I-TASC expedition 2006/2007
Last night First Born and I did a radio show till 2am or so, playing mostly for the people in the bar that were listening and having a good time. Then up at 7am to do the skivvies (chores). Now I am sorting cables and getting things together for the full-time running of the station.
I-TASC expedition 2006/2007
Eeek…. just woke up. It’s almost 1300. First Born and I did a radio show for the drivers (they left at 2am), while we made jingles for the station and cables for the ‘studio’. I think we finished about 0600 or so. It was lots of fun.
We struggled with the communication between the AWS (Automatic Weather Station) and radio modems today. So far no success. We know we can install a low-powered computer in the unit containing the AWS but this is not the most efficient or preferred method. So we will methodically try all options in the configuration of the modem tomorrow.
In the meantime, the station is up and broadcasting loud and clear FM. We need some radios (receivers) so we are hoping that Marko can get some on the plane that will bring us gear on Jan 11th. The good news is also that we have been given a desk in the HF Radar room that we can use as a studio. It’s perfect. We have plenty of desk space and a nice view etc. It even has a PC running Linux that we can use for the station’s music library. It took a little bit of work to get the cables through the ducting system but we managed with the assistance of our roommate Remmy.
So now if anyone wants to make some radio, they need just creep into that room and do a show. Already we have First Born doing interviews, and as I write he is DJing with a couple of the over-wintering crew from last winter.
Meanwhile, Tom and I had a good conversation about the AWS. I had understood the AWS unit (a metal box which will house the AWS, computer, batteries, solar panels) was a foundation stone for the lab Tom and Marko had envisioned would be installed in Antarctica. However, it seems actually the unit is for testing the remote communications systems and power systems. Hence there is no real need to host the unit remotely, it might as well be installed in the scientific area at SANAE, making it easier to monitor and maintain but also it can serve as a good prototype for the power and communication systems during a full cycle of seasons in Antarctica.
It also seems Tom is not so keen on making a remote lab for art and is more interested in trying to establish a unit for scientific purposes, something like an ‘away station’. I believe the idea that the lab would be portable has been current in most of the plans so far for this development. I will help think through these ideas but I think it might be more interesting to think through whether cultural residencies in Antarctica are a good idea, and then if the answer is ‘yes,’ then how this could be achieved. I am still very unsure as to the necessity of this but I am enjoying the discussions with Tom and I am keeping my mind open to alternative reckonings.
As for what I am specifically doing and its relevance- again, I am unsure about it. As I said in earlier postings, it is an amazing experience being here in Antarctica and I must say just being here has taken Antarctica out of the realm of mythology for me and placed it firmly in my emotional landscape. I now feel somehow that I have more of an understanding of our planet just by being here. I have visited many countries over the last few years on every continent (except Antarctica of course) and feel I have learnt something about cultures and people through these experiences. I have often come away from these travels with a feeling I have learnt something about our species. However, this is the first time I feel I have gained such a feeling of connection with the planet we all share.
So, why am I here, in this last wilderness, setting up a radio station? Well, I am not really sure. I was invited to be part of the I-TASC crew and then the FM station was added to the list of projects which I would install as a
r a d i o q u a l i a initiative. There are many reasons for doing the project, one of the most interesting is to experiment with hybrid radio, mixing high frequency radio with FM. We will, for example, start experimenting with the link we have established with the radio modems doing audio broadcasts from remote locations and putting these live-to-air on FM. The station is also a community station for the isolated individuals over winter and it is for the summer team to have some fun and help build the feeling of community. I can plainly see on the faces of those involved and those listening the enjoyment and pleasure the station brings.
However, just two days before turning on the transmitter, I sat in my room and while drinking a coffee, I turned on my portable radio. Over the next few minutes I ran up and down the radio dial on FM, LW, MW and 12 channels of Short Wave. And what did I hear? Static. The sound of the earth’s natural spectrum. There was no ‘artificial’ source of radio emissions anywhere on any dial. I have never had that experience anywhere, and it was a very moving experience. I was reminded of a project r a d i o q u a l i a did in Mexico. It was called ‘.sol’ and we travelled to an isolated spot in Mexico to record sounds of the sun using a large array (collection of antenna) and to mix this with recordings in the same frequency range made in Mexico City. In Mexico City you could not hear the ‘sound’ of the sun as you could only pick up the interference made by so many spurious electromagnetic emissions. The result was a cacophony of artificial buzzes and hums. The recordings of the sun we had from Morelia, on the other hand, were clean lovely rolling static noises. The point was, that in the heart of Mexico City is the sun temple, an important cultural center for the ancient cultures of Mexico. However, now the sun is obscured by the noise of modern electrical life.
