someone has written "old IP numbers"
on. So I downloaded the latest version of the software (aasto-97aaa6.exe)
using an old M*c*nt*sh we found lying around the AASTO, overwrote
the file on the floppy and rebooted aasto.
Then
followed pages of happy little starting messages from aasto
- all about how much fun it was being a computer, how much
it was looking forward to doing calculations for me, finishing
up with: "invalid directory" "This RTK version
contains debug code" (Hey-a Michael! How coma we don't
getta da version without de bug??) "SUPER version 3.0
etc. "Nov 16... hey, how come it knows the date? "can't
open file <cosole.ini> "Error 128 CAN'T_OPEN_FILE..
hey, now it's shouting at me! "Nov 16 08:04:10 SUPER>
Now
that's what I call a good start. It not only reads all 14
dallases, but says where they are. There'll all working, by
the way.
But
we still can't telnet to it!! When it's powered up the green
light on the ethernet hub next to that port comes on, so at
least the hub can see the ethernet card in the aasto. I even
tried a different cable, risking death by brown goo, but no
joy. Also, when the aasto is booting, one of its happy little
"I like being a computer" messages is: Found NE2000
V11 packet driver at INT 0x61 00 40 60 2B 00 FF TTCP kernel
successfully installed which I take to mean that it *thinks*
it can talk to the outside world.
In
the absence of any other ideas, should we dismantle the aasto
and put in a new ethernet card? If so, would a new hard disk
be in order? If so, which one? Most of the brown goo has gone
now, by the way.
End
of bit that's only interesting to mcba. Start of bit that
mcba won't be so interested in. We decided to fire up Ethan's
Mac, partly to see if it had survived a few months of temperatures
down to -79C (not to mention the attack of the brown slime).
I should mention that there was a Compaq 386 PC sitting next
to it (which I would have *much* preferred to use), but there
was a stream of slimy liquid coming out of the monitor, and
the PC itself had cleverly glued itself to the bench with
its own bodily secretions. We prised it off (with difficulty),
put both in plastic bags (the ones they line the dunny with),
and sledded it across to MAPO.
Anyway,
back to the Powerbook 5300. Works fine. Remembers all its
ethernet addresses. Just switch on, click and point. Oh rapture!
(my Mac is still in my bedroom, by the way, on account of
the brown slime).
That's
about enough for one message. Cheers, John
Part
5.....
Good
news at last! Network contact was restored to "super"
today at 3:30pm, via telnet from poodle.spole.gov. We'll leave
it up and running, so mcba you can have a go at contacting
it when next a friendly satellite is up.
Actually,
quite a lot has happened in the past 24 hours. Last night
about 10pm they finally got the stranded Herc running, and
it set of for McMurdo closely followed by the one that came
to rescue it. Unfortunately they chose to leave just as Ant
and I were walking back from the AASTO in a 20 knot wind,
so we had to stand and wait at the edge of the skiway for
yonks. Neither of them came back, so either they made it back
to McMurdo or they crashed and burned.
Today
a couple of CMU students showed up and spent the morning dismantling
their gear and taking it all away (including the Mac). Bother.
That meant I had to take my little Powerbook out and spend
a good 15 seconds setting it up with all the IP numbers and
stuff. I'm using one of our "spare" addresses: 199.4.251.66
- now formally on the name-server as poodle.spole.gov. When
the PC comes down it will use the old address of Andre's "penguin":
199.4.251.68.
(Actually,
I'm more than a little surprised the Powerbook still works.
I planned to take it as carry-on, but at Christchurch I was
told it had to go as hold luggage. I packed it up as best
I could, but then watched as they throw the bags into a 8-foot
cubed crate and a bloke stands on top them all and *jumps*
on the ones that stick up so it all fits. At any moment I
expected to see the whole pallet go into a wool press, or
one of those big machines that crunch cars up until they look
like bricks).
What
else happened today? Mainly good stuff. "Crunch"
came in the night and took away our leaking Sonnenscheins,
plus all the lead- contaminated stuff we could find. The solar
dunny is now working, although the liquid soap dispenser is
still frozen solid.
