Tuesday
26th January
From
Daniel Marlay.....
Mike
Burton has impressed upon me that it is my responsibility
to continue the epic South Pole Diary now that I am the sole
UNSW representative down here.
Mike
got away early this morning (10:00am) with the DVs and all
the other passengers who had been delayed with them. That
was the first time that I've ever seen a Herc with its propellors
stationary down here. On other incidental news, Peter Hillary
has finally arrived here at the pole. He and his team spent
the latter half of the afternoon walking from the point at
which they were first spotted, across to the pole. They have
just delivered a mildly interesting (pole expeditions are
getting a bit ho-hum these days) talk about there trek over
here. They don't seem to disappointed at being possibly the
slowest team ever to reach the South Pole.
On
the AASTO front, I spent the day finishing off the various
spreadsheets and documentation that I've been working on.
I'm finding out about getting the computer back and whether
we will require an excess baggage allowance. I'll know on
that front fairly soon.
I
have been checking the readings coming back from the wind
vane, and have ascertained that the readings from our windvane
are within a few degrees and less than a meter a second of
the station wind vane. Looks like that worked well. Is there
some way of checking the data that is being monitored by the
housekeeping software? I tried running DCUMON on the laptop,
but it don't seem to work. Also Ron Rainbow did enquire when
he was here as to whether that laptop was ours (the old Toshiba).
I informed him that it was (given that we carted it down here
this year). Did I inform correctly?
Bob
Lowenstein (SP?) has started to work on a script that will
automatically check the Dallas Semiconductor temperature sensors
every hour or so to see whether the temperature is dropping
or not. This script should hopefully provide the winterovers
with some warning as to whether the TEG is working or not.
They are concerned that a heater with a thermostat will operate
above the 0 degrees C point. If it does this and the burners
go out, then the propane won't automatically shut off, and
you have the makings of a nice black mark surrounded by some
pretty yellow poles. The Orbcomm has not been successful yet
and so I have packed it away, ready for the trip home.
Well
I think that just about covers today's business.
Daniel
Marlay
UNSW / CARA / JACARA / AASTO person
 
|
Further Information
|
Contact:
| 