.sol made me more aware of the electromagnetic spectrum as an environment, one that we should consider has a natural state, a modified state, and a polluted state.
The question confronting me now is whether I should have occupied this space, however small, with my own transmissions?
Comments
A few people have said that they would like to post comments. Unfortunately, we cannot check web pages from here in Antarctica, so if there was a comment option on the site we wouldn’t be able to read and respond. So, perhaps a way round this is if you would like to make a comment then perhaps just send an email to me : adam@xs4all.nl
If you send a comment I will put it on the diary page of the same day (layout the text as you wish). Please feel free to comment, critique or reflect on what we are doing. We will also be happy to answer questions about what we are doing or our experiences. Additionally, we are very happy to research questions for you as there are many knowledgeable people here that know a lot about Antarctica, the base, and the science that takes place here.
We have about 1K of connectivity so the ‘usual’ length of comments would be fine (a paragraph or two) and obviously we can’t handle attachments. I will then upload the comments when I upload the website every day.
I-TASC expedition 2006/2007
Today Amanda, Tom and First Born went to the proposed site for the Automatic Weather Station. We could make a connection easily via the radio modems we had. It was a simple test. From the site on Lorenzo Piggen, some 7km away, they plugged in a laptop to the radio modem. The modem at the site seamlessly connected to the modem here; once the link was established, Tom and First Born browsed (using a regular web browser) to a web server running on my laptop at the base (connected to the other radio modem) and they could see the files I put there for the test. Simple. I could also monitor the data traffic through a program called ‘EtherApe’ and this told me that there were no data errors or loss of data over the link.
Received Packet Statistics Transmitted Packet Statistics Receive bytes: 1236797 Transmit bytes: 913038 Receive packets: 4865 Transmit packets: 5396 Receive errors: 0 Transmit errors: 0 Drop packets: 0 Drop packets: 0
Great, so now we know two laptops can connect via the modems over the distance between SANAE and the site of the AWS, and we must now work on getting the modems working with the AWS. We are not sure this can actually work, but if the hardware will actually allow it then it should be easy to set up. Essentially, what we are doing is sending data between two points using the modems and communicating not through the ethernet connectors but through a serial connection (it’s a different kind of hardware and data protocol).
Today I also went to the top of SANAE (on the roof) to trace the cable we will use for the FM transmitter. There are two cables which aren’t being used. I traced these with a circuit connector and it seems the longest cable goes right to the point where we need to mount the antenna and then right back into the base with good length so it will reach to the lab. That is good news. I think all I have to do now is to put the right connectors on and plug it all in. If only technology was that simple (I am sure I will come across problems I hadn’t thought of yet).
In the meantime, life in the outside world continues. My good friend Luka Princic is on holiday for a few days in Amsterdam where I would be if I wasn’t here. Damn! Ah well, I might see him in New Zealand in a few months. And here life moves to its odd insular beat – for example I-TASC met to work out a schedule for working. The schedule calculations seemed to get algorithmic so I said they can do what they like but I would just get up, work, and stop when I couldn’t work anymore. I don’t know, it seems to make sense to me…
Anyway, time for lunch.
…so now its midnight(ish)… the day started productively then went to the pack. The team shot off to check stuff out and there was not much productive I could do here at the stage we are at without them so after a good deal of procrastination I decided to take a break. I went upstairs and, hello, there was someone sleeping in my bed… and it wasn’t me…. I was a bit miffed at first but then I (eventually) woke him up and it seems he is one of the over-winter team and couldn’t sleep because in his room people are talking. No worries, the over-winter team own this place (it’s been their home for a long time) so I apologised and went to throw some darts.