And....
Ant and I are now fully-qualified Sprite drivers. A Sprite
is a bright yellow thing on caterpillar tracks, that you steer
by pulling back on either of two levers. Pulling back on both
levers makes it stop, with the result that the instructor
goes through the windscreen. Sadly, pushing the levers forward
does not make it go faster. It also has all kinds of beaut
gauges and switches, but the instructor didn't what they were
for so we couldn't play with them. Ant was last seen trying
to perfect a Scandinavian flick, but I have my sights set
on the D9.
More
good stuff. A cargoid brought our crates over, and we unpacked
the Abu electronics rack and the mount. A different cargoid
brought the crate containing the G-mount crane over, plus
the crate to ship the AFOS back. The cargoids are entirely
male and hairy, by the way. (I think I've mentioned this before.
This is not good news.)
Oh
yes, the Siemens high-side switch. Totally protected against
everything (including acts of god) *except* for... not having
its ground pin connected to anything. Nasty. I guess it's
hard to do good switching-type stuff if your feet aren't on
the ground (although I'm reminded of the old saying: "If
you've got your two feet firmly on the ground, how are you
going to put your trousers on?) Anyway, it's a favourite trick
of our otherwise excellent electronics workshop to forget
to solder the odd pin on a PC board. My job is to carefully
check they hadn't. I did. They had. But I obviously hadn't
checked well enough until my attention was drawn to that particular
pin by the spectacular burn marks radiating from that part
of the rack. Amazingly, the board had worked perfectly all
last season.
The
nism batteries are now fully charged - the ELGIPS has backed
off to 0.02A, as well it should.
I
climbed up the G-tower to move the AFOS - it was pointing
about 20 degrees above the horizon, and sooner or later the
sun is going to shine into it. There was a steady 20 knot
(about 40 km/hr) wind blowing, according to the SPIREX wind
monitor. Leaning against the rails, there's a strong vibration.
Even the aluminum lattice flooring shakes. However, bravely
standing on the G-mount itself, with arms wrapped around the
AFOS (it's kind of cuddly), vibration is close to nil. It's
very hard to be quantitative, but I'd say sub-millimetre and
about 10Hz. It's difficult to be certain it's vibrating at
all when your parka is trying to tear itself off your body
in the wind. Interestingly, standing on the flooring and holding
on to the hand rail (as any rational person would do in the
conditions), there's a strong vibration. Even then, the actual
amplitude is probably pretty small.
Talking
of weather, it's *awful*. The wind hasn't dropped below 15
knots for days, and is usually around 20. Last night it was
gusting up to 25 knots (about 50 km/hr). There's a huge amount
of blowing snow; visibilty is sometimes down to 100 meters
or less. It's nothing like the conditions we had in January,
when we were sunbaking on the AASTO front porch.
Poor
old Fred is a pale green colour and wishing he'd never been
born. It will probably be a day or two before he can do much.
However, we're expecting Ev Pascall in on tonight's flight,
and he should be able to tell us what went wrong with the
AASTO TEG.
How
on earth did the Phillips cro get back to Sydney? I suggest
we bring it back down again.
Now,
the "super". Thanks for those emails, Michael A.
I had wrongly assumed that updating SUPER.EXE would update
the IP numbers. I tried "ne \aasto\telnet.cfg" (maybe
they were forward slashes), but got "unrecognised command".
Maybe "ne" doesn't work at the SUPER prompt? Anyway,
next I tried to download the file from pharlap, but couldn't
find it. Eventually I took the floppy into MAPO and editted
the numbers directly, and that did the trick.
The
hard disk on super makes a noise like wasps mating for about
two seconds when you start it up. (ok, two wasps in a big
hurry). Then it reports that there's a disk controller error,
throws in the towel, and boots off the floppy instead. We'll
have a look at putting one of the other HDs in. There's one
that says it's guaranteed against shocks of up to 150g (but
it doesn't say anything about -79C or brown slime).
I'd
better go and check if Ant has rolled the Sprite.
Cheers,
John
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