After the team returned and after dinner, I got the connectors I needed from Franz (pretty much the boss). I had tested the cable before and I knew all I needed to do was plug in the antenna and transmitter (using the connectors)… it’s probably the fastest install I have done for a radio station. The only tricky bit was that we were on the roof and it was kind of cold, and putting on the antenna bolts when you can’t feel your hands (actually they hurt quite a bit from the wind) isn’t so easy. Thankfully, Tom was there to share my suffering and help squeeze in the tricky little bolts.
So now stage one of the r a d i o q u a l i a (subset I-TASC) Polar Radio is complete. The transmitter is all fired up and transmitting as I write. Already quite a few of the over-winter crew have come down to check it out and we hope to broadcast tonight so the drivers that leave tonight for the boat (to pick up more gear) can listen for a distance as they disappear slowly into the sunlit night. Chris Munro, if you are listening, I’m playing a song for you.
I-TASC expedition 2006/2007
Updates coming, sorry for delays, been a bit busy here but we will ensure we update every day now, unless it’s absolutely not possible.
Today we travelled to Lorenzo Piggen, a small Nunatak (Inuit for ‘island’) about 7 km from the base. This is the proposed site of the AWS (Automatic Weather Station). We travelled out there by Skidoo – I-TASC has been given 2 skidoos to use at our leisure.
It was an interesting site and tomorrow we will try a data test between the base and the site. It’s not so far away, so there are no problems anticipated.
What we have to do is set up a radio modem at the base, and then another radio modem and laptop will go out to the site. Then we will establish communication between the two modems. Essentially, this means we have a ‘wireless’ data connection (point-to-point) between the site and the base. If I connect the modem at the base to the internet then out at Lorenzo they could check their email (for example); this is not the intended purpose of the equipment but it’s an interesting exercise anyway.
I would like to try this setup with sending live audio between the two points, and also to try some internet telephony (something like Skype, but I would try a software called Asterisk and some ‘software phones’) and IRC (chat) communication. I will leave this for now and just do a basic test but in the next few days, I will try something a little more sophisticated.
In the meantime, life at the base is establishing a rhythm. We get up every day at 0630 and then do ‘skivvies’ which are the cleaning duties for the base. After that, we get to work (skivvies take about an hour). Then we work until 1300, have lunch, work again and have dinner at 1900. Then we are usually working again until late or we go to the sauna and relax. Sleep comes at about midnight. So it’s a long day. Just when you think you are feeling tired you look out the window and the sun fools you into feeling it is the middle of the afternoon and refuses to let you sleep.
I think many people are a little lost for things to do at the end of the day. Of course, it is beautiful here and a walk outside is a good cure for boredom but at the end of the day most people are very tired and the thought of spending 20 minutes wrapping up in the protective clothing needed to go outside is not as appetising as you might think. Additionally, even though we are on the continent with the least population density, there is no private space which is something of an irony. There is just no way of getting away from people: if you go outside then you must go in pairs for safety’s sake, and inside there is nowhere that doesn’t have people. I am a bit saturated with people at the moment so I might sneak away to the TV lounge when most are asleep and get some nobody time.
I-TASC expedition 2006/2007
More work on the equipment today. There is a meeting later in the afternoon about the requirements of the FM station. In the meantime, we are plugging in the HF modems to the laptops to see how the communication works. We didn’t get this far last night as we had issues with the Automatic Weather Station software (it’s not compatible with the operating system we are using in the mini PC). The manual was wrong for the modems but we managed to sort out the connectivity. Seems like it is a nice fluent system. We tested connecting a laptop to a High Frequency Radio modem and then connecting another modem to the network, and that works very well. My cable-making skills are not very good but I managed to make a working crossover cable (similar to an ethernet cable but with a different wiring) for the laptop-to-modem connection. After that, the system worked well. For now, this means what we have to do now is to connect one modem to the Automatic Weather Station (AWS) and another to a computer at SANAE. Then we can relay data from the AWS to SANAE via radio, which in turn means the AWS can be deployed remotely.
So everyone is falling into their roles nicely. I am doing the FM station and helping with the tech for the AWS etc; First is doing a lot of work on the PCs we need for both the AWS and the FM station; Amanda is mainly doing video documentation but also was extremely useful with the AWS because she was the only one that read the manual; and Tom is acting as liaison between SANAE and us, and he is also the person responsible for being eternally optimistic regarding the tech (while First and I have to try and implement his optimistic suggestions – actually it’s good having someone optimistic about technology because over the last years I have become a little cynical about it, so his optimism will help push me on.
In the meantime, the room where we sleep is turning into a micro family. Zama and Remmy are really funny, and it’s good to hang out and talk bullshit at the end of the day. It doesn’t always work because the end of the day is quite hard to determine, it being sunshine 24/7. Despite the permanent sunshine, there is actually a definite evening light. The sun gets lower and you can see the longer shadows on the ice, which kind of gives it the appearance of the moon. Below is a photo taken just as this effect is starting, looking through the window of our room. I will try and take a picture showing this effect more clearly. The antenna you see in the photo is used for measuring the distance and shape of the ionosphere.
I-TASC expedition 2006/2007
Today most of our gear arrived. We can finally get to work on Christmas Eve and the eve of Tom’s birthday. Timing. So I scratched around a little bit, rewiring a microphone to be used for the FM station. It also looks like we have a room to use as a studio, which is great news.
If you celebrate Christmas, then good cheer to ya, and look after yourself.
lots of love from Antarctica
x
adam
I-TASC Antarctica expedition 2006-07 – aboard SA Agulhas icebreaker
Just 4 days to go, and it looks like we may spend our first full day on the continent of Antarctica on Christmas Day. As a child growing up in New Zealand, it struck me as odd that the Christmas songs always spoke about snow and sleighs and enjoying a white Christmas. New Zealand has Christmas in Summer, and the only thing white at that time of year is sand and pavlova. I wondered if I would ever see a white Christmas, and imagined what it would be like. I never quite thought it would be like this.
We are now parked at Penguin Bukta with the nose of the boat resting on the ice shelf. Looking along the giant wall, you see the rounded droopy overhangs giving the appearance of one long frozen tidal wave like the tsunami painted by Japanese painter Hokusai.
The bulldozing team are in their dozers on top of the shelf, digging a path so the ship can offload the gear. The shelf is too high for the boat’s crane to reach, so they have to cut a slope down through the ice to a level the crane can reach. It’s not safe work as there are dangerous overhangs in the cliffs . As recently as last year, they almost lost a few dozers when the shelf collapsed. We sit in the boat and wait and watch occasionally what is happening on the ice some 20 meters above us.
If you look down at the bow, you can see the shifting tones of turquoise and aqua of the shelf as it runs deeply below us. The gently rippling water shifts the light and color below us and it has something of the appearance of an aurora in the sea.
Some of the over-winter team have come aboard. It’s been weird these last days, we have noticed some new faces and kidded ourselves that SANAE must have some scary genetics lab deep in the hull of the boat where they manufacture new crew for the base. If so, then their experiments went a bit mad as the over-winter team look pretty wild. Long beards, hair all over the place, and did I imagine a slightly mad look in their eyes? I think possibly so… still, they are a weird sight to come across in the hallways after not having seen a new face for 2 weeks or so.
I have also met a chap on the boat that is a Linux geek. I am trying not to embarrass myself by talking Unix as a default conversation with him as I do enjoy software politics, and don’t want to scare anyone with my fanaticism. I think I see the same dark fear in his soul as he is a Slackware user, which is about as hardcore as you can get. I am sure that sometime while we are at the base we will degenerate our discussions into obscure file formats and OS wars to the exclusion of all. Als,o there is a guy Tom talked to that is interested in running the FM station I am to build as a
r a d i o q u a l i a project while at the base. He will be over-wintering and will run it through winter. The trick is to test the transmitter to see if it will get the 100 or so miles to Neumayer, as he is keen to broadcast to them. I don’t think it will do it, so we may have to fly in another transmitter.
After a slightly spicy meeting yesterday things seem to have settled down. Routine and knowing what the plan is (ie. the boat isn’t going anywhere for 3 days) helps reduce anxiety. It’s good things feel calmer as it’s a great team and temporary bumps, however predictable, are still frustrating. I am working on my slide shows; I think its a nice format… they aren’t finished but as soon as I get some bandwidth, I will upload them, probably after Christmas.
I-TASC Antarctic expedition 2006-07 – aboard SA Agulhas icebreaker
So today was another limbo day. We are travelling towards Atka Butka and the plan is that we will dock there and build a ramp for offloading the gear. This has been the way of doing it in the past, but last year they had some dangerous slippages in the ice while offloading, and hence they look to Neumayer to offload this year. We will reach there tonight or early tomorrow morning and then it will take 2-3 days to bulldoze a ramp in the ice shelf. Once this is done, we will be taken by chopper off the boat and to SANAE. The decision was made today to keep us on the boat until the ramp is done as no one can work at the base until the gear arrives anyway. So it looks like it is very possible we will spend Christmas on the boat.
Meantime, more beautiful icebergs glide past. The sea here is very flat, and we have departed slightly from the ice shelf. The ice in the water seems to be just forming, and thin ice layers the top of the water in huge sheets. In other places the ice pack ice looks very soft and new. At times it looks like we are gliding effortlessly through a strange world of freshly picked giant cotton balls.
Tom and I just returned from trying an experiment with the wind sock (Zeppelin) that Tom and Amanda brought for the trip (thanks to Arnoud Traa for his essential advice on all things aural during the preparations for this trip). We placed two condenser mics in the Zeppelin, each facing 180 degrees away from the other. We want to try and get nice clear stereo recordings of the ship breaking some ice. I hung out from a small hole on the bow, holding the mic as close to the ice as I could as the ship broke its way through a large island of ice. I recorded a good few minutes of this and it sounded good so after dinner I will go out and record some more.
Earlier today we met as I-TASC and discussed the documentation strategies. I’m not so good at video but its best we all help each other, so I contributed to the discussions on what should be recorded and the creation of the shot lists. It was interesting, but I am more at home with still images and audio. I have been recording quite a bit of audio of the ship and taking a lot of photos, as I intend to make some audio slide shows (I like the format of slideshows on the web, and when combined with audio, it can be very low bandwidth and very evocative). I have experimented with two such slideshows for the trip and they are ok. I would like to try some more abstract combinations of images and sound to see what effect it has, so I will experiment more with the format. I don’t think we can upload any until we get to SANAE, so I will spend the next three days onboard preparing more.
In the meantime, First Born is sitting on the couch playing PSP (since he has run out of Sopranos), Reme (our cabin-mate from Zambia) is sitting next to First discussing VLF frequencies with his friend Zama, Amanda is sleeping in her cabin, and Tom and I just came in from recording ice breaking under the ship. It feels familiar, but I would like a change of scene. I think I will work a lot over the days before we leave the ship as it will help ward off cabin fever… I am missing talking to my friends in other countries, and I miss the luxury of casual communication with them. Hi to all if you are reading this… I hope to bring back some nice stories to share next time we meet…. miss ya all heaps. Have a warm drink for me 😉
I-TASC Antarctic expedition 2006-07 – aboard SA Agulhas icebreaker
We woke up at 9am to find the ship parked on the pack ice. The helicopters had already gone to do a scout and we were waiting for their return. No one is really sure of what the plan was, and I have heard at least four versions of what’s going on. The stories differ from “I heard we are definitely leaving today by chopper for SANAE” to “we won’t even think about getting everyone off for another 3 or 4 days.” So there you go, if you ain’t the boss you don’t know what’s happening – such is the way with many parts of ship life, I have found. Limbo was better today however. We travelled quite a distance looking for routes to Neumayer. Everyone was outside on the decks taking in all that was to offer. The day featured beautiful clear blue skies with fine lace-like clouds and a lot of variation in ice. At one point, ice cut into the horizon in huge mountainous shapes very similar to the stony red mountains seen in wild west movies. Other times, we approached large areas of pack ice where the pressure had caused ridges, outlining large (approx. 6m square), tightly packed, and irregularly shaped blocks of ice. The ridges formed miniature mountain ranges about 50cm high around each block. Other times, we moved through open water with small ice all around us and with the clean blue skies and water, clear, deep, blue. Here we could see the luminous blue keels of ice under each iceberg.
There is also a fair bit of wildlife around. Often on large blocks there are fresh footprints from penguins that have evaded the icebreaker, and we pass many Emperor Penguins that are very talented at ignoring us. They seem so bored with us, one could imagine they see icebreakers twice a day and three times on Sundays. There is a troop of Emperors off the port side. They slide forward on their stomachs in single file about 1 km from the ship. Occasionally one penguin stands up and the queue behind stalls momentarily as the standing penguin looks around and then awkwardly tilts forward until it falls over on its stomach and begins the slide forward again. There are a few Weddell seals around, but mostly its us and the penguins.
Later the helicopters did some investigation of the possible routes between our ship and Neumayer. At one stage we made a lot of ground with the Agulhas cutting through thick but soft ice. As I write this the ship is trying to do just this, forcing a passage to the base. The ship reverses about 100m and then ploughs full throttle into the ice, often rising a metre or so as it cuts through. The Agulhas makes about 10-20m each time. I think the base is several kilometers away. The issue here, is that as we cut forward, the ice is closing behind us, leaving the possibility we might get trapped.
…I just returned from checking out the stern and it appears we are indeed stuck. The ice has closed behind us and there is nothing but kilometers of ice ahead. The Agulhas is retreating a few metres at a time and then thrusting forward, making about 2 metres every 20 minutes. According to one of the crew, there is an issue with a thruster which doesn’t help. It seems we will continue this battle for the night. The open water is just 500m metres behind us but blocked by large pieces of ice we broke up on our way through. Additionally, the ice is too weak here to offload onto the ice…
…It’s after dinner now, and just before dinner there was an interesting 45 minutes when the ship tried to back out of the trail we had cut. The ship backed up as fast it could, pushing large pieces of broken ice backwards and to the side. When the ship could not move anymore, it would drift forward a few feet and blow water out of thrusters at the back of the boat. Some ice would then be shifted by the currents of the thrusters and the Agulhas would then try moving backwards again. This went on for about 30 minutes before the ship was in a clear pool and could then push more easily back to where we started. There is now a slight twilight and the ship is in open water making towards our plan B dock (Akta Bukta).
I-TASC Antarctic expedition 2006-07 – aboard SA Agulhas icebreaker
We are at the footsteps of the continent. The walls of ice now are gigantic. Just four days ago a few meters of ice would be photographed at least a dozen times by the crew and passengers by the time it had floated down the length of the boat. Now we are spoilt for ice. Huge motionless icebergs surround us with sheer cliffs falling to the sea. Some have the appearance of being on fire as the strong winds whip the loose ice off the windward cliff edges in a grey smoky haze. Icebergs on fire off the shoulders of Neumayer. This afternoon we slowly crawled by a piece of ice the size of Waiheke Island. It is by no means the biggest iceberg here, but distance and size is hard to judge when measuring white cliffs against a white sea and light grey sky. We can only judge the size of the ice that comes close to the ship and these are impressive. I wonder if it was these chunks of the ice shelf that Cook referred to as ice islands.
It looks like we may have time to become quite familiar with these particular icebergs. Round and round we go at a crawl… 11 miles from Neumayer but there is no opening in the ice that we can go through. The sea is too deep to anchor, and the captain judges it better to be under our own power than to drift. So we crawl round and round in huge circles. We don’t know how long it will take; there has been mention that we could spend Christmas on the boat. No one wants this. The entire journey we have been amazed at how lucky we have been with the weather. We have faced no storms, and the pack ice was cleared early by swells only a few weeks before we arrived. By all counts, we arrived here at least 2 days ahead of schedule. Now it seems our 4500km journey will be stalled just 11 miles from home. As a result, I think everyone has gone a smidgen stir crazy. The bird counter looked a bit deranged as he has been sitting upstairs counting birds for 10 days to calculate approximate bird populations through the areas we have travelled. But now he is surrounded by birds and can’t count them, otherwise the results would be skewed as we are circling the same area.
The captain looks bored. I saw the ships doctor cleaning the keyboard of the library’s PC, muttering something about possible diseases one could catch through unhygienic computing. First Born has gone to sleep early (it’s 1920) to dream of trees. Outside my cabin door, Bob Marley is reassuring everyone that everything will be alright and I can hear the overly dramatic slapping of dominoes from the ship’s bar at the end of the corridor. In short, there is nothing to be done. The scientists calculate the possible research days they may lose, and the ship’s crew paint unnecessarily while they wait for the well-paid overtime hours they will work once docked. Everyone wants to get to shore.
In the meantime the I-TASC crew devises strategies to inform people of what we are doing and argues about whether the website jpg should show the feet of Ladimur or not. I think it would do us all good to put our feet on firm ground…